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Seven Ways to Die

Handprints May Give Away Height, Gender

The technique relies on the fact that taller people, and men, tend to have larger hands than shorter people and women.

  by Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online

Hand prints can reveal a person's height and size (Getty Images)

Prints left by the hand, or even parts of it, can be used to estimate the height of an unknown intruder and possibly tell whether they were male or female, say researchers.

A team led by forensic anthropologist Associate Professor Daniel Franklin, from the University of Western Australia, report their findings in a series of recent scientific papers.

"That might be useful if you've got someone who has broken into a house or someone has been seen messing around with a window of a house," says Franklin.

When trying to identify a suspected perpetrator of crime experts try to narrow down the list of potential suspects.

... The researchers took measurements of 91 male and 100 female adults from Western Australia. They measured the height of each individual and took seven measurements of each hand and its corresponding print.

Franklin and colleagues measured hand breadth and length, palm length, as well as the length of the first, second, third and fourth digits.

They then carried out a statistical analysis and found that hand prints involving these parts of the hand could be used to estimate height.

"If you're taller you tend to have longer limbs and you tend to have bigger hands as well. It's a scaling effect," says Franklin.

"We can show that there is a strong correlation between the size of your hand and your ... height and the same thing applies to a print from a hand."

Franklin says a forensic investigator could use these statistics to get a quantifiable estimate of an offender's height and this would help narrow down suspect profiles given out to the public or could be used to narrow down a given list of suspects.

Franklin says the study showed hand prints can predict height with a relatively high degree of accuracy, close to that of height predictions from hand bones.

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Trayvon Martin 911 Call: How Experts ID Voices Voice recognition software can show the actual speech structure of the vocal cords to make a match.

 by  Sheila Eldred

Have you ever realized how different your voice sounds on an answering machine? This week, Kasey-Dee Gardner finds out which one is your "true" voice and why.

In classic whodunnit mysteries, detectives and FBI agents dust for fingerprints to solve mysteries and collect court-admissible evidence.

In real life, it's more often the voice that offers the tell-tale evidence, since technology to recognize voices in recordings has become so much more sophisticated.

The Feb. 26 recording of a 911 call by a woman who reported someone crying out for help in her gated community in Sanford, Fla., could be a key piece of evidence in the Trayvon Martin murder case, especially since she called early enough so that screams for help and the gunshot were recorded.

George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, shot Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old. Why he did so remains a hotly argued topic, with Zimmerman claiming Martin attacked and beat him.

Tom Owen, a forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, recently analyzed the tape. After running the woman's 911 call through a software program called Easy Voice Biometrics and comparing it to another 911 call with Zimmerman's voice, Owen's team concluded that the screams for help were not Zimmerman's.

And, Owen said, if he had samples of Martin's voice, he may be able to definitively identify the screams as his.

"We've talked to the family; the attorney has been notified," he told Discovery News.

How can he be so sure?

...  "The human voice is like a symphony, each voice is unique based on the type of instruments played and skill of the musicians playing the instruments. Similarly, the human voice is created using many physical components, the lungs, larynx and wind pipe. These exit the body through the mouth involving our tongue, teeth and lips," Primeau said.

"As forensic experts, we do not have the proper tools to arrive at a positive ID to conclude the voice is Trayvon yelling for help," Primeau said. "By process of elimination, both Tom and I agree the voice yelling is not Zimmerman. That is our opinion."

Trayvon Martin's brother has said that the screams on the tape sound like his brother.

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Top Ten Most Famous Forensic Scientists

1. Alec Jeffreys: 

Sir Alec Jeffreys is not exactly a forensic scientist. However, his work on DNA profiling and fingerprinting is what paved the way for much of the analysis that is used today in modern forensic investigation. Jeffreys is a well-known geneticist, a professor at the University of Leicester in Britain. He had an epiphany about using DNA to identify people while studying X-ray images of a DNA experiment he was running in his lab. His techniques are used all over the world to catch criminals — in addition to resolving paternity disputes.

Reader's Review ...

I have read his books before. The Primal Fear Trilogy, and Eureka. Mr. Diehl never failed to to write a very exciting and riveting book. I totally loved 7 ways to die. I am sorry we can have no more Micah Cody books, or any more forthcoming from William Diehl. This book is a very rare book. It reminds me of the Nelson DeMille type books, and the mystery thrillers of the 60's and 70's. He will be sorely missed.

Top Ten Most Famous Forensic Scientists

2. Edmond Locard: 

Known as the “Sherlock Holmes of France” Edmond Locard was famous as a pioneer in forensic science. He pointed out that everyone leaves a trace, and even developed a 12-point method of matching fingerprints in order to identify who they belonged to. Locard and two of his assistants started the first police lab. He originally studied medicine, but became interested in solving crime after working with a criminologist, Alexandre Lacassagne.

Top Ten Most Famous Forensic Scientists

3. Joseph Bell:

One of the inspirations for the literary character of Sherlock Holmes was Scotsman Joseph Bell. He was a pioneer in forensic pathology, believing that close observation was essential to crime-solving. At the time, in the late 19th Century, observations of the nature made by Bell were not often used to solve crimes. He was also a surgeon, and the personal surgeon to Queen Victoria when she was in Scotland. Some of his techniques are still used today by forensic scientists.

Top Ten Most Famous Forensic Scientists

4. Sara Bisel:

One of the pioneers in the field of forensic anthropology was Sara Bisel, who started using chemical and physical analysis of the skeletons found at Herculaneum, one of the cities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 CE. Her methods provided insight into the health of ancient populations — and even provided a basis for the chemical analysis performed on remains today in forensic science.

Top Ten Most Famous Forensic Scientists

5. William Bass:

In order to better study human remains and decomposition, William Bass founded what is known as The Body Farm. This facility, the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility, has been one of the most famous training grounds in forensic science. He has pioneered ways of studying human remains, and is well versed in osteology. He is a forensic anthropologist and served as an inspiration for a crime novel by Patricia Cornwell.