| Syllabus | Course Description | Introduction |

GEOLOGY 483
Fall Semester 1998
Professor John C. Crelling

FORENSIC GEOLOGY


II. - HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORENSIC GEOLOGY


1. Sherlock Holmes stories published by Arthur Conan Doyle from 1887 to into the 1920's
 

2. Hans Gross

  1. 1847-1915
  2. Generally acknowledged as the founder of scientific criminal investigation
  3. Legal counsel and Statre's Attorney, Graz, Austria
  4. Published Handbuch fur Untersuchungsrichter (Handbook for Examining Magistrates) in 1893.
  5. The handbook included discussions of forensic medicine, toxicology, serology, and ballistics, as well as forensic geology
  6. He advocated the use of microscopists and mineralogists
  7. "Dirt on shoes can often tell us more about where the wearer of those shoes has last been than toilsome inquiries"
  8. Set the stage for the development of forensic geology

 

3. Georg Popp

  1. Ran a Laboratory in Frankfort, Germany
  2. In 1904 he used geologic evidence in a criminal case for the first time

    The Eva Disch Case

  1. In 1908 he firmly established forensic geology with the Margaethe Filbert case.

    The Margaethe Filbert Case

 

4. Edmond Locard

  1. Read the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and parts of Gross's book
  2. Set up a forensic lab in Lyons, France, in 1910 with the Surete
  3. Established the exchange principle:

"Whenever two objects come into contact, there is always a transfer of material. The methods of detection may not be sensitive enough to demonstrate this, or the decay rate may be so rapid that all evidence of transfer has vanished after a given time. Nonetheless, the transfer has taken place"
(Murray and Tedrow, 1991 , p. 7)

Emile Gourbin Case

5. Edward Oscar Heinrich

  1. "The wizard of Berkeley"
  2. A famous American criminalist
  3. He did remarkable work with such geological materials such as, sand, soil, and paint pigments
  4. He was quite colorful

The Father Patrick Heslin Case

6. Federal Bureau of Investigation

  1. Were using forensic geology a early as 1935
  2. Helped solve the Matson kidnaping case in 1936
  3. Used heavy mineral separations for soil characterization as early as 1939
  4. Used forensic geology in the USDEA Agent, Enrique Camarena case in 1985 (see attached material taken from an article in the New Yorker of 29 January 1996 by John McPhee)


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