Ralph Erdmann was a pathologist. A forensic pathologist focuses on determining the cause of death by examining a corpse. Erdmann attended many schools, including: George Washington University, University of Texas, University of Michigan, and National University of Mexico. He received his doctorate in medicine at the National University of Mexico, in Mexico City. He specialized in forensic pathology at John Hopkins. On average, he performed about 400 autopsies a year in West Texas. In total, he had conducted more than 3,000 autopsies. The years of service he has completed it unknown, be he has been going at it for a while. He was admired for his eagerness to tailor his autopsy findings to the law enforcements needs, such as putting alcohol in the blood. …show more content…
When he was working cases, he was sometimes not provided with a proper autopsy room.
Instead, he performed the autopsies in abandoned houses, funeral home garages, hospital loading docks, and parking lots. Once, he even performed an autopsy on a door laid across two 55 gallon drums. Erdmann made detectives and prosecutors job more easy, so they turned a blind eye to his odd ways. By 1992, defense attorneys began to challenge and expose Erdmanns methods and findings. In a fatal hit and run case, Erdmann testified that the victim had died instantly of a broken neck. He based this ‘finding’ off of an examination of the boy's brain. Another forensic pathologist had exhumed the body, and he found out that Erdmann hadn’t even opened the boy’s skull, which you need to do to examine a brain. He then lost his Texas medical license in 1992. Another thing I find interesting is that he kept blood samples in his own refrigerator with his food. I find that very
gross. This all happened because detectives and prosecutors just wanted a way to put people behind bars, and Erdmann could help them with that. Another thing that to add on is that he was just lazy. Performing an autopsy is a lot of work, and doing that for the majority of his life probably became a bore to him. Adding on, he rarely had a proper examination room, so there is no doubt that more evidence than he thought was contaminated. People believed him because he was educated, so he got away with it for a very long time. To avoid contaminated evidence in the future, you definitely need a proper autopsy room. Also, forensic pathologists should have a shadow, maybe even an intern. It could also be another person helping with the autopsy. This would definitely prevent laziness in the examination room. Everything that pathologists do should be recorded properly, and have proof of their evidence. That is the best thing that they could do. Since I did take this class, I will most likely pursue a career in forensics. I’m not even close to having a job in the field right now but I absolutely love it, and it’s so fascinating. I hope to be a forensic anthropologist or maybe even something in the medical field.
Bass's first official anthroplogy case was the result of an early morning traffic accident that happened outside of Frankfort, Kentucky, in the winter of 1954. The two trucks collided and when the fire was out, three bodies were found. The identities of the two drivers were identified but the third body was a mystery. Dr. Charles E. Snow, an anthropology professor at the University of Kentucky, was requested to identify the third body. He agreed to examine the remains. At the same time Dr. Bass was taking a class that Dr. Snow was teaching. Dr. Snow wanted Dr. Bass to tag along with him so he could have a hand's on experience of anthropology. The police already had a really good idea of whose body this was, because they looked at a list of missing people and found a match. Dr. Snow's job was to confirm that this was the right body. They had to dig the body up because it had been buried, so they drove to the cemetery. They matched the identity of the woman and Dr. Snow gave Dr. Bass five dollars for driving them to the cemetery. From that day on, Dr. Bass was hooked on anthropology and he went to college at the University of Pennsylvania to study anthropology. He chose this college because he wanted to learn from Dr. Krogman. Dr. Bass developed a strong relationship with Dr. Krogman because when Krogman fell down the stairs and broke his leg, Dr. Bass would drive him to and from the college. During this time, Dr. Krogman would assign readings and teach to Dr. Bass while
Another case is that of 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson whose death was initially ruled the result of accidental suffocation. A second autopsy produced a different conclusion, but when the second autopsy was performed, his body had been stuffed with newspaper, and his organs were missing ("Organ Trafficking, Melanin Theory & the Fountain of Youth -," n.d.). The brain, heart, lungs and liver were missing. He also discovered Johnson's death was due to blunt force trauma to the right side of his neck (Archer,
Most medical experts often had to supplement their findings with more conventional detective work. Rob Rapley recounts the famous cases of the day including the factory workers who painted glow in the dark watch dials with radium paint. Women who worked in these factories were unknowingly being poisoned as they put their brushes in their mouths to touch up the point. Since women were dying years after having access to the paint, it was hard to tell whether or not they died from the paint at work or from another cause. It wasn’t until Gettler ran tests on a woman’s bones five years after her death and found radium still remaining in her bones. Also, a man named Mike Malloy miraculously survived tragic situations such as being run over by a taxi and being fed rotten food before finally dying from poisonous gas. The cause of his death, however, was not spontaneous and was a result of money hunger than those who insured him shared. This models that murderers used poison to commit crimes in search of money. One pair of murderers, exculpated by Gettler’s evidence in 1924, was finally caught in 1936, when they killed again using the same poison.
