Othram

Othram (also Othram Inc.) is an American corporation specializing in forensic genealogy to resolve unsolved murders, disappearances, and identification of unidentified decedents or murder victims (colloquially known as John Does and Jane Does). The company also offers law enforcement agencies tools and programs to infer kinship among individuals, both closely and distantly related, through a combination of short tandem repeat (STR) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) testing, as well as forensic genome sequencing of DNA. Othram has assisted with identifications of cold cases such as Beth Doe, Septic Tank Sam, and Delta Dawn. Many cases are not publicized by the company until after a successful identification. Othram technology and casework inspired the 500th episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Cases- Suspect Identifications: These are cases where Othram has sequenced DNA and returned forensic genetic genealogy leads for the suspect in a violent crime such as sexual assault or homicide. Murder of Carla Walker: Carla Walker was a 17-year-old girl who was abducted from a bowling alley in Fort Worth, Texas on February 15, 1974. She and her boyfriend, Rodney McCoy, had been sitting in her car outside of the alley after attending a school dance at Western Hills High School when they were attacked by an unknown assailant who pistol whipped Roy, leaving him unconscious. Walker's body was later recovered three days later from a drainage ditch, half an hour south of Fort Worth. She had been beaten, tortured, raped and strangled to death, as well as injected with morphine. Othram Inc. was contacted in April or May 2020 to use forensic genealogy on DNA left on Walker's body to identify her killer. On September 21, 2020, it was announced that Glen Samuel McCurley, 77 at the time of his arrest, was charged with Walker's murder based on a DNA match. Murder of Christine Jessop: Christine Jessop was a 9-year-old girl from Queensville, Ontario, who was abducted after getting off her school bus in October 1984. She went home, dropped off her bag, and planned on meeting with a friend at a nearby park. She never made it to the park. Her body was later recovered on December 31 in a farmer's field in Sunderland, Ontario. She had been raped and stabbed to death, with semen being found on her underwear. In 2019, the Toronto Police Service contacted Othram to generate a DNA profile from the semen found on Jessop's clothing and perform forensic genealogy to find her killer. After Othram was able to successfully sequence a profile, Toronto Police were able to find her killer in the fall. It was announced on October 15, that Calvin Hoover, a man who died in 2015, matched the profile of DNA and was named as her killer. Murder of Siobhan McGuinness: Siobhan McGuinness was a 5-year-old girl from Missoula, Montana, who was abducted in early 1974 while walking to a friend's house. Her body was found two days later in a snowy culvert. She had been raped and stabbed to death. An extensive investigation between law enforcement and the community was made in order to find her killer until all leads were exhausted. In 2020, the Missoula Police Department, BODE Technology, and the FBI contacted Othram to create a genetic profile from DNA found on the crime scene, after similar techniques were used to identify the Golden State Killer. After a profile was made, the team used forensic genealogy to find Richard William Davis, who was confirmed by DNA to be her killer. Davis had died in 2012. Murder of Mary Edwards: Mary Catherine Edwards was a teacher in Beaumont, Texas who was found drowned in her bathroom by her family. It was found that she had been sexually assaulted before being drowned. Traditional DNA testing on evidence left by the killer yielded few leads, all of which were eventually exhausted. In 2020, the Texas Rangers and Beaumont Police Department contacted Othram to generate a usable genetic profile in order to be used for forensic genealogy to find her killer. The killer was identified in May 2021 as Clayton Foreman, currently incarcerated in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, for unrelated charges. He was extradited to Jefferson County on June 15. Foreman was not initially considered a person of interest in the case, but it was found that he had known her in high school. Murder of Stephanie Isaacson: Stephanie Isaacson was a 14-year-old teenage girl who was abducted while walking to Eldorado High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her father began to worry after school when she didn't come home, and called the school to find that she had never made it to school in the morning. Her body was later found at a sandlot. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. In 2021, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department contacted Othram to examine DNA evidence from the scene to help identify Isaacson's killer. Her killer was later identified as Darren Roy Marchand, who had committed suicide in 1995. Notably, the identification and profile was able to be made with only 120 picograms of DNA, making this the lowest amount of DNA ever being able to be used to help solve a crime. Murder of Alma Jones: Alma Jones was a 77-year-old woman who was raped and murdered in her home in Raleigh, North Carolina in December 1977. In 2011, a male DNA profile was developed from items located at the crime scene. However, no match had been made in the national database and all leads were exhausted. In 2021, the Raleigh Police Department contacted Othram to produce a genealogical profile for the unknown male DNA. Her killer was identified as Paul David Crowder Jr., who died in 2015. Murder of Terrence Paquette: Terrence Paquette was a 31-year-old convenience store worker at the Lil' Champ Food Store in Orlando, Florida when he was stabbed to death in February 1996. In 2003, the case was re-examined and an unknown male DNA profile was developed from crime scene evidence. In the fall of 2019, the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement contacted Othram to use advanced DNA testing on the DNA profile. Kenneth Robert Stough Jr. was eventually identified as the suspect and arrested for first-degree murder in November 2021. Murder of Candice Rogers: Candice "Candy" Rogers was a 9-year-old girl who was abducted in Spokane, Washington on March 6, 1959. Candy was a member of the Bluebirds, who were the youngest members of the Camp Fire Girls of America. She was last seen selling mints door-to-door for the organization. Two weeks after her disappearance, her body was found. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. In the early 2000s, a male DNA profile was extracted from her clothing, but a match wasn't found in the national database. In February 2021, the Spokane Police Department contacted Othram and requested assistance on the case. In November 2021, her killer was identified as John Reigh Hoff, who had committed suicide in 1970. Murder of Kim Bryant: Kim Bryant was a 16-year-old girl who was abducted from a Dairy Queen restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 26, 1979. Nearly a month later, her body was found in a desert area. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered. An unknown male DNA profile was eventually extracted from crime scene evidence. In 2021, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department partnered with Othram to generate genealogical leads in the case. In November of that year, it was announced that Johnny Blake Peterson was identified as her killer. Peterson died in January 1993. Murder of Diana Hanson: On December 31, 1983 when she was 22, Diana Hanson left her home in Las Vegas, NV and did not return. When her family became concerned, they reported her missing. Her body was found later the same day Spring Mountain Road near Buffalo Drive. Investigators determined that she had been sexually assaulted before her death. For 38 years, her case remained open but unsolved. Then, after the suspect in the murder of Kim Bryant was identified as Johnny Blake Peterson, investigators requested a direct comparison of DNA recovered from Diana Hanson to that of the now known profile for Peterson. The profiles matched. Murder of Jawed Ahmed: Jawed Ahmed, a 32-year-old taxi driver, was found shot to death in his crashed taxi in Anchorage, Alaska on May 28, 1985. Witnesses reported that they had seen a white-skinned man fleeing the crime scene and an officer went after him, but only managed to recover a blood-stained shirt. DNA extracted from this shirt in 2009 concluded that it likely belonged to the killer. In January 2022, using DNA and blood evidence recovered from the crime scene, Othram identified the suspected killer as a man named Eric Lane Jones, who lived in Idaho. He was subsequently arrested and confessed to the shooting, and is currently awaiting charges for the crime. Murder of Patricia Barnes: In August 1995, the naked body of 61-year-old Patricia Lorraine Barnes was discovered in a ditch in Olalla, Washington. She had been shot twice in the head, and covered with a sleeping bag. For a long time, she was believed to be a possible victim of serial killer Robert Lee Yates, despite not fitting his usual victims' profile, but he was excluded as a suspect in 2018 when it was confirmed that he was stationed at an army base in Alabama at the time of her murder. Within months of partnering with the local sheriff's office, Othram built a genealogical profile of the suspect and discovered new leads that eventually led to the identification of Douglas Keith Krohne as Barnes' likely killer. Krohne, who had felony convictions for robbery and kidnapping dating back to the 1980s, could not be arrested as he died after accidentally electrocuting himself in Arizona in 2016. Unidentified Remains Cases: These are cases where Othram has sequenced DNA and used forensic genetic genealogy to identify a Jane, John, or Baby Doe. 2020- "Harry": On July 18, 1979, the burned skeletal remains of a young white man were found in a farm field in Charleston, Missouri. His cause of death was initially thought to be suspicious, but was eventually ruled an accidental drowning. He was estimated to be between 20 and 60 years old. He also had light brown or dark blonde hair. Height, weight and eye color could not be determined. Various items were found with the remains, but it was not determined if they were related to the decedent. He was also originally thought to have been female. Investigators believe that the remains had ended up at the farm as a result of flooding, and the remains were burned as a result of typical farm activity. In April 2020, it was announced that he had been identified through efforts by Othram and Redgrave Research. His family requested that his name not be released, but it was shared that he went by the name "Harry", and was in his mid-thirties when he died. An image was later uploaded of "Harry" during life. Rodney Johnson AKA "Lake Stickney John Doe": On June 11, 1994, the decomposing body of a young to middle-aged man of unknown ethnicity was found floating in Lake Stickney near the public boat launch by a fisherman in Everett, Washington. He had been shot twice in the head. He was estimated to be between 25 and 40 years old, was between 5 feet 8 inches and 6 feet 0 inches (1.73–1.83 m) tall, and weighed between 135 and 170 pounds (61–77 kg). His hair color and eye color could not be ascertained. He was found to have had extensive dental work during his life and had a healed fracture to his left clavicle. He was found wearing a pair of Levis shrink-to-fit jeans, a pair of white Hanes underwater, a pair of black socks, a pair of high-top light brown work boots with string laces and a vulcan sole, and a belt with a metal buckle. Othram Inc. was contacted to help identify the man. On August 12, 2020, it was announced that he had been identified as Rodney Peter Johnson of Seattle, Washington, who had gone missing in 1987. Darrell Splett AKA "McHenry County John Doe": On May 4, 2019, the body of a middle-aged white man was found by hikers in the Rush Creek Conservation Area in Harvard, Illinois. He was found to have committed suicide. He was found clad in winter clothing, and had been deceased for approximately a year. McHenry County Sherriff's Office attempted to identify the man using typical identification procedures, which yielded no results or leads. A reconstruction was also made by Palm Beach County Sheriff's Forensic Imaging Unit to help aid in identification. Othram Inc. was contacted in May 2020 to help identify the man. On October 23, 2020, it was announced that he had been identified as Darrell P. Splett of Ingleside, Illinois. He was 50 years old at the time of his death. Alisha Heinrich AKA "Delta Dawn": On December 5, 1982, the body of a female toddler was seen floating in the Escatawpa River beneath a bridge on Interstate 10 in Moss Point, Mississippi. She had reportedly been seen a few days earlier with her mother, then-unidentified Gwendolyn Clemmons, as Clemmons paced the bridge, seemingly distressed. Drivers reported seeing Clemmons' body floating in the river, but when law enforcement conducted a search, they instead found Heinrich, deceased. During subsequent searches, another man was recovered, however he was found to be unrelated to the case. Clemmons has not been found, and is believed to be deceased. Othram was contacted by the Jackson County Sheriff's Office in 2019 to create a genetic profile for genetic genealogy. After the profile was developed, the Sheriff's Office and FBI worked together and were able to identify Heinrich in September 2020. On December 4, 2020, it was announced that "Delta Dawn" had been identified as Alisha Ann Heinrich, last seen with her mother in Kansas City, Missouri. 2021- Vance Rodriguez AKA "Mostly Harmless": On July 23, 2018, a hiker was found dead in his tent near the Appalachian Trail in Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida; he appeared to have starved to death. He was estimated to be between 35 and 60 years old, was 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) tall and weighed 83 pounds (38 kg). He had graying dark brown hair, an unkempt gray and brown beard, and blue eyes. He also appeared to have a faint scar across his abdomen. Rodriguez was found wearing a beige shirt with neon green and gray accents, gray "Russel" brand shorts, "Performance" brand underwear, and a Columbia baseball cap. He was also found with various camping and hiking items. He had been seen alive various times previously, and went by the names "Mostly Harmless", "Ben Bilemy", and "Denim" to those he met, possibly referencing Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Othram Inc. was contacted in July 2020 to help identify "Mostly Harmless". On January 12, 2021, it was announced that "Mostly Harmless" had been identified as Vance John Rodriguez of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, who had moved to Brooklyn, New York after he was recognized by a former co-worker after seeing a flyer. Jolaine Hemmy AKA "Pecos Jane Doe": On July 5, 1966, a young man and woman checked into the Ropers Motel in Pecos County, Texas, using the name "Mr. and Mrs. Russell Battuon" (or "Batuon")". Two hours after checking in, the motel staff heard a scream and checked the pool area, finding the woman floating in the pool after she had drowned. There were no signs of foul play and she appeared to be alone when she died. Meanwhile, the man had been sleeping; after helping the staff retrieve his companion's body, he quickly left the hotel without paying his bill, taking nearly all belongings and the registration card that he had used to check in. Investigators could not find the man after he left, and it was found out that he had told motel staff that he needed the registration card to confirm his stay at the motel for hospital staff, since they were not from the area, but had never arrived at the hospital. He was described as being around 25 years old, with a short slender build and blonde hair, and drove a late model 1963 sedan. The only charges he could have faced would have been a result of "defrauding" the motel, which investigators believe he may have done "out of fear". The woman was estimated to be between 17 and 20 years old, was approximately 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and was between 120 and 130 pounds (54–59 kg). She had long brown hair and large brown eyes. She had an olive complexion, which caused investigators to believe she was of Italian or Latin descent. She also had a burn scar on the right side of her rib cage. She was wearing a bright red swimsuit when she died, but she was observed earlier to be wearing dark shorts, a bra, and a flowered blouse, all of which happened to have been the only things left behind in their room by the man when he left. Her fingerprints were taken but did not match anybody in the FBI database. She was later buried in a donated casket in Fairview Cemetery, with a donated headstone. An anonymous mourner occasionally placed flowers on her grave and kept the site well maintained. Many tips were submitted regarding her identity, but none have proved fruitful. She would later undergo forensic DNA sequencing by Othram Inc. The decedent was confirmed to be 17-year-old Jolaine Hemmy, formerly of Salina, Kansas in January 2021. James St. Peters AKA "Montgomery John Doe": On October 7, 2016, the remains of a middle-aged or elderly white or Hispanic man were recovered from a reservoir in The Woodlands, Texas. He was estimated to be between 40 and 70 years old, was 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) tall