Marshall University Forensic Science Center Story Archives

MU Forensic Science Center Receives New Classification

Senate Bill 104 was passed during the legislative session and it changes a classification and that opens new doors for the Marshall University Forensic Science Center.

The new classification means that Marshall University Forensic Science Center is an official criminal justice agency.

The criminal justice agency designation is a recognition of the infrastructure as well as the expertise of our DNA analysts that we’ve developed over the years. Terry Fenger is the founding director of the forensic science center. The new law classifying the center as a criminal justice agency allows the facility to apply for grants and funding that allow them to expand operations. Funding from federal agencies like the FBI require this classification.

“Our ability to apply for certain types of grants that were essentially not available to us before and these are federal grants that we’re talking about, so based on eligibility requirements in these grants often times they say a publicly funded laboratory or a state or local criminal justice agency, this type of language,” Fenger said.

The Marshall University Forensic Science Center presents a unique atmosphere. The facility houses a DNA Analysis Laboratory that’s nationally accredited to work with criminal casework analysis, training and research. At the same time the Marshall University Forensic Science Center is educating students. The two parts of the program remain separate, but operate in conjunction. Jason Chute is the DNA Technical Leader at the DNA Lab.

“We process criminal casework, so evidence is collected at a crime scene by technicians or law enforcement agencies,” Chute said. “They collect that evidence and package it up and in some cases that evidence is sent to us. We then examine that evidence for the presence of biological fluids, materials and process that for DNA analysis.”

The new classification will also allow work with other facilities. But that’s not anything new for the forensic science center. In the past they’ve tested DNA kits for cities like Miami, New Orleans and Detroit. And recently they’ve increased a workload with the West Virginia State police that started in the early 1990’s. Now they work with the West Virginia State Police helping to test rape kits for different counties throughout the state including Cabell. It’s the developing relationship with the state police that Fenger and Chute think was key in obtaining the new classification.

“I think it’ll be a game changer, some of it, we may not be able to anticipate everything it can do for us, but I’m excited for what this could potentially do to our current relations and our future relations and I’m talking about the relations we have with state and local law enforcement agencies across the United States,” Chute said.

As part of the Senate Bill 104, the West Virginia State Police Crime Lab will still have first say on which grants or sources of funding they wish to apply for, but when they decide not to apply for funding from a particular source, that will open the door for the Marshall Forensic Science lab. Senate Bill 104 was approved by a vote of 98-0 in the House of Delegates and a 34-0 vote in the Senate during the regular legislative session.

Officials to Discuss Reducing Untested Rape Kit Backlog

Law enforcement officials are gathering in Huntington to discuss how to use grants to eliminate the backlog of untested sexual assault kits in West Virginia.

The meeting Friday at the Marshall University Forensic Science Center was arranged by U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, who will join via Skype from Washington, D.C.

Representatives of the Forensic Science Center, the West Virginia State Police, the Cabell County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and the Division of Justice and Commerce are scheduled to attend. Victim advocates also will participate.

The state recently received a nearly $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.

DNA Testing Partnership Leads to Cold Case Indictment

A new partnership between local police and the Marshall University Forensic Science Center is already paying dividends.

Cabell County Prosecutor Sean “Corky” Hammers announced Wednesday that Oswald Gibson has been charged with second-degree sexual assault and kidnapping. Police say the attack occurred June 17^th, 2004. The announcement of the indictment came during a press conference involving Huntington police, West Virginia state police and the Marshall University Forensic Science Center. It’s a partnership that has the forensic science center testing rape kits and checking DNA against the Combined DNA Index System or CODIS. They’re kits from the late 90s and early 2000s that were collected before CODIS existed. Hammers said the new arrangement could be huge in cracking cold cases.

Victims of these terrible crimes such as rape and sexual assault a lot of times cannot identify their assailant because they’re committed at a place or time where it was impossible to make an identification so all we have is a rape kit, which typically has a DNA profile in it. — Cabell County Prosecutor, Sean Hammers

By checking the DNA against CODIS, police can see if there is a match in the system and identify criminals. That’s how Hammers and Huntington Police were able to identify Oswald, and re-open a 2004 cold case.

Can Social Media be the Key to an Investigation?

The Appalachian Institute of Digital Evidence is holding its 5^th annual conference this week in Huntington and Charleston.

John Sammons is an Integrated Science Professor at Marshall. He’s also the Founder and President of the Appalachian Institute of Digital Evidence Conference. The four-day event took place Monday and Tuesday in Huntington at the Marshall University Forensic Science Center and concludes with sessions today and tomorrow in Charleston at the Capital Conference Center. Sammons said this is such an important event, because in the five years the conference has been held, things have changed dramatically in the field.

“It’s changing constantly and that’s one of the challenges of working in this field, things change all the time and some changes are subtle, let’s say a version of a software from one version to the next,” Sammons said. “And others are more radical such as all the NSA things that have come to light, those kinds of things cause sweeping issues across both disciplines and legally.”

This year’s conference is touching on everything from how first responders should treat digital evidence, to the use of social media in gathering evidence, and the use of mobile phones as digital evidence. David Abruzzino is Director of the Open Source Intelligence Exchange at Fairmont State University. He said once anything is posted online it’s open to the public and investigators.

“I can take everything I know about a subject and I can put it in a blog, I can send it out as tweets, I can post it to Facebook and everyone else on the planet who has access to the internet can know what I know about that subject and if we can figure out how to leverage that access and leverage that information, it’s certainly going to improve things for all parties concerned,” Abruzzino said.

Abruzzino and a group of his students gave presentations this week on mining and finding information from Open Source sites.

“Open source in the context that we use it refers to any information that can be gathered through unclassified or non-secretive means, so it’s information that’s publicly available,” Abruzzino said. “It may be hard to find, but there is no one actively trying to keep you from obtaining it.”

Among those sites are social media sites which are heavily used in today’s world. Abruzzino says if law enforcement can learn the techniques, they stay ahead of the game.

“The technology is always changing, but the trade craft isn’t, so in terms of the tools we use, those may change day-to-day, but the basic skills that you need to successfully leverage that information, that doesn’t change,” Abruzzino said.

Sammons said many would be surprised the role that social media has played in past investigations in the region.

Sammons said most do not realize how easy it is to obtain information.

“There is a phenomenal amount of information on consumers that are tracked without their knowledge and then from an investigative stand point, there is a tremendous amount of information to be mined as far as from a public safety perspective,” Sammons said.

The conference concludes tomorrow at the Capital Conference Center in Charleston.