Case Studys Part 1: The Case Study examples

Here are some examples of case studys that involve forensic science.

The Azaria Chamberlain Case
On the 17th August 1980, the Chamberlain family was camping at Uluru in Australia's Northern Territory, when at around eight o'clock at night, they heard a cry from the tent where their ten week old baby girl and four year old son were sleeping. Rushing to the tent, the mother of the child, Lindy saw a dingo near the tent's entrance and upon entering, realised with horror that her baby daughter Azaria, was missing and all that remained was a pool of blood on the floor. The police arrived and a search was organized but no traces of the baby were found.

The Chamberlains were interviewed the next morning and only some of the bloodstained items were removed from the tent, with many being left behind. The family was interviewed again later on that same day, by a different officer who thought the Chamberlains' recounts of the previous night were suspicious. A week passed and no new evidence was found, that is, until a tourist found Azaria's vest and jumpsuit. But despite this new piece of evidence, the crime scene was not sealed off and a full examination of the clothing was never conducted. This lack of proper crime scene and evidence analysis led the police to believe that Lindy Chamberlain was lying about her story. The lack of dingo bite marks and saliva on Azaria's jumpsuit and the fact that the baby's shoes were still tied inside the jumpsuit while the vest was inside out, heightened the police's suspicion even further. In 1981, it was however, concluded that Azaria was indeed taken by a dingo, allowing Lindy and Michael Chamberlain to at last get over the accusations after the tragic loss of their child and move on with everyday life.

This was however, not to be the case, because after a later analysis of the baby's clothing, it was found that there was a bloody handprint in the shape of a women's hand, reopening the case in 1982. Analysis of the Chamberlains' car also revealed a pair of scissors, baby's blood and some experts claimed that the rip marks on the baby's clothing were actually scissor stab marks. And so it was with this new evidence that another court case was held on the 2nd February, 1982. The case concluded for what was thought to be the last time, when Lindy was convicted with murder of her daughter and sentenced to life in prison. After serving six years in prison, there was a turn in the case when baby Azaria's jacket was unbelievably, found partly buried at Uluru. Just five days later, Lindy was immediately released from prison, but to this day, nobody knows the exact truth and we'll probably never know.

Jon Benet Ramsey
On the morning of the 27th December 1996, Patsy Ramsey called the police to report her 5-year-old daughter, Jon Benet Ramsey, missing. The little girl had disappeared from her bedroom and a ransom note demanding one hundred and eighty thousand dollars (exactly the amount John Ramsay, her father, had received as a bonus at work just days before), had been left behind. It was only hours later, that Mr Ramsey found his daughter's strangled and battered body in the basement of their home in Boulder, Colorado. Immediately after the accidental discovery of Jon Benet's body, the parents fell under the suspicion of the police, because a lack evidence was found that an intruder had entered and killed the little girl. In fact, no proper search was conducted when the Ramseys first reported the case and friends were allowed to freely enter and leave the house.

The Ramseys hired an attorney, publicist and investigators to defend their case, when they and their son, Burke (9 at the time of Jon Benet's death), were interviewed by the police. In separate rooms, all three members of the Ramsey family were interviewed. After the interview, it was suspected that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note herself, as the note was written from pen and paper found in Patsy's own writing corner. The evidence found in the basement however, bore all the classic signs of a murder by an intruder, including an open basement window, an unidentified boot print outside the house, a hand made strangling device and a possible sexual assault on the child.

At the time, police were confident that the case would be successfully solved using the DNA as evidence, but almost nine years later, the police have still not solved the case, no new leads have been found and none of the members of the Ramsey family have admitted to the murder. To this day, police are still attempting to find the person responsible for the murder of Jon Benet and the case remains unsolved.

The Shirley McKie Story
In February 1997, a British policewoman, Shirley McKie, was accused of perjury after testifying at a murder trial, stating that she hadn't been in the murder victim's house, where her fingerprints were later supposedly found. Shirley's house was searched and she was taken back to the police station where she herself was strip-searched and detained because of a controversial fingerprint that was found at the victim's house.

The Scottish Criminal Records Office, responsible for the detection of Shirley's thumbprint at the crime scene, had 4 experts who certified the authenticity of the fingerprints that they certified, definitely belonged to Shirley. However, Shirley persisted her innocence with the matter and was acquitted during her trial, saved from a potential 8 years imprisonment after two American fingerprinting experts endorsed that the fingerprint did not belong to Shirley. After much media activity, legal action and controversy, Michael Russell, a member of Scottish parliament, successfully requested different fingerprinting experts from around the world to verify the ownership of this fingerprint and have had to date, 171 certifications from 18 different countries that the fingerprint did not belong to Shirley.

The main concern with the entire issue was not only its affect on Shirley's career, but also because it concerns the accuracy of the Scottish Criminal Record Office's earlier assertions. A civil trial, expected to be 5 weeks long, is yet to be held on the 7th February 2006, almost ten years after the beginnings of the perjury case. The death of Marion Ross, the murder for which Shirley originally testified against, remains however, yet a mystery.

Sources: http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00206/text_casestudies.htm