Though his killings occurred over thirty years ago Clifford Olson is still knows as one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers. Active through the years 1980-1980 he was responsible for eleven gruesome murders in that short span of time. The shocking nature of his crimes ensured nobody would forget his notorious deeds. To build on that, Olson is loathed because he extorted authorities into paying $100,000 for the locations of his victims’ remains, an agreement that haunted the survivors of Olson’s crimes, and ruined the careers of the officials who buckled under Olson’s outrageous demands. Furthermore, his crime spree led Neighbourhoods that once claimed to be “so safe you could leave your door open” to secure their doors; hitchhikers were seldom found on highways, and telephone poles were covered with posters warning that nearly a dozen adolescents were missing and a killer was on the loose. Had he not been apprehended by the authorities on August 12th, 1981 his spree of brutal slayings may have continued for much longer, as he showed no remorse for his ruthless crimes.
He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but some thought he might actually be suffering from drug-induced toxic psychosis. He visited the emergency room for testimonials that bones were coming out the back of his head, someone stole his pulmonary arteries, his stomach was backwards, and his heart stopped beating sometimes. He was also diagnosed with hypochondria, where he believed his heart was in danger of shrinking until disappearance. He then came to the solution that drinking blood of animals or humans would stop the shrinking. He was also interviewed and said that he killed to stay alive. He was admitted to a mental institution and was prescribed antidepressants. He was allowed to leave anytime he wanted. He was left unsupervised and his mother told him that he did not need the
Joyce Gilchrist, whose “flawed casework analysis” and “laboratory mismanagement” in this case (http://newsok.com/article/5443656), served the State as a forensic chemist who worked thousands of cases for the Oklahoma City police department and falsified evidence which brought 23 defendants sentenced to death. Gilchrist was dismissed and claimed that she was discharged for reporting sexual misconduct. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Gilchrist) She died on June 14, 2015.
Falling in love with a childs beautiful laughter? If so keep them close at night, because some people kill childs and its horrible but Bruno Hauptmann is not a killer. Bruno hauptmann was from germany and when he was there he had a criminal record, he was an expert carpenter and was very good at his job. The child was about 2 when he was taken from the Lindbergh family. Most people will say he is guilty and he wrote the letter made the ladder and killed the child. He was accused and that side won the argument but won it wrongly. However the reason Hauptmann is not the killer is mainly because the evidence doesn't match up, this guy was a good guy in America and just trying to have a good life but he was framed or something like that. Also the handwriting doesn't match Hauptmann's handwriting, the ladder was made by someone else by obvious reasons, the money is not the ransom money, and the blind guy, well he was blind.
He invented the Bunsen Burner- a small adjustable gas burner used in laboratories/a piece of laboratory equipment that produces a single open gas flame, which is used for heating, sterilization, and combustion.
...eemed so real. In conclusion the Texas government should have done a better job during this investigation and figured out it was an accident before an innocent man was executed.
He later pulverised the bones with a sledge hammer and scattered the bones around the [his grandmother’s] property. The flesh was put into bags and buried in a crawlspace under the house. It wasn't until 3yrs later that police and forensics found the remains.” (Blanco) His second murder was not until 1987.
After meeting with the company’s founder, a man named Augie Perna, Mr. Brown agreed to enter into a partnership with them — he would go on to expand his crematorium and open up a body donation facility in the new building. He could now offer his customers a package where they would donate their body and receive a free cremation, though not before Brown removed and stored any parts he wanted. It was, as the title of Cheney’s chapter re-states, “An Ideal Situation.” It wasn’t until several years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a guilty plea to sixty-six counts of mutilation of remains and embezzlement later, that Brown’s business ended thanks to an employee
It was developed by Richard Dirnhofer, the former head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bern, Switzerland. He was combing over a case that involved the injuries to the skull of a murder victim. His subsequent developments steered the way for a Swiss team, led by Professor Michael Thali of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Zurich, to begin using x-ray imaging to create scalpel-free 3D images of intact cadavers (Honigsbaum).
It is common knowledge that people die everyday. While some deaths are natural, many occur suddenly, unexpectedly and/or violently. It is up to specialized trained physicians to determine the cause and manner of death through close examination of the deceased (Explore). Forensic Pathologists are professionals that are not commonly talk about. Most often, people talk about nurses and surgeons, but very rarely do people talk about the physicians that work with the dead. Since Forensic Pathologists are not as well-known as other careers in the medical field, research on the nature of the job, qualification required, and challenges involved in pursuing the career is needed to discover whether or not it is a good fit.
The topic I find such fascinating is Forensic Science and how forensic science has significantly changed over the years. “The area of forensic science has grown considerably over the last 150 years and more so since the mid 1980’s.” (Lyman, 2016) Forensic science has gone from taking basic information, and fingerprints to DNA and blood splatter. During a crime scene investigation evidence is collected, analyzed in a crime laboratory and then if needed are presented to the court. However, today the crime laboratory is becoming mobile and can go to the scene to analyze the evidence. Each crime scene and investigation is unique and distinctive, with the help of forensics it can help solve a case.
For as long as I can remember, I have always felt for people even if I don’t know them personally. That’s why my dream job is to become a forensic pathologist so that I can help families that are affected by drug overdoses or other unfortunate deaths. Most often, people aren’t familiar with that career when I describe it to them, which is exactly why I want to go into it.