and weighed 169 pounds (77 kg). He had gray or white hair and possibly greenish eyes. He was found wearing a green long-sleeved shirt, a pair of blue pants, a dark belt, a single black shoe with Velcro straps, a green backpack, a Swiss army knife and a dog tag with the name "Phillip H. Williams" and a ship design. In late 2020, Othram Inc. was contacted to help identify the man. On February 11, 2021, it was announced that he had been identified as James Edwards St. Peters. Lisa Todd AKA "Publicker Girl": On January 24, 1988, the skeletal remains of a young white female were discovered by a man walking his dog in a pump house at the old 'Publicker' distillery in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. She was estimated to be between 16 and 30 years old, between 5 feet and 5 feet 3 inches tall, and weighed between 100 and 120 pounds. She also had brown hair and appeared to be about six months pregnant. Eye color could not be ascertained. She was found wearing 'Braxton' designer jeans, a purple lace camisole, open-toed platform shoes, a black bodysuit top, an oval sterling silver ring with five clear stones and five stones missing, and a silver-colored ring with a belt-and-buckle design. Various other clothing items were found with the remains, however, investigators could not determine if they belonged to the victim. When investigators found the body in the pump house, they had to pump 8 inches of water and oil fuel out of the house in order to retrieve the remains. The location had become a well-known place for the illegal dumping of stolen vehicles. Flyers of a reconstruction and dental records were distributed, which generated 50 leads of missing person reports which matched the victim, however, all of these came up negative. On March 9, 2021, it was announced that she had been identified by Othram Inc. and Bode Technology as Lisa Todd of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Shawna Garber AKA "Grace Doe": On December 2, 1990, the decomposing remains of a young white or possibly Native American woman were found in McDonald County, Missouri, tied with several different types of rope, indicating that she was likely the victim of a sexual assault. She was estimated to be between 21 and 31 years old, was between 5 feet 1 inch and 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 120 pounds. She had wavy, collar length dark brown hair with naturally red highlights. She was found wearing a stone-washed Levi jacket, a white T-shirt, a pair of Lee blue jeans, a pair of socks, and white 'Fitness' brand hi-top sneakers. Othram Inc. took up her case, and Garber was subsequently identified in March 2021. Evelyn Colon AKA "Beth Doe": On December 20, 1976, the dismembered body of a young white or Hispanic female was found in multiple suitcases beneath a highway bridge in White Haven, Pennsylvania. Investigators were unable to identify her and she was buried under the name "Beth Doe". After 44 years, investigators finally got a break in the case in 2020 when they compared her DNA to genealogy databases and identified Luis Colon Jr. as a relative of the deceased. Colon Jr. and his family told investigators that Colon Jr.'s aunt, Evelyn Colon, disappeared from Jersey City, New Jersey at the age of 15 in December 1976 and that she was pregnant and in an abusive relationship at the time she disappeared. In 2020, the Pennsylvania State Police and the NCMEC contacted Othram to sequence an extraction of DNA in order for them to use forensic genealogy. On March 31, 2021, investigators publicly announced that Beth Doe had been identified as Evelyn Colon. Luis Sierra, Colon's boyfriend and the father of her child, was arrested for her murder. Missy Poitra AKA "Durham Jane Doe": On October 22, 2016, investigators found the skeletal remains of a woman in a plastic container in a storage unit in Durham, North Carolina. Investigators found her death suspicious, and believe she had been in the container since at least 2010. They were only able to glean a few details concerning her identity or how she ended up in the container. In 2020, Othram reached out to the Durham Police Department to help assist with identifying the woman. They were able to find some distant relatives and gave the information to the police department, who were able to identify her in May 2021 as Missy Ann Poitra, who had gone missing in 2005. Pamela Duffy and William "Digger" Lane AKA "San Bernardino County Jane and John Doe (1980)": On November 17, 1980, the remains of a young man and young woman were found in a shallow grave in the desert near now former US Route 66, approximately 5 miles east of Ludlow, California. Both had died from gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma. The female was estimated to be between 17 and 22 years old, was between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 8 inches (1.65–1.73 m) tall and weighed approximately 115 pounds (52 kg). She had a "highly distinctive" smile with several gaps in her teeth, and her left ear was pierced. She had a 10-karat ring with 7 glass stones, the middle of which was missing. The man was between 21 and 30 years old and was 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall. He had long brown hair, a pierced ear, and a tattoo of an Egyptian Ankh. His weight and eye color could not be determined. He was found with a white-metal Ankh earring in his left ear. In 2017, investigators accused convicted murderer Howard Neal, who had been living in Ludlow at the time, of their deaths. Eventually Neal confessed to the murders, but claimed he didn't know who the pair was. Othram was later contacted by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and Barbara Rae-Venter to create a usable DNA profile to help identify the pair. In December 2020, the pair was identified as Pamela Dianne Duffy and William "Digger" Everette Lane, with an announcement being made in April 2021. Janet Lucas AKA "Christy Crystal Creek": On September 9, 1985, the skeleton of a young woman, nicknamed "Christy Crystal Creek," was found with two .32 caliber bullets in her skull. No clothing was located at the crime scene. Investigators believed this individual may have died sometime between 1983 and early 1985. She stood between 4 feet 10 inches and 5 feet 2 inches (1.47–1.57 m), weighing between 90 and 110 pounds (41–50 kg). Examination indicated that she had a history of smoking and had many fillings as well as two root canals. She also had a type of oral surgery which is distinct to Asia's dental techniques, involving the screwing of a dental post into the tooth. Along with other physical characteristics, it was previously thought she was possibly of Asian descent. It is possible that serial killer and rapist Wayne Nance was responsible for her murder; due to his death in 1986, he was never tried or convicted of any murder. Two other victims believed to have been killed by Nance are "Debbie Deer Creek" and "Betty Beavertail," later identified as Marcella Bachmann and Devonna Nelson, respectively. He also may have committed the murders of two others prior to the Jane Doe discoveries. Lucas was identified in May 2021 with assistance from Othram. She was last seen in Idaho in 1983 and was originally from Spokane, Washington. Kimberly Funk AKA "Vancleave Jane Doe": On February 1, 1991, the skeletal remains of a white woman were found by hunters in Vancleave, Mississippi. The cause of death was not determined but believed to be a homicide. She was between 25 and 60 years old, between 5 feet 2 inches and 5 feet 6 inches (1.57–1.68 m) tall, and weighed between 105 and 135 pounds (48–61 kg). Hair color and eye color could not be ascertained. She was found wearing a bathing suit, and various pieces of jewelry of unknown description were found at the scene. Investigators believed she may have been from out of state. Her case file was destroyed at some point, making various details about her case unknown, including the recovery location and date. Despite the setbacks, she was identified in June 2021 as Kimberly Funk of Mississippi with assistance from Othram. Nathan Hine AKA "Lake Laberge John Doe": On May 9, 2016, the body of a young to middle-aged man of unknown ethnicity was found near the eastern side of Lake Laberge near Whitehorse, Yukon. He was estimated to be between 25 and 40 years old, and was 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) tall. Weight, hair color, and eye color could not be ascertained. He was described as having crowded teeth and was found wearing a black jacket, a pair of ivory, gray, or cream-colored long underwear, a brown and green camo "CLC" brand glove, a pair of black leather "Dakota" brand steel-toed work boots, and a black belt with a knife sheath attached. Othram was contacted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Yukon Coroner Service in 2020 to aid with the investigation. In June 2021, it was announced that he had been identified as Nathan Eugene Hine of Yukon. Gordon "Gordie" Sanderson AKA "Septic Tank Sam": On April 13, 1977, the decomposing remains of a young to middle aged Native American or white man were found by residents searching a 1.8 meter-deep septic tank in Tofield, Alberta. He had been shot several times and had been sexually mutilated and tortured beforehand, including being burned with a blowtorch and cigarette lighters. Investigators think that the killer must have been familiar with the area, due to the property being derelict and in a very rural location. He was estimated to be between 26 and 50 years old, was 168 cm tall and weighed 70 kilograms. He had brown hair and notable recent dental work. He was found wearing a Levi work shirt with snap buttons, a gray T-shirt, a pair of jeans, a pair of gray wool socks and a pair of brown imitation 'Wallabee' shoes. Othram was contacted by the Alberta RCMP and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in 2020 to develop new leads on his identity or killer. With the new genetic profile, "Septic Tank Sam" was identified in June 2021 as Gordon "Gordie" Edwin Sanderson of Edmonton, Alberta. Steven Knox AKA "Snohomish Jetty Doe": On June 20, 1980, the decomposed body of a young to middle-aged white man was found in the Snohomish River near the old Weyerhaeuser Mill and Dagmar Marina in Everett, Washington. Authorities determined he had likely died as the result of an accidental drowning. He was between 20 and 40 years old, was between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 11 inches (1.65–1.8 m) tall, and weighed 160 pounds (73 kg). He appeared to have brown hair and teeth in good condition. He was found wearing a tan button-up short-sleeved shirt, a possibly white knit T-shirt, a blue swimsuit with white stripes, and a pair of tan "Big Mac" brand overalls. On August 4, 2021, it was announced that he had been identified as Steven Lee Knox with assistance from Othram. Michael Kirov AKA "Dave": On July 28, 1995, a man was witnessed by Canadian Pacific Railway employees jumping up from a ditch on the side of a railroad line in front of an oncoming train in Regina, Saskatchewan. The train's driver blew the whistle and he stepped aside, only to seemingly change his mind and step back in front of the train. The train was unable to stop in time and the man was killed instantly, ruled as a suicide. He was estimated to be between 18 and 29 years old, was 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) tall and weighed between 63 and 72 kilograms (139 and 159 lb). He had well-groomed short brown hair and blue eyes. He was found wearing a blue denim button-up shirt with a gold crown logo on the left front pocket, a grey T-shirt with "Boca Authentic" on the front, faded jeans, white socks, a pair of blue and white Reebok hi-top basketball sneakers, a silver rose brooch, and a knapsack with clothing and personal items. A witness claimed to have been travelling with the decedent from Alberta to Regina. He described the man as well mannered and well groomed, and that his name may have been "Brian", and that he was from Ontario, although other sources state that he called himself "Dave". He did not seem very street savvy, and did not appear to be a drifter. He had enjoyed discussing politics and reading Stephen King novels, and constantly wrote in a diary, which was never found. He may have recently broken up with a girlfriend by the name of "Kathy". After leads were exhausted, Othram was contacted in December 2020 to generate new leads based on DNA. After they returned their findings, Regina Police Service was able to continue their investigation and identified the unknown man as Michael Kirov of Winnipeg, Manitoba, in mid-August 2021. David Milek AKA "Granite County John Doe": On August 11, 2014, the remains of a young to middle aged white man were found near Bidwell Gulch at the Welcome Creek Wilderness Area in Philipsburg, Montana. He was believed to possibly be a backpacker or camper, reflected by the items he was found with. He was estimated to be between 23 and 57 years old, was 6 feet tall and weighed 140 pounds. Hair color and eye color could not be determined. He was found wearing a pair of jeans and leather boots. Items found with him included a 'Coleman' brand sleeping bag sack, a knife, and a can of bear spray. Othram was contacted in April 2021 to help identify the man. He was identified in September 2021 as David John Milek of Dallas, Texas. Theodore Kampf AKA "Dawson City John Doe": On May 21, 1983, the remains of a young to middle-aged white man were found near the North Fork Dam in Dawson City, Yukon. His cause of death was unknown, but authorities believed his manner of death was homicide. He was found wearing dark blue denim pants, a size 36 belt, white cotton underwear, and white cotton socks. Due to his clothing, he was believed to be American. Othram was contacted by the Yukon RCMP Historical Case Unit and Yukon Coroner Service in 2019 to assist in identifying the victim. On September 14, 2021, his identity was announced as 46-year-old Theodore Frederick Kampf, an American citizen who had traveled from Oaklyn, New Jersey to the Yukon in July 1981. Investigators now believe that he was murdered that same month. Margaret Fetterolf AKA "Woodlawn Jane Doe": On September 12, 1976, the body of a young woman was found partially wrapped in a white sheet near a cemetery in Woodlawn, Baltimore County, Maryland. She had been beaten, strangled, and raped. The rape had caused bleeding that had seeped into her clothing. Investigators speculated that she was murdered at a different location and then left at the scene at which she was found. It was estimated that she was between 15 and 30 years old, 149 and 159 pounds, and 5 feet 6 to 5 feet 9 inches tall. She was found wearing a white and tan shirt, a white bra, and knee-high socks with multi-colored stripes. Othram was contacted by BODE Technology and Baltimore County Police in February 2021 to produce a comprehensive genealogical profile from DNA extracted from the victim. On September 15, 2021, it was announced that she had been identified as 16-year-old Margaret Fetterolf of Alexandria, Virginia. Marlene Standridge AKA "Gwinnett County Jane Doe": On December 9, 1982, a female skull was found in the woods in unincorporated Stone Mountain, Gwinnett County, Georgia. At the time, it was believed that the remains were at the location for 6 to 10 years. The victim was initially thought to be black and between 18 and 30 years old. Othram was contacted by the Gwinnett Homicide Unit in March 2021 to generate a DNA profile from the skull. DNA analysis determined the victim was white, not black like previously believed. On September 16, 2021, the victim was identified as Marlene Standridge, who had disappeared in the early 1970s. Law enforcement is currently investigating her murder. Clara Birdlong AKA "Escatawpa Jane Doe": On December 27, 1977, skeletal human remains were found in Escatawpa, Mississippi. The victim was determined to be an African American woman with a front gold tooth. She possibly wore a wig. It is estimated that the woman might have died 3 to 4 months before she was found. In 2018, serial killer Samuel Little confessed to numerous murders, including the murder of Escatawpa Jane Doe. Little said he murdered a woman that he met at a bar in Gulfport and that she was possibly from the Pascagoula area. Investigators confirmed that he was arrested in Pascagoula in August 1977 during the time period the victim was estimated to have died. He died in prison in December 2020. The Jackson County Sheriff's Office, in cooperation with the Mississippi State Crime Lab, reached out to Othram to use advanced DNA testing to identify the victim. On September 21, 2021, it was announced that she had been identified as 44-year-old Clara Birdlong from Leflore County, Mississippi. Kyle Martin AKA "Palisades Pete": On September 16, 2002, a skull and several bones were found at the Palisades Reservoir between Big Elk and Blowout Canyon in Bonneville County, Idaho. The remains were determined to belong to a male of an undetermined race that was approximately 25 to 45 years old. Othram teamed up with the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office and Southeast Missouri State University in March 2021 to identify the remains. On September 23, 2021, the remains were identified as 24-year-old Kyle Martin of Jackson, Wyoming. He disappeared while kayaking in the Hoback River on June 1, 1995, and it is believed that he drowned. Anderson Bolls AKA "Hinds County John Doe": On August 27, 2020, the skeletal remains of a man were discovered in a wooded area in Hinds County, Mississippi. He was found wearing khaki pants, white athletic shoes, and