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• Crucial video evidence is often overlooked or discarded by police officers unaware that what at first appears useless can be clarified and revealed.
• A new kind of lie detection called Voice Stress Analysis measures involuntary micro-tremors in human speech.
Episode 5 Murder Weapons
Weapons are the hallmark of violent crime, but blood spatter, explosive residue, ballistics and trauma wounds can tell crime scene investigators their deadly story.
Forensic Fast Facts:
• The pattern of blood spatter tells a lot about how a person was killed, from location to the means of death.
• The depth of a stab wound is often longer than the length of the knife because of the compressibility of skin and underlying tissue, particularly in the abdomen.
• Biochemistry is used in hit- and- run cases where transfer evidence – human tissue and car paint – can be detected.
• Maggot boreholes on the body can be mistaken for bullet exit wounds.
• Edges of a stab wound will vary according to the cutting object, a razor will leave regular margins, whereas an axe may leave the wound margins crushed and bruised, resembling a laceration.
Episode 6 - The Cover Up
Killers use the elements to try to cover up their crimes, but even a body burned to ashes, thrown into the ocean or reduced to fragments can still tell a horrifying forensic tale.
Forensic Fast Facts:
• Burned bones warp and crack and the breaks can be difficult to distinguish from cut marks.
• Human bone shrinks by about 30% when burned.
• It takes two cubic metres of hardwood and six to 10 hours to burn a human body.
• Teeth begin to melt at 900 degrees Fahrenheit - well under the 1,500 degree F temperature generated by burning jet fuel in an airplane crash.
• Maggots are not sun-lovers. On a body in a sunny location, maggots will leave the skin intact as a protective umbrella and eat the internal organs. Thus, the body appears to be intact but collapses when touched because the inside has been consumed.
• Twenty percent of child drowning incidents may be homicides.
Highlights from the second series include:
Episode 1 – Beauty Queen
A young woman gets her big break, becoming a model in LA, but then disappears. Can investigators find out what happened?
Episode 2 – Deadly Affair
When a caretaker finds a severed woman’s leg it leads to a major investigation involving seven police forces in four countries. Can they catch the sick killer?
Episode 3 – Bloody Valentine
On valentine’s morning socialite Susan Hamilton is discovered nude in a pool of blood by her husband. Can science identify her brutal calculating killer?
Episode 4 – No Body No Crime
Millionaire Frank Black boards a flight then disappears and is never heard from again. But without a body can investigators convict the man they suspect?
Episode 5 – Fremont Bomber
Bombs, targeting the Chief and ex-Chief of police, rock the sleepy town of Fremont in California. Can forensics identify the bomber before he strikes again?
Episode 6 – Vanished
When a diabetic school owner is kidnapped investigators race to save him before his medication runs out. Will they find him in time?
Highlights from the third series include:
Episode 1 - Freemont Bomber
In one violent evening, a series of bombs rocks the sleepy California city of Fremont. The targets include both the Chief and Ex-Chief of police. But as America’s leading explosive experts sift through the evidence, they discover a plan far more insidious than anyone could have imagined. Can police and forensic scientists stop the Fremont Bomber before he strikes again?
Episode 2 - Vanished
