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American Morning
The Search for Missing Persons
Aired July 12, 2001 - 09:17 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: As we heard from Bob Franken a little bit earlier, authorities have only given some comment on what items were taken during a search of Congressman Gary Condit's apartment.
So what kind of things do forensic experts look for?
CNN national correspondent Eileen O'Connor joins us from Washington now with some answers.
Yesterday, polygraph, Eileen, today forensics.
EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.
Stephen, with me is Edward Robinson. He's a professor at George Washington University at the Forensic Science Department. And he's agreed to come and show us the kind of things that on a typical search the forensic scientists and crime scene investigators, which you also were for years, would be looking for and the kind of tools you would use.
Now initially, what do you do going in there? I mean what are you primarily looking for? This is, again, a missing persons investigation.
EDWARD ROBINSON, FORENSIC SCIENTIST, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: You'd be looking for some kind of indication that there wasn't just presence but there was some violent activity or foul play at the scene that would be more probative of an event that is untoward. So we would be looking for several different things. Just presence at a residence would explain the presence of hairs, but hairs are naturally shed and those hairs that are naturally shed have a particular look under a microscope. Hairs that are shed, however,...
O'CONNOR: Right. Well, you know let's first talk about blood.
ROBINSON: Sure.
O'CONNOR: I mean this is definitely still a missing persons investigation, but here we have some pictures. Can you wash away - 11 weeks and some people were saying, look, how useful is that going to be? You could have erased any signs of things -- can you?
ROBINSON: The attempt to wash away blood can frequently be overcome by the use of certain chemicals that will visualize or enhance faint bloodstains or invisible...
O'CONNOR: So we can see...
ROBINSON: ... bloodstains.
O'CONNOR: So we can see here there's actually a bloodstain.
ROBINSON: These are examples I use in class. This is a bloodstain of a handprint on a handkerchief. The subsequent washing of the handkerchief, which eliminates visual blood, and then a chemical we use to visualize blood that's diluted is Luminol and the photograph on the - at the lower end of the chart shows the revisualization of the bloodstain even after an attempt to wash it away.
O'CONNOR: OK. Now very quickly, let's look at this hair follicle. You would analyze this afterwards and this one is -- the upper one is...
ROBINSON: A hair that's naturally shed that's about to fall out anyway has that particular look to it. It's -- the root ball is dried. There is no fleshy tissue remaining. So it's a very distinctive look and very different from a head hair that is pulled out during a struggle or some violent confrontation.
O'CONNOR: Which has a sort of thicker stock to it.
ROBINSON: And the lower picture...
O'CONNOR: So these are the kinds of things, Daryn, that they will be looking for: signs of a struggle, any signs of violence. But again, this is what they look for in a typical search. We're not sure what the police actually were looking for or what they found - Daryn
KAGAN: Yes, still a lot of questions on this one.
Eileen O'Connor in Washington, thank you.
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