a dark colored jacket. Othram partnered with the Mississippi State Crime Lab to generate his genealogical profile. On September 30, 2021, he was identified as 55-year-old Anderson Bolls of Jackson, Mississippi, who had been missing since April 1, 2020. Janet Robinson AKA "Fort Sumter Jane Doe": On October 25, 2020, a right foot wearing a sneaker was discovered on a beach near Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina. The victim's left foot was found on March 17, 2021. Othram received evidence from the Charleston County Coroner's Office in June 2021 to produce leads on the victim's identity. On October 6, 2021, the remains were identified as 57-year-old Janet Robinson, who was originally from Mississippi. Timothy Gomez AKA "Gardendale John Doe": On September 10, 2019, a skull and other remains were found on a ranch in Gardendale, Texas. The remains were determined to be from a male and it was estimated that death may have occurred 2 to 5 years prior to discovery. Items found near the victim included an Adidas shoe, pants, a reversible belt, a 2002 Audi flip key fob, and a black hair tie. Othram was contacted by the Ector County Sheriff's Office and the Texas Rangers in February 2021 to produce a genealogical profile of the victim. On October 14, 2021, he was identified as Timothy Daniel Gomez. "Nags Head Baby Doe": On April 4, 1991, the decomposed remains of an infant were found under a trash can in Nags Head, North Carolina. Due to advanced decomposition, gender was unable to be determined. The medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was blunt force trauma and asphyxiation.Othram was contacted by the Nags Head Police Department to identify the victim, who was eventually determined to be a boy via DNA analysis. On October 25, 2021, it was announced that he was identified as the child of Scott Gordon Poole, and his wife, Robin Lynn Byrum of Taylorsville, North Carolina. The couple was arrested for their involvement in his death. George Seitz AKA "Queens John Doe": On March 12, 2019, the dismembered partial remains of a man were discovered in the backyard of a home in Queens, New York City after a woman contacted police and informed them that she had seen her stepfather burying a body when she was a child in the 1970s. However, she did not know the identity of the victim. Othram partnered with the Queens District Attorney's Office and the NYC FBI to identify the victim. On November 3, 2021, it was announced that he had been identified as 81-year-old George Clarence Seitz, who disappeared after leaving his home to get a haircut on December 10, 1976. Seitz was a World War I veteran. Martin Motta was arrested and indicted by a grand jury for the murder. Sherri Jarvis AKA "Walker County Jane Doe": On November 1, 1980, the body of a teenage girl was found along Interstate 45 near Huntsville, Texas, having been beaten severely and strangled. 14-year-old Sherri Ann Jarvis had been in the custody of the state of Minnesota, after excessive truancy from school, until she ran away and disappeared at age 14. It is not known how she made her way to Texas, but three witnesses in the area described her as saying she wanted to go to the now-defunct Ellis Prison Farm to see a "friend". The connection Sherri may have had to the Ellis Prison Farm has never been discovered. She was publicly identified on November 9, 2021, with assistance from Othram, Inc. The company had begun work on the case during the summer of 2020, finding a potential match in March 2021. Further investigation led to the victim's positive identification. Aaron McGraw AKA "Moss Point John Doe": On October 25, 2016, skeletal remains were found in a wooded area in Moss Point, Mississippi. It was determined that the remains belonged to a man who was likely Caucasian and between 30 and 50 years old. Othram partnered with the Mississippi State Crime Lab and the Jackson County Sheriff's Office to identify the man. On November 15, 2021, he was identified as Aaron McGraw. Aaron was reported missing in May 2015 and had a history of mental illness. Foul play isn't suspected in his death. Michael Allison Beavers AKA "Fire Island John Doe": In 1989, human remains were found on the northwest shore of Fire Island off the coast of Alaska. It was determined that they were of a homicide victim who was Caucasian and between 30 and 50 years of age. Othram worked with the Alaska Bureau of Investigation (ABI) Cold Case Investigation Unit (CCIU) to identify the man. On December 01, 2021, he was identified as Michael Allison Beavers. Michael was reported missing in January 1980. He last had contact with his family in November 1979. Roland D. Klug AKA "Winnebago County John Doe (2015)": In 2015, human remains were found along the railroad tracks outside of Vinland, Wisconsin. He was tested using the CODIS system, but there were no matches. In 2021, Othram worked with the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office, the Winnebago County Coroner's Office, and Dr. Jordan Karsten, professor UW-Oshkosh to identify the man as Roland D. Klug. He was born 1949 and was from Oshkosh. Edward Evans AKA “Northampton John Doe (1995)”: In December 1995, a group found a skull along the bank of the Roanoke River in the Garysburg area of North Carolina. The reported it to law enforcement, and investigators searched the area. They found a nearly intact skeleton and clothing under a light covering of soil and leaves. In 2021, Othram worked with the Northampton County Sheriff's Office to DNA sequence the remains and provide forensic genetic genealogy research. He was identified as Edward Evans born in 1906. He was last seen by his family in 1982. Xin Rong AKA "Saginaw County John Doe": On September 9, 2018, the owner of a wooded piece of land in Chapin Township, Michigan, was checking game cameras and discovered the remains of an unidentified man. The unidentified man had been fully skeletonized by the time he was discovered, suggesting a time of death at around 1-5 years prior to discovery. An autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was severe blunt force trauma. The state of decomposition made it difficult to confirm the man's physical attributes, but pathologists were able to determine that the man was likely an adult male between the ages of 25 and 55, who stood at around 5’10 feet tall. There was no definitive assessment of biogeographical ancestry. The unknown man was fully clothed and had black Sketchers work boots, a 32-inch Calvin Klein belt, and a Boston Trader’s sweatshirt. On December 16, 2021, he was identified as 27-year-old Xin Rong, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan and licensed pilot whose rented plane was found crashed in Canada in 2017, but his body was not found. While it was supposed that he might have jumped off, he was declared legally dead in October 2017. 2022- Patricia Cavallaro AKA "Riverside County Jane Doe": On October 24, 1994, an unidentified woman was found buried in a shallow grave near Thousand Palms, California. The investigation suggested that the woman was a homicide victim. At the time of discovery, the Coroner's Office used all available resources to identify the victim, including having her DNA profile entered into the California Department of Justice Missing and Unidentified Persons System, but no identification was able to be made. With conventional STR testing not producing leads and other leads and tips exhausted, the case soon went cold. On January 3, 2022, she was identified as 57-year-old Patricia Cavallaro of Bellflower, California, thanks to a DNA sample provided by one of her surviving children. Detectives suspect that she had been killed elsewhere and then dumped in the desert, and are continuing to investigate her murder. Donald Rindahl AKA "Isanti County John Doe": In August 2003, skeletal remains were found in the area of Highway 47 and County Road 5 in Bradford Township, Minnesota. The remains were discovered during an excavation project by a land owner. It was believed the body was that of a Caucasian male, 20-28 years old and had been buried for 3 to 28 years. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) obtained a DNA profile and dental records which were entered into missing person databases. A facial reconstruction was also commissioned to generate clues to the unidentified person's identity. In January 2022, the decedent was identified as 22-year-old Donald Rindahl of New Brighton, who disappeared in the early 1970s. Rindahl, who had been sought after by the FBI due to his involvement with illicit drugs, is suspected to have been murdered, but his official cause of death is currently undetermined. Jean Turner Ponders AKA "Lincoln Jane Doe": In May 2012, a Talladega County Sheriff's Office deputy was patrolling rural Allred Road in Lincoln, Alabama. He noticed the front door of a vacant home was wide open and decided to investigate. When he searched the backyard of the property, he discovered the human remains of an unknown woman. Her body was found less than five miles from the Talladega Superspeedway, a NASCAR racetrack that holds several major race events each year. At the time she was discovered, the Superspeedway was holding a multi-day race event with thousands in attendance. Investigators were not able to determine if the woman and her death were connected in any way to the events held that weekend. Investigators estimated that the woman was white and between 45 and 65 years old. She was found wearing a royal blue shirt, dark blue sweatpants, and off-white shoes. She had sandy brown hair that was graying and wore dentures engraved with the name "Powders." The state forensics department found that she likely had lung cancer. There was no identifying documents found at the scene and the remains were too decomposed to collect fingerprints. The case was entered into NCIC and NamUs in August 2012. Her description did not match any local missing persons cases and with all leads exhausted, the case soon went cold. In January 2022, Othram, using DNA extracted from the body after an autopsy, identified the decedent as 67-year-old Jean Turner Ponders of Roswell, Georgia. Her death is not considered suspicious, although authorities are still trying to determine what brought her to the abandoned house. Franklin D. Feldman AKA "Bethlehem John Doe": In April 1981, the Bethlehem Police Department responded to a wooded area at the property line between the Vadney Farm and the Elm Avenue Town Park in Delmar, New York after a farmer discovered the remains of an adult man. There was no identification on the deceased individual. The Bethlehem Police Department began an investigation and followed up on all leads for several years before all leads were exhausted. In 2013, the Bethlehem Police Department re-opened the investigation into this case and undertook efforts to identify the deceased man. Through the course of this investigation police were able to locate the mandible and maxilla of the deceased at a dentist office in Saratoga County. The previous dentist at this location had been involved in working to identify the decedent back in 1981. The mandible and maxilla were examined with the assistance of a Forensic Odontologist from the New York State Police, and found to be those of the deceased from 1981. These bones were then submitted to the New York State Police Lab, New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the University of Texas Center for Human Identification in efforts to develop a DNA profile of the deceased. In January 2022, the man was identified as 41-year-old Franklin D. Feldman, a transient originally from Massachusetts. The match was made through familial DNA provided by a family member. While his death is not considered suspicious, it is unclear how exactly Feldman died. Timothy Mangum AKA "Stafford County John Doe (1990)": On September 28, 1990, a homeowner cleaning a field in Stafford County, Virginia found what appeared to be a human skull. DNA testing concluded that the skull belonged to a male aged between 15 and 18 years, and who had likely died a year to three years prior. In February 2022, Othram identified the decedent as Timothy Alan Mangum, a resident of Norfolk who was last seen alive in 1983–1984. As he had not kept in contact with his family, it is unclear what led up to and caused his death. Anyone who might have information regarding Mangum's activities is encouraged to contact the county sheriff's office. Charles Wane Dodd "Montgomery County John Doe": In 1988, a hunter found suspected human skeletal remains while hunting. The skeletal remains were taken to a dentist for examination, who determined they were human remains; further analysis determined them to be the remains of an older human male. In February 2022, Othram identified the remains as Charles Wane Dodd of Dallas, Texas. Dodd was reported missing in 1985, 3 years before the remains were found; he would have been 74 years old at the time of his death. An investigation into the circumstances of his death continues. Ronald David Chambers AKA "Stanwood Bryant Doe": On August 3, 1980, a human skull and bones, the former bearing a gunshot wound to the back, were found on private property in Arlington, Washington. Little was known about the decedent and the case remained cold until the grave was exhumed in 2011 for further research. In February 2022, Othram identified the remains as belonging to 28-year-old Ronald David Chambers, who was last seen leaving a motel in SeaTac in the company of his friend Robert "Bob" Helberg on December 17, 1978. Helberg, a self-professed hitman who was considered a suspect in Chambers' disappearance and several murders, died in a federal prison in California in 1993, but authorities continue to seek information about his activities from 1978 to 1985. Richard Wayne Guarro AKA "Tortoise Reserve Doe": On July 7, 2001, the remains of a man were found approximately five miles off the I-15 highway near Las Vegas, Nevada. Coroners concluded that the victim had been killed, but were unable to establish how exactly he was killed or who had done it at the time. In March 2022, Othram identified the man as 39-year-old Richard Wayne Guarro using DNA provided by his sister. He was last seen alive during a trip to Las Vegas on November 18, 1996, but vanished soon after. Investigators are now seeking information that could lead to his killer. Sharon Lee Gallegos AKA "Little Miss Nobody": The partially buried body of a female child was found in Sand Wash Creek Bed on Old Alamo Road in Congress, Arizona on July 31, 1960. Her cause of death was never determined by medical examiners, but her case was officially declared to be a homicide. She became known as "Little Miss Nobody" after no family or friends came forward to either report her missing or to claim her body. In March 2022, local authorities, with the help of Othram, announced her identity. Gallegos was last seen on 21 July, 1960, when she was abducted as she was in an alley behind her home. Gary Simpson AKA "Moss Point John Doe (1982)": The skeletal remains of a young man were found beneath the eastbound I-10 bridge spanning the Escatawpa River in Moss Point, Mississippi on December 8, 1982. His remains were located only about 60 yards from where the body of Alisha Heinrich was found, however investigators ruled out a connection. This John Doe was estimated to have been in his late teens to early 20's when he died around six months to 3 years prior to Heinrich. In March 2022, local authorities, with the assistance of Othram, identified him as Gary Simpson. Simpson was born in 1962 and was from Louisiana. Investigators continue to investigate the circumstances that led up to Simpson's murder and how he ended up in Mississippi. Stacey Lynn Chahorski AKA "Rising Fawn Jane Doe": On December 16, 1988, the remains of a woman were found near a highway in Rising Fawn, Georgia, with indications that she had been strangled. The case remained cold until the GBI contacted Othram, who utilized DNA to identify the decedent as 19-year-old Stacey Chahorksi, a hitchhiker who last contacted her family members in Norton Shores, Michigan in September 1988. Efforts to identify her killer are ongoing. Roger Brian Bennett AKA "Mr. Bones": On September 19, 1984, deputies from the sheriff's office in Grangeville, Idaho were dispatched to investigate an abandoned campsite they had explored the year prior, after a local reported finding a human skeleton there. While there were numerous personal items in the area, there was no identification. Over the years, authorities made several attempts to identify the decedent, including constructing several different clay composites, but the case remained cold. In April 2022, using DNA extracted from a previous exhumation, Othram identified the man as Roger Brian Bennett. He was last heard of when he contacted his family in Oklahoma in early 1982 to inform them that he had been discharged from Keesler Air Force Base and was on his way to Houma, Louisiana to search for work at an oil rig. His cause of death is unclear, and is under investigation. Brenda Sue Black AKA "Will County Jane Doe": On April 19, 1981, the partial skeletal remains of a woman was found off the I-80 near New Lenox, Illinois. No clothing was found at the scene, and there were indications that the body might have been transported to the crime scene after death. In April 2022, the decedent was identified as Brenda Sue Black, who was last seen on January 1, 1980 in Vandalia, Ohio, while supposedly en route to an unspecified location in California. Investigation into her cause of death is ongoing. Margaret Ann "Maggie" Sniegowski, Jr. AKA "Boone County Jane