Gerald Powers Research Paper

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Twenty years ago on April 18, 1996 Shannon Sanderson was murdered by a gentleman named Gerald Powers. It all started early that night when Shannon went to spend the evening gambling down in Tunica, Mississippi alone because earlier that night she got into an argument with her husband, Robert Sanderson. Shannon won $5,000 playing blackjack then cashed out shortly after and was escorted to her car by a security guard. She arrived at her house around 4:45 am when a man came up and abducted her. Her father in-law and her next door neighbors heard dogs barking and went to see what was happening. Her father in-law heard a man's voice and thought it was her husband, however, the neighbor heard a scream and a thud and saw a man drive away in a car. Gerald Powers was the prime suspect in the murder when his wife called the police and told them her husband might have been involved. Later on, she confessed that her husband told her that he had kidnapped, robbed, and killed Shannon. Powers’ wife had also told the police where he …show more content…

In order to compare the pink plastic wrap that held Shannon's jewelry and the pink saran wrap that was found in Powers home, they had to use Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy or FT-IR. What FT-IR does is it uses infrared radiation to pass through a sample and before the infrared radiation passes all the way through some of it is absorbed into the object, and the rest passes through. The spectrum that makes it through the sample shows the transmission and molecular absorption while producing a molecular fingerprint of the sample. The molecular fingerprint of the sample is unique, more like DNA than a fingerprint as no two molecular fingerprints are the same. There are three details FT-IR can provide for people, including identification of unknown materials, determine the quality or consistency of a sample, and determine the amount of components there are in a

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