Doe": On May 3, 1992, the unidentified remains of a woman were found off the I-65, near Lebanon, Indiana by a farmer. Little could be ascertained as to her cause of death, but authorities at the time suspected it was homicidal in nature. On April 13, 2022, the woman was identified as 17-year-old Maggie Sniegowski, who was originally from Toledo, Ohio. Research into her potential murder is ongoing. David E. Reed AKA "Meridian John Doe": In May 2018, the skeletal remains of an adult male were found scattered in a wooded area near 145 U.S. Route 80 near Meridian, Mississippi. This body was estimated to have been between 5'3 and 6'1 in length. There were no identification documents found with the man and he left behind almost no clues as to who he might've been. In 2021, the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office along with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation partnered with Othram to use genetic genealogy to help identify the man. Skeletal remains were sent to Othram's lab where DNA was extracted and a genealogical profile of the man was built. Carla Davis, a Mississippi native and philanthropist, provided funding and performed the genealogical research for the team. On April 21, 2022, the man was identified as David E. Reed, a U.S Navy veteran who was born in 1951. Research into his death is ongoing. Dean Jeffrey AKA "D'iberville John Doe": In April 2020, the body of a man was found in D'iberville, Mississippi, behind 3680 Sangani Blvd about 20 feet from shore in the water. The man didn't have identification documents with him and he left behind few clues as to who he might have been. The only notable detail was his t-shirt which bore an illustration of a little green man and the phrase "Nobody Freakin Cares". In 2021, the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's office along with the D'iberville Police Department partnered with Othram to use genetic genealogy to identify the man. The funding and genealogical research was done by the same philanthropist who helped identify Meridian John Doe. On April 25, 2022, the man was identified as Dean Jeffrey. Research into his death is ongoing. "Lincoln County John Doe (2006)": In 2006, human skeletal remains were found near a wood pile in Missouri. A forensic facial reconstruction was commissioned, but with few leads to pursue, the case went cold. In 2021, the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, the Lincoln County Coroners' Office, and Southeast Missouri State University coordinated with Othram, and used genetic genealogy to identify the man. Due to the condition of the remains at the time of their discovery, Lincoln County Coroner Dan Heavin, has said the cause of death remains undetermined, however there appears to be no signs of foul play or traumatic injury. The relatives of the deceased were contacted, and the remains released for burial. The family has asked that further details to be held in privacy, and local officials have agreed to honor this request. Isabel Sanchez Bernal AKA "Mammoth Lakes Jane Doe": In 2003, skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave in CA. The victim's information was entered into NCIC and ViCAP. With few leads to work from, the case went cold. In 2020, the Mono County Sheriff's Office teamed with Othram to use Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to generate leads. Othram scientists produced a profile and an updated ancestry assessment of the victim. Othram used KinSNP™ familial testing to confirm a familial relationship identified during the investigation, which led to the discovery that the victim was Isabel Sanchez Bernal. Isabel came from Mexico City to Mammoth Lakes in 2002 and worked as a housekeeper in Mammoth Lakes. Several months later, her boyfriend, Diego Hernandez-Antonia, also arrived in Mammoth Lakes, where they stayed with extended family. In the fall of 2002, Diego and Isabel went for a walk however, only Diego returned. When questioned later by family members, Diego said that Isabel had left the area with someone else and provided a forged note from Isabel telling her extended family not to look for her. On April 5, 2022, the Mono County Superior Court sentenced Diego Hernandez-Antonia to a term of 11 years in state prison for the voluntary manslaughter of Isabel Bernal-Sanchez, closing one of the longest “cold cases” in Mono County history. Jimmy Mack Brooks AKA "Chatham County John Doe": On March 31, 1976, the dismembered remains of a male decedent were found in rural Moncure, North Carolina. Due to the lack of basic information about the man or any clues as to what had happened, the case quickly went cold. It was picked up by the NC Unidentified Project in 2020, who subsequently partnered up with Othram to build a genealogical profile of the decedent. In May 2022, he was identified as 26-year-old Jimmy Mack Brooks, an unmarried Army veteran. Little is known about the circumstances of his disappearance and his supposed murder, which is currently under investigation. Juanita Diane Roxy Coleman AKA "Hinds County Jane Doe": On March 13, 2018, the partially burned remains of a female decedent were found in a wooded area near Bolton, Mississippi. A definite cause of death could not be established, but investigators nonetheless deemed the death as "suspicious". In May 2022, the woman was identified as 19-year-old Juanita Coleman, who had been missing since March 2016. For reasons unknown, her mother filed a missing persons report over four years later, on March 11, 2020. She also provided a DNA sample, which was instrumental for the identification itself. Authorities are currently conducting further investigation into her death. Zachary Wells: In January 2022, a fire broke out in a one-story home in southwest Atlanta. Firefighters from the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department responded to the scene where they worked to contain the heavy fire and smoke that had engulfed the home. Once the fire was contained, investigators assessed the damage and found one victim among the debris. In the course of the investigation, a candidate family member volunteered to help rule out the possibility that the victim could be related to them and tested against the profile, using KinSNP® rapid familial testing. Investigators then confirmed that the victim of the fire was 59-year-old Zachary Wells, born and raised in Atlanta, GA. Suzanne "Susan" Gale Poole AKA "Singer Island Jane Doe": In June 1974, deputies from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office discovered the skeletal remains of a young girl in a swampy area of Singer Island. The girl was tied up with wire to mangroves. She was described as a white female between the ages of 14 and 25. This decedent was estimated to be 4'11 to 5'2 tall and weighed about 83 to 103 pounds. Over the years many attempts were made to identify this girl including the creation of a DNA profile for CODIS in 2015 and of a facial reconstruction in 2019, however all these efforts proved to be fruitless. In December 2021, the Sheriff's Office sent the skeletal remains to Othram in order to perform genetic genealogy on them. In March 2022, Othram's in-house genealogy team sent investigate leads back to the agency. The Sheriff's Office used these leads to contact potential family members and collect DNA samples from them. On June 2, 2022, the girl was identified as 15-year-old Suzanne "Susan" Gale Poole of Fort Lauderdale who had been reported missing in 1972, right before Christmas. It is suspected that Poole is a potential victim of serial killer Gerald John Schaefer because several of his confirmed victims were also tied up in mangroves. Authorities are currently conducting further investigation into her murder. Blaine Has Tricks AKA "Snohomish County John Doe (1977)": In September 1977, a bulldozer operator discovered human remains of a man in the Marysville Landfill. He was estimated to be a white male between the ages of 20 and 40, 5'6-5'8 tall, and 155-160 pounds with long black hair. Investigators determined that the man died about 2 weeks prior to his discovery. His remains were determined to have originated from business dumpsters in the downtown Seattle area. Several missing persons were ruled out by circumstances or dental records. DNA from the man's femur bone was extracted by the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center in September 2018. In March 2019, the DNA was uploaded to CODIS, but there were no matches. In January 2021, a section of the man's femur bone was sent to Othram in order to extract DNA from it. In April 2021, Othram successfully extracted sufficient DNA for testing and proceeded to develop a DNA profile that could be uploaded to genealogical databases. The man was determined to be predominantly Native American through the DNA profile. The Snohomish County Medical Office were able to find a match through a grand niece level of the man's family tree. On June 16, 2022 the man was identified as Blaine Has Tricks, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota. Blaine was born on May 31, 1939 and was 38 years old at the time of his disappearance. He was last seen in 1977 when he boarded a train with his brother Clayton "Ross" Has Tricks bound for Spokane, Washington. Ross returned home to North Dakota, but Blaine was never heard from again and wasn't reported missing. Old newspaper records place Blaine in Spokane Washington around February 1977 and it's unknown when or how he came to Seattle. The investigation in his murder is ongoing. Alice Lou Williams AKA "Beckler River Jane Doe (2009)": In October 2009, U.S Forest surveyors discovered the partial cranium of a woman in a steep forested ravine near Beckler Road north of Skykomish, Washington. She was estimated to be over 40 years old, but her race and other physical characteristics couldn't be determined due to the scant amount of skeletal remains found and the incomplete cranium. The woman was determined to have died at least one year to several decades prior to being discovered. Her death was classified as suspicious due to the presence of trauma and the location where the cranium was found. In March 2010, a small portion of the woman's cranium was sent to the FBI in Quantico, Virginia for DNA extraction in order to upload it to CODIS. The FBI managed to obtain mtDNA and STR samples both of which were uploaded to CODIS, but no matches were found there. Over the years, the STR profile was used to rule out several missing women. The DNA Doe Project and DNA Solutions attempted to extract DNA in 2017 and 2019 respectively, however all efforts were.unsuccessful either due to contamination or DNA samples being insufficient for testing. In June 2021, Othram was contacted to perform genetic genealogy on the woman's cranium. In March 2022, Othram managed to obtain a DNA sample that was sufficient enough for a DNA profile. The Snohomish County Medical Office uploaded the DNA profile and found multiple close matches. On June 16, 2022, the woman was identified as Alice Lou Williams. Missing person reports filed in Snohomish County show that Williams disappeared under suspicious circumstances in July 1981 from her recreational cabin at Lake Loma located five miles northwest of Marysville, Washington. The investigation into her death is ongoing. Joyce Marilyn Meyer Sommers AKA "Christmas Tree Lady": In December 1996, a groundskeeper at Pleasant Valley Memorial Park Cemetery in Annandale, Virginia found a woman's body. She was found in a section designated for infant burials, but wasn't near a particular grave. The woman was estimated to be a white female with red or copper hair between the ages of 50-70 years old and was approximately 5 feet tall. The woman was found with a plastic bag over her head, along with two fifty dollar bills, one for the coroner and one for the cemetery. A note was found with her body that stated: "Deceased by own hand...prefer no autopsy. Please order cremation with funds provided. Thank you. Jane Doe". The woman's autopsy report showed that she had alcohol and valium in her system when she died. Investigators suspected that the woman committed suicide and the official cause of death was determined to be suffocation. She was given the name of "Christmas Tree Lady" because of a small 8 inch Christmas tree that was found next to her. Over the years, numerous missing person reports from the National Capital Region were compared to the decedent's physical description, but no matches were found. A colorized sketch of the decedent was made in 2000 in hopes that a friend or family member would recognize her, but no leads were produced. In January 2022, detectives of the Fairfax County Police Department sent physical evidence to Othram where its scientists created a genealogical profile for the decedent. In May 2022, investigative leads were returned to the detectives who used them to find a suspected family member which led to more family connections across the country. A DNA sample from a close relative confirmed a match eventually leading to the decedent's siblings. On July 7, 2022, the "Christmas Tree Lady" was formally identified as 69-year-old Joyce Marilyn Meyer Sommers. Meyer was born in July 1927, the eldest of 5 siblings and was raised on a farm outside of Davenport, Iowa. Family members believe she moved to Virginia sometime after the mid-1980's. Meyer wasn't reported missing at the time of her death, but family members spent years looking for her and even hired a private detective at one point. It was determined that Meyer never had children.

Reaction to the verdict in the O. J. Simpson criminal trial

On Tuesday, October 3, 1995, the verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder case was announced and Simpson was acquitted on both counts of murder. Although the nation observed the same evidence presented at trial, a division along racial lines emerged in observers opinion of the verdict, which the media dubbed the "racial gap". Polling showed that most African Americans believed Simpson was innocent and justice had been served, while most White Americans felt he was guilty and the verdict was a racially motivated jury nullification by a mostly African-American jury. Current polling shows the gap has narrowed since the trial, with the majority of black respondents in 2016 stating they believed Simpson was guilty. The narrowing racial gap is primarily attributed to several factors: Daniel Petrocelli disproving all of the blood planting claims at the wrongful death civil trial, defense witness Henry Lee published a peer review study in 1996 that effectively refuted the contamination claim that disputed the validity of the states DNA evidence, and the fading of Simpson's celebrity status since the trial. Most African Americans believed Simpson was innocent, but that changed one year later after the civil trial when Barry Scheck's contamination claim and all of his blood planting claims were disproven. Without either of them, defending Simpson's innocence became increasingly untenable as there was no justification for doubting the DNA evidence against him. The television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation popularized the reliability of DNA matching with the public as well. Simpson's celebrity status faded among Africans Americans after he relocated to Florida and disappeared from the public eye. His arrest and conviction in 2008 for armed robbery brought him back into the public spot light, especially after he received a disproportionately higher prison sentence than his co-conspirators, which generated controversy even from his detractors, but the response from African Americans was relatively muted, and pundits opined this demonstrated how much the conscience of Black America has evolved since the time the verdict was announced. The trial and verdict had an historic impact on American culture. It is credited with transforming public opinion about domestic abuse from being considered a private familial matter to a serious crime. The trial is also credited with raising awareness about the stigma that Interracial couples still face from both white and African Americans. The passage of California Proposition 209 in 1996 that ended affirmative action in the state is also attributed to the verdict as well because it resulted in declining empathy towards issues of racial discrimination and civil rights among White Americans. A historic drop in diversity in the University of California and California State University education systems followed which later led to a similar lack of diversity seen in the state's White-collar job market, particularly the high tech area of Silicon Valley since most of the early pioneers of the Dot.com boom of the late 1990s were graduates from the UC and CSU systems. In The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, African American Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford wrote that the two most important race trials of the 20th century were that of Emmett Till and O.J. Simpson. These national trials are often seen as a test of the nations conscience. The outcome is often disappointing and that is what motivates positive change. The murder of Till shocked the nation for its brutality, which then turned into outrage after the defendants were speedily acquitted by an all white jury, despite strong evidence of guilt. The outrage then mobilized into the civil rights movement of th 1960s after the defendants' brazen admission one year later. The event was a moment of clarity for white Americans as they were forced to confront the realities of racial injustice in America as the admitted murderers of Till, protected by double jeopardy, remained free for the rest of their lives. Ford believes that the Simpson trial had a similar legacy for African Americans because they saw the same evidence presented as white Americans yet many still believed he was innocent. The fact that belief in Simpson's guilt or innocence depended on the race of the individual being polled, not on the evidence against them, demonstrates that the justice system is still compromised by race but the narrowing racial gap demonstrates just the opposite as well because both sides are seeing the same evidence and reaching the same conclusion concerning Simpson's guilt regardless of their race. Simpson, also protected by double jeopardy, would himself later imply in many ways that he was guilty of the murders, such as willingly participating in the publication of the book If I Did It and doing an interview with Judith Regan on television in which he described his version of events, which included a supposed accomplice named Charlie but in which he also admitted he was present at the crime scene holding the knife but could not remember crucial details. These elements directly contradicted all of Johnnie Cochran's conspiracy theories at the criminal trial, and also led to outrage and fuelled the public's belief that Simpson was indeed guilty of the murders as they were perceived as Simpson's confession. Journalists opined that empathy has recovered among white Americans for issues of racial injustice since the trial and point to the response by White Americans to the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, polling that shows strong support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and the attempt, though unsuccessful, to repeal prop Criticism of the Jury:Jurors Amanda Cooley, Carrie Bess and Marsha Rubin-Jackson published Madame Foreman: A Rush to Judgement? They describe why they felt there was reasonable doubt despite personally believing Simpson might be guilty. Because it was published only a few months after the verdict and before the other attorneys and detectives published their books, it is considered an accurate picture of what the jury believed when they acquitted Simpson. Critics panned the book, and it became a source of embarrassment for the authors as critics claim it proves many of their claims about the jury. Misunderstanding of DNA evidence: Toobin, Rantala, and Bugliosi all claim the jurors misunderstood the DNA evidence in the case. Rantala based this on the claims they made in Madame Foreman. Bess wrote she thought the blood at the crime scene belonged to Simpson's children while Cooley wrote she thought the blood actually belonged to criminalist Andrea Mazzola. In Outrage, Bugliosi opined they misunderstood the defense's argument because "contamination cannot change someone's DNA into someone else's" which is what the jurors apparently believed. Toobin wrote they misunderstood the facts of the case regarding the DNA evidence. Jackson wrote she thought Simpson's blood at the crime scene was there before the murders happened. Bess also admitted to not knowing that Simpson's blood was on the glove found at his home that Fuhrman allegedly planted. Cooley admitted to discarding blood evidence without any justification at all. The Juror Beatrice Wilson admitted that "I didn't understand the DNA stuff at all. To me, it was a waste of time. It was way out there and carried absolutely no weight with me." The jurors stopped claiming there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence after learning that both of the forensic DNA experts for the defense, Henry Lee and Edward Blake, had rejected the contamination claim that Scheck and Neufeld argued. Blake also admitted that was the reason why he was dropped from the witness list. Cochran mentioned Blake in opening statements but never produced him as a witness, and in closing arguments, Clark had mentioned Blake's absence as proof the results were reliable. Dismissal of domestic violence being racially motivated: Clark wrote that she believed the jury dismissed Simpson's abuse of Nicole for racial reasons. She wrote that "race trumped gender" and that they identified with the abuser rather than the victim due to race. Shapiro, Dershowitz, and Uelman also agreed with Clark. Dershowitz stated: "the jurors were black first, women second". Uelman stated their research suggested that black women typically are opposed to interracial marriage and would be hostile to Brown. Detective Mark Fuhrman was also accused of opposing interracial couples, but he was labeled a racist for this and many other reasons, while the African-American jurors who felt the same way were not. The jurors called the domestic violence argument a "waste of time," and juror Brenda Moran said "this is a murder trial, not a domestic violence trial". They claim they discarded it because there were no new incidents of abuse since 1989 but a 911 call of an incident eight months before Brown's death was presented at trial and again during summation. The jurors also claimed that they did not believe Brown thought her life was seriously in danger, but one of the documents they saw at trial was a will stating her wishes in the event of her death. In 2016, Carrie Bess's statement regarding Nicole continuing her marriage to Simpson despite the abuse was consistent with victim blaming: "I lose respect for any woman who takes an ass-whoopin' when she don't have to. Don't stay under the water if it's over your head, you'll drown". Writing for Bustle, Caitlin Gallagher criticized Bess and labelled her comment as "unsettling" and "wholly intolerable". Very notably, Bess would later claim that acquitting Simpson was revenge for the Rodney King beating, a case in which she sympathized with King, the African-American victim, in stark contrast to the white Nicole, who she blamed for being beaten by Simpson, implying that her motives were based on racism rather than principles: "Back then, we took care of our own, but now, you're on your own". Bill Hodgman concluded that the black jurors were not able to connect the domestic abuse with the murder, while Clark claimed that they understood it fully but simply did not care about Nicole. In O.J.: Made in America, African-American journalist Sylvester Monroe addressed the racial issues involved in the trial and claimed that his mother had said that had Simpson been accused of beating and murdering his first wife, Marguerite L. Whitley, who was African-American, "this would not have been the trial of the century, and his black ass would be in jail". Shapiro wrote that the jury consultants stated that "black women often will be defensive and even protective of black men who are accused of such behavior by white women." Dismissed juror Jeanette Harris was cited as an example of this. She concealed her domestic abuse so she could be on the jury but then denied it so she could stay on the jury and then minimized it after being dismissed in order to protect Simpson, even after his domestic abuse had been proven. Darnel Hunt opines that the worst part of the prosecution's case was the indifference by contemporary African Americans to the domestic violence. The revelation of the abuse had turned public opinion against Simpson, but his support among African Americans remained relatively unchanged. The tension over Interracial marriage in the United States stems from it once being criminalized. These laws were created by the white majority and were indisputably motivated by racism. All of the jurors were raised at a time when those laws were still in place in some parts of the country before finally being ruled unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. The son of the first interracial couple married in Virginia after that ruling was Ezra Edelman, the director of O.J.: Made in America. The jurors stopped claiming the abuse was irrelevant after Lenore E. Walker revealed that she was dropped from the witness list by the defense because her research concluded that over 80% of murdered spouses who are victims of abuse are killed by their abusers. Rubin-Jackson later apologized to Denise Brown, who became an advocate for survivors of domestic violence, for calling it a waste of time. The strong public reaction to Brown's letters and statements that were later ruled inadmissible as hearsay spurred passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, which Clark and Douglas referred to as the "O.J. rule". The act was a direct response to the Simpson case and included provisions that required mandatory arrests in domestic violence situations, allowed prosecution of abusers even if the victim doesn't testify, and provided hearsay exceptions in domestic violence situations so statements made by the victim are admissible even if they are unavailable for cross-examination. After the trial, researchers reported increased reporting, arrests, and harsher sentences for those convicted of domestic violence. Bias against the prosecution: Bugliosi wrote that "there can be little question - though no one could expect any of the Simpson jurors to admit it - that most members of the jury was biased against the prosecution and in favor of Simpson." and that "Other than when a killer is apprehended in the act, I have never seen a more obvious case of guilt. All of the evidence - not some or most of it - points irresistibly to Simpsons guilt and his guilt alone" and claims the jury was biased against the prosecution and the police and made absurd arguments for discarding evidence and specifically cites the bloody footprint in Simpson's Bronco as proof of this. Police found a trail of bloody footprints in Browns blood made by the killer leading from the crime scene to the alleyway where cars are usually parked and a faint one inside Simpson's Bronco. Bugliosi said they could have convicted Simpson based solely on that but they discarded it and claimed absurdly that Fuhrman could have planted it there. Alan Dershowitz stated the jury "wanted to let Simpson go" and cited their dismissal of Allan Park's testimony for "trivial" reasons as evidence of this. Park testified that Simpson's Bronco wasn't there when he arrived that night at Rockingham and no one answered the intercom or appeared to be home and presumably saw Simpson arrive that night at his house but Bess said she dismissed Park's testimony because he didn't know how many cars were parked in Simpson's driveway, which had nothing to do with his testimony. Bess also said she discarded the evidence of Simpson's blood at the crime scene because she believed Vannatter could have planted it there when he returned to Simpson's home that evening even though the crime scene wasn't even there. Shelia Woods discarded all of the DNA evidence at the crime because she incorrectly thought all of it was found on the back gate, and she found that suspicious. Cooley admitted to discarding blood evidence without any justification at all. In Ezra Edelman's 2016 documentary O.J.: Made in America, Carrie Bess said she believed "90% of the jury" actually decided to acquit Simpson as payback for the Rodney King incident, not because they believed in his innocence, and when asked if she believed the decision was correct, she merely shrugged indifferently. Following the acquittal, Bill Hodgman claimed that in conversation with the deputy sheriff who had released the jurors, the sheriff had witnessed reunions and celebrations between the jurors and their families and heard numerous times that the acquittal was indeed revenge for Rodney King. Juror Yolanda Crawford, however, denied Bess's claim, and said that the verdict was due to the prosecution's mistakes, such as presenting Fuhrman as a witness and having Simpson don the gloves, while also voicing her displeasure at what she perceived as Cochran's attempts to sway the jury with racial hints such as wearing an African-style tie. In an interview with Meredith Vieira, she said the verdict may have been different had they seen the photos of Simpson wearing the Bruno Magli shoes that he denied owning. However, the sole black juror in the civil case that was dismissed stated afterwards that she would have hung the jury had she stayed because she thought all 31 photos of Simpson wearing those shoes were forgeries. All of the jurors expressed a belief that fraud had taken place, but during the subsequent civil trial, Daniel M. Petrocelli had deductively disproven all of the blood planting conspiracy claims made at the criminal trial by Scheck. Petrocelli noted that the evidence used to disprove those claims was available at the criminal trial which led to further criticism that the jury discarded evidence and that the verdict was a racially-motivated jury nullification. The only fraud claim that could not be deductively disproven was Fuhrman planting the glove at Simpson's home, but there was no physical or eyewitness evidence to support this. Jeffrey Toobin wrote that the defense was planning on making that claim months before the trial began because that was the only explanation for why that glove was found at Simpson's home. The only two arguments made to support that claim were Simpson's struggling to put on the gloves and the Fuhrman tapes which suggested he was capable of such conduct. The investigation into the Fuhrman tapes found no evidence of wrongdoing and instead found evidence that he was playacting for the Hollywood screenwriter like he later claimed, and Shapiro admitted that Simpson was acting (as the prosecution claimed) when he appeared to struggle to put on the gloves. Vincent Bugliosi wrote that the conspiracy allegations were designed to explain incriminating evidence that the defense couldn't refute. Simpson's blood on the Bundy back gate, Brown's blood on the sock, the bloody footprint in Simpson's Bronco and the location of one of the bloody gloves (Simpson's home) couldn't be explained by either contamination or incompetence so the defense made conspiracy claims of fraud instead. When the prosecution began offering evidence refuting the contamination claim and demonstrating the irrelevance of the mistakes made, the conspiracy allegation expanded to claim that all of the evidence was planted, including the blood which Simpson himself had already admitted on tape to Lange and Vanatter he had bled in his home, driveway and Bronco after cutting himself the same night Nicole and Ron were killed. Bugliosi also pointed out in Outrage that Simpson himself never once accused the police of conspiring to frame him or pursuing the wrong man, he and his team gave conflicting alibis to the public (Simpson told Alan Park that he overslept and had a shower, while Robert Shapiro claimed that Simpson was playing golf in Chicago), he apologized to Lange and the police over the telephone during the Bronco chase and conceded that the police were "just doing their job", and that the racism-based conspiracy allegations were something that Shapiro, Cochran and Scheck thought up themselves after the trial had begun. Bugliosi added that though the LAPD had a reputation for brutality against African Americans, they had never once been accused of framing or attempting to frame any suspects, proven when nobody came forward to back the defense's conspiracy claims up, and pointed out that Simpson deliberately chose to waive his right to testify on the witness stand in front of the jury (who Bugliosi cited specifically as the twelve people who could have sent him to prison for life) to proclaim his innocence during the trial, since it would have involved being cross-examined by Clark and Darden, and only decided to tell his version of events following his acquittal due to double jeopardy laws that protected him from being prosecuted again. In O.J.: Made in America, Carl E. Douglas admitted that after the final jury had been selected, Simpson whispered in Cochran's ear, "If this jury convicts me, then maybe I did do it." Bugliosi has cited Daniel Petrocelli's cross-examination of Simpson during the civil trial in which Simpson denied ever beating Nicole or owning the Bruno Magli shoes despite evidence proving that he was lying as one of the main reasons that Simpson was found liable for both deaths. Darnel Hunt wrote that African American distrust of the police is not unfounded, but the claim of a wide-ranging police conspiracy was entirely implausible. Hunt said the jury accepted every fraud claim the defense made without question, and that is what later led to their criticism after those claims were refuted. Years later, some of the jurors still reiterate those claims. In 2016, juror Shelia Woods stated she still thinks that Simpson's blood on the back gate at Bundy was planted by the police despite the blood being photographed there prior to Simpson's blood being drawn from his arm. Prosecutor William Hodgman was supposed to be Clark's co-counsel but was replaced with Darden after he became hospitalized. During a press conference, Johnnie Cochran claimed that the prosecution were merely using Darden as a black man to boost their case, which caused the jury to consider Darden a token black assigned to the case. Mark Fuhrman wrote feeling the same way about Darden. Jeffrey Toobin claimed that everything Cochran was saying about Darden was basically "Uncle Tom" and expressed his disgust at Cochran's behavior. Reversal of opinion by some jurors and defense attorneys: Several jurors have reversed their previous opinions of Simpson's innocence. In 2016, Carrie Bess admitted that while she still believes that acquitting Simpson as payback for Rodney King was the correct decision in the atmosphere of the 1990s, she regrets the not guilty verdict following Simpson's arrest in Las Vegas, and labelled Simpson as "stupid" for getting himself into more trouble. Juror number nine, Lionel Cryer, a former member of the Black Panther Party who notably gave Simpson a black power raised fist after the verdict, said that in retrospect, he would render a guilty verdict. Juror Anise Aschenbach, who initially voted guilty before changing her vote, stated she regrets the decision and believes Simpson is guilty because he is not looking for the "real killer" like he promised he would. As of 2021, Carrie Bess remains the only author of Madame Foreman who has not apologized to either the Browns or Goldmans for the verdict, the book or her comments about Nicole, and who continues to assert that acquitting Simpson as payback for Rodney King was not an incorrect decision. In Outrage, Bugliosi pointed out that after the verdict was read, while Johnnie Cochran was the only one who appeared happy to the point that he hugged Simpson from behind, Shapiro and Kardashian both looked rather shocked, while Bailey looked indifferent, the latter three which Bugliosi cited was uncommon for defense attorneys who had successfully acquitted a client they truly believed to be innocent. In O.J.: Made in America, film director Peter Hyams, who had worked with Simpson in Capricorn One, claimed that he had discussed the possibility of Simpson's guilt with a friend, who had admitted that in order for Mark Fuhrman to successfully frame Simpson, he would have to know that Simpson had no alibi whatsoever and that he was not risking his own job or life as well, since Fuhrman would have been facing the death penalty himself if he had attempted to manufacture or plant evidence in a double homicide case which itself warranted capital punishment (as this preceded Gil Garcetti's decision to reduce Simpson's maximum possible sentence from execution to life without parole), and went on to admit that he believed Simpson was the killer. Scheck refused to give a definitive answer as to whether or not he truly believed all the evidence against Simpson had been planted as he had claimed at the trial, claiming that it was not his place to believe and that he is not omniscient. Bailey, who had since been disbarred for attorney misconduct and was the only one allowed to express his personal opinion, continued to assert without any valid explanation or proof that Fuhrman single-handedly planted the glove to frame Simpson, and when asked what motive Fuhrman would have, Bailey merely responded that Simpson had married a white woman, which he described as a "capital offense in Fuhrman's eyes". In an interview with Barbara Walters, Robert Kardashian admitted that he had doubts about Simpson's innocence due to the blood evidence. Kardashian, who was close friends with Nicole, would later sever his ties with Simpson. Criticism of the prosecution: Prosecutor Hank Goldberg published The Prosecution Responds: An O.J. Simpson Trial Prosecutor Reveals what Really Happened (1999) and wrote that the verdict was the result of a "perfect storm" of mistakes by investigators, prosecutors, and the court, all taking place in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi published Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. Bugliosi primarily attributes the verdict to poor decisions by the prosecutors but added that poor stewardship by Judge Lance Ito and the change of venue that he claims resulted in a jury that was hostile to the prosecution contributed as well. Inaccurate estimate of Simpson's blood draw: According to Goldberg, Hodgman, Darden and Marcia Clark, the principal mistake made in the case was during the preliminary phase when Thano Peratis incorrectly estimated how much blood he drew from Simpson. He estimated initially that he withdrew 8 mLs from Simpson, but the records show that only 6.5 mLs was accounted for, and the defense alleged that 1.5 mLs of Simpson's blood was missing. That mistake threw the prosecution on the defensive as Scheck claimed it was missing due to fraud. Peratis was scheduled to testify again early in the trial to clarify, but he became hospitalized, and the jury never heard him correct his estimate until the rebuttal stage of the trial, after Scheck had already made all of his blood planting claims. The glove demonstration: It was prosecutor Christopher Darden who asked to have Simpson try on the gloves at trial. In O.J.: Made in America, Marcia Clark claimed that she had implored Darden not to have Simpson try the gloves on, and they had fought many times about it. Though Darden accepted, Bailey fooled him into having Simpson try them on, stating that if he didn't, the defense would. The gloves not fitting was national news because of the perceived impact it had on the jurors and also universally recognized as a prosecutorial blunder. Bugliosi was very critical of Darden and wrote that asking Simpson to don the gloves was akin to asking Simpson if he was guilty and expecting him to reply affirmatively. Juror Brenda Moran said she acquitted Simpson because the gloves didn't fit, but juror Lionel Cryer said the glove demonstration was pointless because it was obvious they had changed from their original condition because Darden produced a new pair of the same type gloves, and they fit Simpson just fine. In O.J.: Made in America, Simpson's sports agent, Mike Gilbert, claimed that before the glove demonstration, he advised Simpson to stop taking his arthritis medication so that his hands would swell and not fit the gloves. On The Rich Eisen Show, however, defense attorney Carl E. Douglas disputed Gilbert's claim as preposterous, and said that the defense team was unaware that there would be a glove demonstration at all, even though Bailey had already admitted in O.J.: Made in America that they were aware of the coming demonstration and that he had fooled Darden into having Simpson try the gloves on so that it would be seen as a mistake on the prosecution's part and not the defense's. Failure to introduce incriminating evidence: Prosecutor William Hodgman, prior to being replaced as Clark's co-counsel, decided not to introduce the evidence of the Bronco chase, the suicide note, the items found inside the Bronco and the video of Simpson's police interview. Clark agreed and chose not to present it after Hodgman was replaced. Bugliosi was very critical of Clark's decision because that evidence was very incriminating - Simpson admitted in the police interview that he cut his finger and bled all over his house, driveway and Bronco the same day as the murders, he gave conflicting alibis to the public (he told Alan Park the limo driver that he overslept and then had a shower when Park testified that he had seen Simpson dressed in black clothes enter his house moments earlier, and Robert Shapiro claimed that Simpson was in Chicago at a golf conference the night of the murders), he apologized in his letter (which Robert Kardashian read to the press on live television) to the family of Ron Goldman for what could only be his murder because they had never even met, he took his passport with him when he fled implying he intended to leave the country and brought a disguise kit so he wouldn't be recognized. Bugliosi stated that after both Simpson and Al Cowlings were arrested, Cowlings was asked if he believed Simpson committed the murders, and Cowlings conceded that the physical evidence spoke for itself. Clark agreed with Bugliosi that the evidence was incriminating yet defended her decision and noted the public was aware that his actions implied guilt yet thousands of people were supporting his attempt to flee prosecution and were sympathetic to his feelings of guilt. Jeffrey Toobin added that the jury was already aware of the Bronco chase, the suicide note and the items found in the Bronco because they had watched the event on TV and decided to discard it nonetheless. Dropping the domestic violence portion of the case: Prosecutor Marcia Clark was the one who decided to drop the domestic violence portion of the case halfway through presenting it. Darden wrote that the domestic violence was the motive for the murders. Vincent Bugliosi wrote he would have gone into more detail about it and noted that the abuse had turned public opinion against Simpson and opined that it would have also turned the jury against him as well if Clark and Darden had presented it better, writing that juror Brenda Moran claiming that domestic abuse being irrelevant to murder was the same as claiming that overeating was irrelevant to obesity. Daniel M. Petrocelli credited the difference in the outcome in civil trial to the jury being receptive to the argument that domestic abuse is a prelude to murder. Darden wrote that the presentation of that part of the case was hampered by Judge Ito ruling the letters and statements by Nicole inadmissible as hearsay. Witness accounts were admissible, but Ito again delayed the prosecution from calling them until after all the forensic evidence had been presented. By then, Darden wrote, the jury was exhausted and appeared disinterested in hearing anymore about the abuse. Clark claimed she dropped it because she felt the DNA evidence in the case was insurmountable, but the media speculated it was due to the comments by dismissed juror Jeanette Harris, and Darden confirmed that to be true. Harris was a victim of domestic violence but failed to disclose it and was dismissed as a result. But afterwards, she gave an interview and called Simpson's abuse of Brown "a whole lot of nothing" and said other jurors on the panel felt the same way. In Evidence Dismissed and Murder in Brentwood, Detectives Lange, Vannatter and Fuhrman all wrote that they considered the history of domestic violence to be a weak motive for murder as well. Changing the venue: In Outrage, Bugliosi criticized the prosecution for holding the trial in downtown Los Angeles rather than Santa Monica where the murders took place. Alan Dershowitz stated the prosecution did this intentionally, but Toobin wrote that changing the venue is the domain of the courts, not the district attorney, and the trial "could never have been held anywhere except the criminal courts building in downtown Los Angeles" because that was the only area at the time that could accommodate it. Darden wrote in In Contempt that it was hypocritical to criticize the defense for allegedly trying to seat black jurors while also criticizing the prosecution for not wanting to hold the trial in Santa Monica so there would be fewer black jurors. During the jury selection process, both the defense and the prosecution were accused of intentionally trying to seat or exclude black jurors respectively which was illegal because California courts barred peremptory challenges to jurors based on race in People v. Wheeler. Mark Fuhrman: In Outrage, Bugliosi criticized Marcia Clark and Chris Darden for their remarks about Mark Fuhrman in their closing arguments, in which Clark referred to him as a racist, "the worst the LAPD has to offer" and essentially wishing a person like him never born, and Darden claiming that he would never again refer to him as "Detective Fuhrman" on the basis that he did not warrant the title, both of them essentially strengthening the defense's claims about race. Bugliosi cited a case which Fuhrman had worked on in October 1994, in which Arrick Harris, an African-American male narcotics dealer, had been falsely accused of murdering a white male who he had previously threatened to kill, but had later been freed based on evidence that Fuhrman himself had discovered, and criticized Clark for not bringing it up to refute the defense's claim that Fuhrman was racist.[80] Detectives Lange and Vanatter agreed with Bugliosi, stating that Clark went too far and her closing argument actually did more to damage the LAPD's credibility in the eyes of the jury, while Bugliosi also criticized Clark and Darden for not confronting Fuhrman about his history of using racial epithets from the beginning and instructing him to tell the truth on the witness stand if asked about it by the defense in order to portray himself as an honest witness. Vannatter conceded in an interview that the LAPD contacted the wrong prosecutor. Lange and Vannatter also criticized Fuhrman for committing perjury and then pleading the fifth. Lange in particular criticized Fuhrman for using racial epithets in such a disparaging way on tape without expecting any possible future consequences. In Outrage, Bugliosi also cited that following the trial, co-prosecutor Bill Hodgman had claimed that he had evidence of Fuhrman working hard to exonerate more African-Americans, and criticized him for not producing it. Bugliosi also pointed out that fourteen uniformed officers, most of whom had never met Fuhrman, arrived at the crime scene and saw only one glove before Fuhrman arrived, and faulted Clark and Darden for producing only two of them instead of all fourteen to clarify that there was only one glove, and thus it would have been impossible for Fuhrman to plant a second glove or for Lange, Vannatter or Fung to plant any evidence at Simpson's estate without being seen, only unless it was a conspiracy between several different unconnected divisions of the LAPD, the LAPD crime lab, and the two private crime labs which also received the blood samples, which Bugliosi dismissed as an impossibility. Fuhrman himself claimed that to believe that he planted the second glove would be as absurd as believing that he planted Kato Kaelin, Simpson's friend who was sleeping at Simpson's guesthouse on the night of the murders and who testified that he heard three loud thumps like an earthquake coming from the same area where Fuhrman found the second glove, and pointed out that while Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey were accusing him of planting the glove by placing it in a plastic bag and stuffing it in his sock so it would not be seen, they did not once subpoena his clothes from the night of the murders to look for any actual physical proof of their allegations, which proved that both Cochran and Bailey knew that Fuhrman was innocent of any crimes but were deliberately lying to the predominantly-black jury to play on their emotions and get a racially-motivated jury nullification. In 2006, one year after Cochran died, in an interview with Judith Regan for If I Did It, Simpson conceded that he "must have" dropped one glove at the crime scene because that was where the police found it, directly contradicting Cochran and Bailey's claims that a different killer had left two gloves at the crime scene and Fuhrman had planted one of them on Simpson's property to frame him. Though the interview was not broadcast until 2018, the book was published in 2007, and even though the book included Simpson's concession, Bailey continued to assert until his passing in June 2021 that Fuhrman planted the glove. In O.J.: Made in America, Fuhrman claimed that in 1985, he had responded to a 911 call from Nicole and witnessed Simpson threatening Nicole with a baseball bat, and had to threaten Simpson with physical violence to make him drop the bat, but Nicole declined to press charges. During the trial, both Cochran and Bailey cited this encounter as Fuhrman's motive to frame Simpson, but claimed that it was based on his dislike for interracial couples, conveniently omitting that Fuhrman had stopped Simpson from potentially murdering Nicole in 1985. After the trial, pressure was put on district attorney Gil Garcetti by the African American community to prosecute Fuhrman, which resulted in Fuhrman pleading no contest to a felony perjury charge and being fired from the LAPD, which angered Bugliosi among others, since the same had not been applied to the defense witnesses and experts who later admitted that they had deliberately committed perjury in Simpson's favor about facts which actually were relevant to the case. Ironically, Fuhrman, who was the prosecution's star witness, was the only one who was convicted on charges stemming from the Simpson trial, which led to Bugliosi referring to him as a "victim". Both Bugliosi and Fuhrman asserted Section 128 of the California Penal Code that states that planting evidence in a capital offense warrants the death penalty, but in a televised debate between Bugliosi and Dershowitz on a June 11, 1996 edition of Larry King Live, Dershowitz dismissed Section 128 as a lie and continued to assert that Fuhrman and Vannatter had planted evidence and lied on the witness stand. Writer Dominick Dunne was quoted as saying that it seemed as if using racial epithets had briefly become a worse crime than murder, and criticized Johnnie Cochran for repeatedly describing his defense as a "search for truth" while he himself was knowingly lying and manipulating the jury based on facts irrelevant to the case itself. Fuhrman compared his situation to that of Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective who had written a semi-fictional novel, The Choirboys, in which the same racial epithets were uttered by the main characters, and pointed out the hypocrisy that nobody had accused Wambaugh of racism or white supremacy while he had been condemned by the public for doing the same for a fictional screenplay, and criticized the prosecution for abandoning him instead of presenting the screenplay or any witnesses who would prove its fictitious nature, such as the agent in charge of its publication or the screenplay's producers. Criticism of the defense- "Race Card": "It will upset the black jurors; it will issue a test and the test will be: Whose side are you on? The side of the white policeman or the side of the black defendant and his very prominent and black lawyer." — Christopher Darden, arguing against allowing the defense to ask questions about using the word “Nigger”., In Contempt In July, polling suggested that 90% of African Americans did not believe that race was a factor in the murders of Brown and Goldman. The controversy of the June 27 Time Magazine cover, which had a darkened mugshot of Simpson, seemed to have generated sympathy for Simpson due to allegations of racism, even though he had been accused of a double murder. Shapiro admitted the defense played the "race card from the bottom of the deck". Dershowitz, who later criticized Cochran for introducing race into the trial, later wrote in Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case that "we played the only card we could". In O.J.: Made in America, Jeffrey Toobin agreed with Darden's initial request of banning racial issues from the trial because they were irrelevant and "would blind the jury...and cause extreme prejudice to the prosecutions case" as Darden stated. Toobin opines that while Cochran's closing statement is best known for his phrase, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit", the question that Cochran was truly putting to the jury was "Whose side are you on?" Dismissed juror Jeanette Harris confirmed that the jury was dividing themselves along racial lines as a result of race being introduced into the trial. Cochran's statements during his summation also suggest this as well: "If you grew up in this country, then you know there are Fuhrmans out there" was a naked appeal to racial solidarity to the black jurors according to Toobin and his statement "acquit Simpson and send the police a message" was an appeal for a jury nullification for the murders according to Alan Dershowitz. After the verdict was read, juror Lionel Cryer gave Simpson a Raised fist black power salute. Though Robert Shapiro was the attorney who introduced race into the trial through an interview with Jeffrey Toobin, he clashed with Johnnie Cochran several times over the extent of racial issues in the case. "My position was always the same, that race would not and should not be a part of this case. I was wrong. Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck." — Robert Shapiro, Interview with Barbara Walters Robert Shapiro wrote in The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney's Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case that Cochran introducing race into the trial is the primary factor that drove the dream team apart: "Race is not the issue...A defense built on race will never help us." Shapiro wrote that Cochran used race to argue for a jury nullification in his summations, Bailey used it to argue that Fuhrman planted the glove, Scheck used it to argue his blood planting claims, and Dershowitz used it to support his police conspiracy allegation. Regarding Bailey, Scheck and Dershowitz's conspiracy claims, Shapiro wrote he doesn't believe that Simpson was framed by the police. After his closing argument, in which he openly compared Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler, Cochran received numerous death threats, and hired bodyguards from Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, which particularly angered Shapiro, who is Jewish, as Farrakhan was famous for his black supremacist and anti-Semitic views. Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman's father and also Jewish, was also angered by Cochran's comments and referred to him as a "sick man" and "the worst kind of racist himself" for speaking about racism and associating himself with Farrakhan at the same time. After the verdict, Shapiro stated in an interview with Barbara Walters that he would never work with Cochran or speak with Bailey again, though he would still be open to working with Scheck. Sociology professor Harry Edwards stated that "Simpson's sentiments were, 'I'm not black, I'm O.J.'" regarding his apathy towards racial issues. Vincent Bugliosi criticized the prosecution in Outrage for not using aspects of Simpson's personal life to refute the defense's claim that he was a hero of the black community - he left his black wife for a white woman, had affairs only with white women, had two biracial children, moved into a white neighborhood and after divorcing had a white girlfriend. The defense was aware of all of this and made attempts to conceal it. Robert Kardashian admitted during an interview with Barbara Walters that, prior to the jurors visiting Simpson's home, the defense had staged his home and switched out his photos of white women for black women and children, including switching a picture of a nude Paula Barbieri (Simpson's girlfriend at the time, who was white) for a Norman Rockwell painting from Cochran's office. In O.J.: Made in America, Carl E. Douglas defended the decision to redecorate Simpson's home to manipulate the jury, and stated that had the jury been predominantly Latin, they would have had placed pictures of Simpson wearing a sombrero, hired a mariachi band to perform outside his house, and placed a piñata at the top of the staircase. In Outrage, Bugliosi pointed out that instead of defending Simpson or attacking the physical evidence that implicated him for the murders, Cochran and Scheck dedicated their entire closing summations to attacking the LAPD, in stark contrast to normal criminal trial procedures, accusing Lange, Vannatter, Fuhrman and the LAPD crime labs of conspiring to frame Simpson for the two murders and lying in court without providing any evidence. While many accused the defense of using the race card to play on the jury's emotions and manipulate them into distrusting the LAPD in order to get a "not guilty" verdict, both Cochran and Douglas disputed it, claiming that they played the "credibility card", even though they had put particular emphasis on Fuhrman's past of using racial epithets instead of finding actual evidence to prove he may have been a dishonest cop in general. In O.J.: Made in America, while Douglas continued to claim that they played the credibility card instead of the race card, he also claimed that it was hypocritical of Robert Shapiro to decry the defense for playing the race card and that to not do so would have been contrary to their oaths as advocates for Simpson. In an interview about Outrage, radio host Larry Elder claimed that he had spoken with his friend, Barbara Berry Cochran, Johnnie Cochran's ex-wife who Cochran himself had physically abused numerous times during their marriage, and asked her if she believed Cochran truly believed in Simpson's innocence, but Barbara responded that Cochran did not concern himself with his clients' guilt or innocence and the only thing he was interested in when taking a case was his fee. Unethical behavior: Jurors Cooley, Bess and Rubin-Jackson wrote in A Rush to Judgement? that Barry Scheck was the most persuasive attorney at the trial. Vincent Bugliosi, Darnel M. Hunt, Daniel M. Petrocelli, and defense witness Henry Lee all wrote that Scheck made many misleading claims in trying to convince the jury there was reasonable doubt about the physical evidence. Hunt wrote in O. J. Simpson Facts and Fictions: News Rituals in the Construction of Reality that Scheck "floated ridiculous conspiracy theories to the jury". Jeffrey Toobin wrote in The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson that "the most remarkable thing was that Scheck actually accomplished this goal...Schecks arguments presupposed a conspiracy so immense within the LAPD that, analyzed objectively, it seemed a practical impossibility but Scheck made his theories real for the jury and for that reason he was primarily responsible for that verdict." In Triumph of Justice: Closing the Book on the O.J. Simpson Saga, Petrocelli explains how he disproved all of Scheck's blood planting claims. Scheck implied that Vannatter could have planted Simpson's blood at the crime scene when he returned later that evening to Simpson's home to deliver his blood reference vial to Dennis Fung, but the crime scene was actually at Nicole Brown's home. Scheck then suggested that another police officer could have "sprinkled Simpson's blood at the crime scene" but the prosecution demonstrated that the blood was photographed being there prior to Simpson's blood being drawn by the nurse. Scheck then implied that Vannatter could have planted the victims blood in the Bronco when he returned to Simpson's home, but the Bronco had been impounded prior to his arrival and wasn't even there. Scheck then suggested that the victims' blood in the Bronco could be the result of contamination in the LAPD crime lab, but defense witness Lee wrote in Blood Evidence: How Dna Is Revolutionizing the Way We Solve Crimes the prosecution disproved that claim when the second collection from the Bronco returned the same matches as the first collection, proving they weren't contaminates. Scheck then produced two witnesses who claimed there was no blood in the impounded Bronco implying the blood was planted by the police afterwards, but the prosecution produced photographs of the blood in the impounded Bronco which disproved that fraud claim as well. The New York Times reported that "Mr. Simpson's "dream team" has fostered public mistrust of defense lawyers in general because of their 'shotgun approach' of attempting to shoot down every scrap of evidence against Mr. Simpson with a barrage of alternative (i.e., conspiracy) explanations"[99] and in 2014, Scheck acknowledged that public perception of defense attorneys changed as a result of his blood planting claims at the trial. Darden wrote in In Contempt that nearly all of Scheck's blood planting claims were originally made by Stephen Singular in his book proposal for Legacy of Deception: An Investigation of Mark Fuhrman and Racism in the L.A.P.D. The key difference is that he claimed that Fuhrman, not Vannatter, planted all of the blood evidence. Singular cited an unnamed source in the LAPD but both Johnnie Cochran and Carl Douglas dismissed Singulars claims because Fuhrman never had access to Simpson's reference vial. Reporters Philip Bosco and Tracie Savage both reported that another unnamed source in the LAPD had told them the match of Nicole Brown's blood on the socks in September and allegedly before the test was even done. The defense argued this meant the blood was planted because the source already knew what the result would be and wanted Savage testify to that. Like Singular, neither reporter revealed who the source was, and Ito ruled it was irrelevant for them to do so because the claim was "bogus": the test was actually done on August 4, a month before not after, the source revealed the match. Savage has since then disowned that claim entirely. Other members of the dream team produced witnesses that gave misleading testimony. Cochran produced LAPD videographer Willie Ford who showed a video of Simpson's bedroom without the socks present which Cochran implied proves they were planted, but Ford admitted the video was made after the Socks had already been collected. Blood spatter expert Herbert MacDonell stated that the only way the stains observed on the socks could be made was if the blood was planted on the sock after it had been taken off but admitted that the same pattern can be produced if Simpson simply touched the socks after removing them. Willie L. Williams, the LAPD police chief at the time who himself was African-American, stated regarding the defense's conspiracy claims: "It is unconscionable that you would paint a picture where you would have detectives, police officers, civilian laboratory people and others decide to plot against Mr. Simpson, carry it out, all keep quiet and not have anyone break it,” Williams said. “It’s too fanciful to imagine. . . . It’s something that belongs down in Disneyland.” Witness perjury: Sylvia Guerra, a housekeeper for Simpson's neighbor claimed that she and another housekeeper, Rosa Lopez, were both offered $5,000 to lie and say that they saw Simpson's Bronco parked in front of his house on the night of the murders. The tow truck driver John Meraz and William Blasini Jr both testified that there was no blood in the impounded Bronco despite photographs of the blood that clearly demonstrate they were lying. None of the perjurers for the defense, however, were punished for their crimes, which angered many, since Mark Fuhrman, the prosecution's star witness, was prosecuted and fired from the LAPD after much pressure from the African-American community for his perjury about facts irrelevant to the case, making his conviction the only one as a result of the case. In Outrage, Bugliosi claimed that Fuhrman was a victim in the case and that his lying under oath about racial epithets did not rise to the level of indictable perjury because it was immaterial to the actual facts of the case. Unreliable Expert Testimony: Simpson's Dream Team retained many high-profile experts. Many of them were initially approached by the prosecution but decided to represent Simpson instead because of the larger retainers. The conventional wisdom at the time is that experts can only truthfully represent one side of a case because it is presumed that their interpretation of the facts would be the same regardless of who retains them. The Simpson case challenged that belief because experts in this case gave testimony that favored Simpson but contradicted many of their claims they had made in previous cases. In the aftermath of the verdict, many of the experts began walking back their claims due to the negative impact the case had had on their careers. Lenore Walker: The defense retained renowned advocate for victims of domestic abuse, Lenore E. Walker. Cochran said she would testify that Simpson doesn't fit the profile of an abuser that would murder his spouse, but she was dropped from the witness list for "tactical reasons" after her report on the case concluded that "80.3% of murdered spouses who were also victims of abuse were in fact killed by their current or ex-husband." Walker's colleagues were appalled by her decision to defend Simpson and accused her of betraying her advocacy for a $250,000 retainer by knowingly giving testimony that contradicted her own research as her report demonstrated. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence wrote of Walker's assessment of Simpson "it is absolutely the opposite of the assessment of most battered women’s advocates in this country.” During the civil trial, Walker dropped Simpson as a client and testified against him instead for the Goldmans. Walker would later write that “After the O.J. Simpson trial, I was dismissed from a position on the national crisis helpline advisory board of directors, my theories were openly denigrated…and I was disinvited to participate in many conferences with funding from the same government sources that previously invited me along with others who continued to participate. Michael Baden: Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist, testified that the murders happened closer to 11:00pm, which is when Simpson has an alibi and stated that Brown was still conscious, standing, and took a step after her throat was cut and that Goldman was standing and fighting his assailant for ten minutes with a lacerated jugular vein. Daniel M. Petrocelli wrote in Triumph of Justice: Closing the Book on the Simpson Saga that Baden's claims were nonsensical and he tried to avoid making them again at the civil trial. The claim that Brown was standing and conscious after her throat was slashed was untenable because the injury severed her cervical spinal cord which would have paralyzed her from the neck down. His claim of Goldman's ten minute struggle was also untenable as well because it only takes five minutes for someone to completely exsanguinate from such an injury. Baden admitted his claim of Goldman's long struggle was inaccurate at the civil trial and would later say that testifying for Simpson was a mistake because he was consistently being discredited for the claims that he made at the trial that he later admitted were not true. Vincent Bugliosi wrote in Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder that Baden's claims were "silly" and claimed that he knowingly gave false testimony in order to collect a $100,000 retainer because the week before he testified, Gerdes admitted that Goldman's blood was in Simpson's Bronco despite Goldman never having an opportunity within his lifetime to be in the Bronco. Christopher Darden opined in In Contempt that prosecutor Brian Kelberg irritated Baden when he implied that he was being "rented out" by Simpson and he responded by making those absurd claims to get back at him. Fredrich Rieders: In Blood Evidence: How DNA is revolutionizing the way we solve crimes, Lee writes that Fredric Rieders was initially approached by the prosecution to interpret the results from the EDTA testing, but he chose to represent Simpson instead. His decision ended up being a mistake because the defense ultimately withheld key details that would have resulted in him not testifying. His testimony that the presence of EDTA suggested the blood was planted from the reference vials gave the appearance of scientific credence to the defense's fraud claims. However, the defense neglected to mention to Rieders that one of those blood drops had been photographed being there prior to the reference vial existing, proving it couldn't have come from there. Furthermore, Detective Vannatter, who was accused of planting the other blood drop on the sock never went inside the evidence van where the socks were stored which proves he didn't plant that blood either. FBI special agent Roger Martz later demonstrated that the results were actually false positives from having tested the reference vials first before the evidence samples. Thomas Lambert accused Rieders of knowingly giving false testimony at the criminal trial in exchange for a $46,000 retainer because there was clear evidence then the results were not reliable: the blood on the back tested positive for the presence of EDTA despite it being impossible to have come from the reference vial, the substrate control for that blood drop tested positive for EDTA despite having no blood on it at all, the results for the two evidence samples and Agent Martz's unpreserved blood were exactly the same and nowhere near the levels seen in the reference vials, and Rieders himself said that it was impossible for Agent Martz to have that much EDTA in his unpreserved blood.[133] In Triumph of Justice, Petrocelli wrote that Robbin Cotton had conclusively proven at the civil trial that it was impossible for the blood on the socks to have come from Brown's reference vial by showing that the blood in the reference vial was more degraded than the blood on the sock, which is impossible if that was its source. Afterwards, Rieders conceded "this might not be blood from a purple top test tube". In Outrage, Bugliosi opined if the tests had been done correctly, they would have conclusively disproven the blood planting claims. In Run of his Life, Toobin wrote that the prosecution did prove that no EDTA was present, but the testimony was "highly technical". Lee in Blood Evidence wrote that the testimony of Rieders and Agent Martz was almost incomprehensible and opines that the jury believed Rieders over Martz because he was a renowned scholar even though Martz had evidence and literature to backup his conclusions. Henry Lee: Bugliosi in Outrage wrote that Lee knowingly gave misleading testimony and allowed Scheck to imply he supported the fraud claims. Lee's "somethings wrong" claim implying the police planted one of the blood swatches at the crime scene because it had a wet transfer stain on it was nonsensical because that swatch doesn't incriminate Simpson: the blood belonged to Brown and was found at the crime scene next to her body. Furthermore, Bugliosi wrote that Lee was aware that Scheck was arguing that Dennis Fung had tampered with the swatches and seriously doubted that the Chinese-born scientist really believed that the Chinese-American criminalist would participate in a racially-motivated conspiracy to frame Simpson. In Triumph of Justice, Petrocelli wrote that Henry Lee clarified his statements and said "I never meant to imply there was scientific fact to show that any LA police officer planted or did anything, cheating, with any evidence when I said "somethings wrong". I did not testify to that." Regarding the wet transfer stain, the prosecution said the wet stain was simply due to one of the swatches still being wet and Lee admitted "I offered that same explanation since day one". John Gerdes: According to Dr. Henry Lee in Blood Evidence: How DNA is revolutionizing the way we solve crimes, Gerdes "had no experience whatsoever in forensic DNA matching" and made more factually inaccurate claims than any other witness at the criminal trial. Darden wrote in In Contempt that all of Gerdes's claims were misleading conjecture. None of the defense attorneys in their books about the trial - Shapiro, Dershowitz, Cochran, or Uelman - mention Gerdes even though the jurors in A Rush to Judgement? specifically cite him as the one who raised what they believed to be reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence. In Outrage, Bugliosi opines the reason why is because "contamination cannot change someone's DNA into someone else's" which is what the jurors believed to be true Howard Coleman, president of GeneLex, a Seattle-based forensic DNA laboratory called the contamination claim "smoke and mirrors" and said "everything we get in the lab is contaminated to some degree. What contamination and degradation will lead you to is an inconclusive result. It doesn't lead you to a false positive." Lee explained in Blood Evidence why he rejected Gerdes's claims. Gerdes claimed that contamination could happen from repeated use of the reagents used for Amplification but neglected to mention that all the reagents tested negative for contamination. Petrocelli wrote in Triumph of Justice that Gerdes lied when he said that Collin Yamauchi spilled Simpson's blood in the lab. Gerdes claimed that the results from the second Bronco collection were unreliable because the car had been burglarized but admitted the DNA matches are the same before and afterwards, disproving that claim. Rantala wrote that Gerdes most misleading claim came when he implied that the evidence locker was in the PCR amplification room when he said that Yamauchi took the PCR extraction product back to "the same location". Rantala wrote that Gerdes said that so his contamination claim would be plausible but was being openly dishonest because he toured the lab and knew that wasn't true. Lee wrote in Blood Evidence that "Gerdes conceded the PCR extraction product was not returned to the specific area near the extraction room or evidence-handling area but was taken to a completely separate area located a comfortable distance away making a contamination scenario highly improbable". Pundits were skeptical of Gerdes claims too because he was not the defense's first choice: renowned forensic DNA expert, Edward Blake, was supposed to be making the case for contamination but was dropped from the witness list after rejecting it. They also noted that Gerdes claimed it was impossible to distinguish blood from the reference vials from blood from the body despite Rieders demonstrating just that the week prior using EDTA. That false claim notwithstanding, his testimony wasn't reliable they said because he was clearly pandering to the defense: all of his contamination occurred through random carelessness in the lab yet the only three matches he said were valid were the same three the defense claimed were planted while the remaining 58 matches were all false positives[145] despite admitting that has never happened before. The substrate controls that are used to determine if contamination like he was suggesting occurred were also coincidentally all false negatives. So Gerdes was claiming that the contamination only got on the evidence items despite they and the substrate controls all being handled interchangeably at the same time. Clinical molecular geneticist Brad Popovich called Gerdes's claims "ridiculous". Thomas Lambert was given high marks for his cross-examination of Gerdes forcing him to admit "there's no direct evidence of contamination in any of the test results that I looked at in this case." Prosecutor and DNA expert George "Woody" Clarke wrote in Justice and Science: Trials and Triumphs of DNA Evidence that Gerdes's contamination claim was rejected by every DNA expert at the criminal trial. The only reason it appeared convincing to the jury is because Judge Lance Ito allowed Gerdes to testify for six hours about contamination that occurred years ago in other cases instead of narrowing his testimony to only incidents in this case of which there were none. Criticism of the court: Judge Lance Ito was criticized by Marcia Clark, Christopher Darden, Vincent Bugliosi, Daniel Petrocelli, Darnel Hunt, and Jeffrey Toobin for his alleged poor stewardship of the trial. The criticism focused on allegations that he failed to control the court room and was unduly influenced by the media. Critics often compare his stewardship to Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki who presided over the civil trial against Simpson. Failure to control the courtroom: Defense attorney Robert Shapiro wrote in The Search for Justice that Ito gave Scheck and Cochran more latitude than what was normally permitted. For instance, he allowed Johnnie Cochran and Barry Scheck to interrupt Marcia Clark's summation sixty-one times. Out of courtesy and as a matter of legal strategy, legal teams generally avoid interrupting opposing counsel's closing statements. Bugliosi wrote in Outrage that "Cochran and Scheck were deliberately making frivolous objections (the proof is that Ito sustained only two out of the seventy-one objections)...yet Judge Ito did not once hold Cochran or Scheck in contempt of court or even once admonish them to discontinue their outrageous, unprofessional, and yes, dishonorable conduct." Bugliosi added that had he been the one prosecuting Simpson, he would have said the following to Ito: "Judge Ito, you know, everyone in this courtroom knows that all of these objections, particularly those by Mr. Scheck, are completely frivolous, and designed solely to destroy the effectiveness of my final address to the jury. In all deference to you, Judge Ito, I'm not asking you, I'm demanding that the next time Mr. Scheck interrupts me with a silly objection, you hold him in contempt of court, and if he continues after that, I want Scheck in lockup. If either Mr. Cochran or Mr. Scheck continues to object and you let them get by with it, again in all deference to you, my remarks to you as well as to them will not be made here at the bench, but in open court, before the jury and the millions of people who are watching. I can assure these defense attorneys that they are not going to get by with this." Bugliosi criticized Ito for allowing the defense to argue that evidence was tampered with despite him ruling "there is no concrete evidence of tampering". Fuhrman criticized Ito for allowing Cochran to say during summations that "he lied when he said he didn't plant the glove" despite Ito ruling "It is a theory without factual support." Prosecutor and DNA expert George "Woody" Clarke in Justice and Science: Trials and Triumphs of DNA Evidence criticized Ito because the only reason Gerdes' contamination claim appeared convincing to the jury was because Ito allowed him to testify for six hours about contaminations that occurred years ago in other cases instead of narrowing his testimony to only incidents in the Simpson case, of which there were none. Petrocelli opined in Triumph of Justice that "Ito had given the defense lawyers an astonishing amount of leeway...Ito did so because he believed, beyond any doubt...that Simpson would be found guilty so he gave the defense every break and benefit so that when the inevitable appeal was filed, the verdict would be bulletproof." Comparisons with Hiroshi Fujisaki: Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki presided over the wrongful death civil trial and was praised for his stewardship as compared to Ito's at the criminal trial. Fujisaki gave neither Daniel M. Petrocelli, the plaintiff's attorney, nor Robert Baker, Simpson's attorney, any leeway beyond the scope of his rulings. Fujisaki prohibited all conspiracy claims because the defense could not provide any evidence supporting them and from attacking the LAPD, saying "attack the evidence, not the LAPD". Fujisaki only allowed Gerdes to testify about contamination only in the Simpson case, because the other cases were "irrelevant because it did not address the actual DNA test results in Mr. Simpson's case." Gerdes later admitted there was no contamination in the Simpson case. Fujisaki also prohibited the defense from referencing Fuhrman's racism or perjury at the civil trial because the defense could not "show it had anything directly to do with this case" and the perjury "was not material to any facts in this case". Fuhrman did not testify at the civil trial after invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, but Fujisaki ruled that the evidence that Fuhrman found was admissible because it was witnessed by the other officers present. Toobin wrote in Run of his Life that Fujisaki was given high marks for his stewardship of the civil trial. Robert Baker later said of Fujisaki, "He’s just a good judge, unbiased and fair." Criticism of the public's sympathy for Simpson- Influence on the court: Ito's decision to allow the trial to be televised was widely criticized. In 1998, Christopher Darden published his book, In Contempt, in which he criticized Ito as a "starstruck" judge who allowed the trial to turn into a media circus and the defense to control the court room while he collected hourglasses from fans and invited celebrities into his chambers. In an interview with Barbara Walters, Darden asserted his view that Johnnie Cochran was the one controlling the courtroom, not Ito. Media manufactured reality: Bugliosi also criticized the media for sympathizing with Simpson throughout the entire trial, specifically for referring to his lawyers as the "Dream Team" or "the best defense money can buy" and for ridiculing Marcia Clark for her private life and appearance to the point that the National Enquirer printed nude pictures of her provided by her first husband's mother, and referring to Chris Darden as an "Uncle Tom" following an interview with Johnnie Cochran for helping to prosecute an African-American celebrity, which Bugliosi claims increased the defense's credibility in the jury's eyes while pointing out that Robert Shapiro was actually famous as a plea bargain lawyer who had never once tried a murder case, Johnnie Cochran as a civil rights lawyer who also had never tried a murder case (although the Cochran firm claimed that they had tried and won many criminal cases, Playboy magazine contacted them to name one such case, but never received an answer), Alan Dershowitz as an appeal lawyer (most notably enabling Claus von Bülow to have a second trial following his conviction for attempting to murder his wife, Sunny), and that though F. Lee Bailey was in fact a notable criminal trial lawyer, he himself was a convicted felon of DUI and had actually lost his most recent major criminal case, the Patty Hearst bank robbery, which was almost twenty years before the Simpson trial. Damage to race relations: The public was aware of incriminating evidence that had been ruled inadmissible that the jurors never heard, yet African Americans were observed celebrating Simpson's acquittal despite this evidence never having been refuted at trial because it was never introduced. This led to a White backlash response to the acquittal that was later credited with why voters in California passed Proposition 209 that ended Affirmative Action the following year. The political impact the acquittal had on White Americans perception of issues of racism in the United States was summarized as thus: "What was different and disturbing about the racial talk last week was that so many white liberals sounded fed up. Many middle class professionals who have always supported integration, maintained office and social friendships with African Americans, and resisted the backlash against affirmative action, were appalled by what black novelist Dennis Williams called the "end zone dance" over the Simpson acquittal. It made them wonder aloud whether they really knew African Americans as well as they thought they did, and whether the racial gap wasn't much wider than they had believed." — Newsweek, October 16, 1995 If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer: If I Did It is a book written by Simpson and Pablo Fenjves, in which Simpson puts forth a hypothetical description of the murders. The book was written in conjunction with a 2006 interview between Simpson and Judith Regan. In both the book and interview, Simpson told his version of events on the night of the murders, where he initially admitted that he was present at the crime scene with an accomplice named Charlie, but later claimed that he had indeed been holding a knife and that he could not remember crucial details, claiming instead that he had lost consciousness and then seen Nicole and Ron's bodies, and very notably conceded to Regan that he had dropped one of the gloves there because the police found it. Since Simpson opened up the interview with the words, "No one knows this story the way I know it, because I know the facts better than anyone," his words were a direct contradiction of what Johnnie Cochran and Robert Shapiro had claimed at the criminal trial, that Simpson was in Chicago on the night of the murders and would not be able to know what happened. Though both the book and interview were cancelled due to public outrage, the publication rights of the book were awarded to the Goldman family to partially satisfy the civil trial judgment and was retitled If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer. In 2018, Fox aired a special entitled O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession? which featured footage from the interview, as well as analysis and discussion by host Soledad O'Brien, Regan, Darden, Nicole's friend Eve Shakti Chen, anti-domestic violence advocate Rita Smith, and retired FBI profiler Jim Clemente. It aired with limited commercial time, which was used to broadcast public service announcements addressing domestic violence.[177] In the decade-old interview, Simpson initially used phrases like "I would" and "I'd think" in his hypothetical description of the event, but later moved to using first-person phrasing with sentences like "I remember I grabbed the knife", "I don't remember except I'm standing there", "I don't recall", and "I must have." The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story: In 2016, FX developed and aired the first season of American Crime Story, which focused on the Simpson trial. Though the series was met with wide acclaim and won nine Emmy Awards, it was not without controversy, particularly for what was perceived as its sympathetic portrayals of Simpson and Kardashian and its unfairly maligned portrayal of Fuhrman.