Trending Topics

NC center targets criminals’ digital devices

The Marshall Forensics Center analyzes both digital evidence and DNA evidence for law enforcement agencies

By Cheryl Caswell
Charleston Daily Mail

HUNTINGTON, N.C. — Digital devices are making life easier for most people — including criminals.

But the Marshall University Forensic Science Center is trying to stay a step ahead of them.

U.S. District Attorney Booth Goodwin visited the Huntington investigative program Tuesday and commended the work staff and students do there.

“Because of the growth in evidence from the PCs on your desk to the mobile devices we carry now, there is a computer element to every case we deal with now,” Goodwin said.

“And with that growing mountain of evidence we have to have a way to get at it,” he said. “What this center has allowed us to do is knock down that mountain quite a bit.”

The Marshall Forensics Center analyzes both digital evidence and DNA evidence for law enforcement agencies. The digital labs are small but mighty.

“I would put our mobile device capabilities against any facility in the United States,” said Chris Vance, computer forensic specialist. “Even federal agencies are only starting to get to the capacity we have.”

Tucked into small rooms are tools that help investigators probe laptops, hard drives, mobile phones and digital notebooks for data, texts, messages and images linking users to criminal activity.

To do that, they must stock every imaginable connector, cell phone spare part and tools to deconstruct mobile devices. There are two “password crackers.”

They’ve been able to extract data from cell phones nearly destroyed in fires and sabotaged by criminals intent on secrecy. Their efforts provide the needed evidence for prosecutors to put criminals behind bars.

“People who want to hide what they are doing are using cell phones more and more,” Vance explained. “We found 137 graphic images on a cell phone of a man and his underage stepdaughter engaged in sexual activity.”

Cpl. Bob Boggs of the West Virginia State Police is stationed full time at the Forensics Center. He said digital devices provide a storage and communication tool for those involved in child pornography.

“Child pornography is proliferating in West Virginia and the world,” Boggs said. “I don’t think the average person has a clue how bad it is.”

Boggs showed maps depicting the interception of child pornographic images - 1,409 images captured in a one-month period of 2009 as an example. But he said the law enforcement capabilities to act on all of that information was limited.

“The sad thing is, we know there are many children victims out there and we just can’t go get them all,” he said. “I’m not sure anybody could build enough prisons for all these people.”

The Forensics Center also analyses DNA, not only for West Virginia law enforcement agencies, but also for clients nationwide.

Center Director Terry Fenger said the center is just completing analysis of more than 800 sexual assault kits from Louisiana.

“After Katrina, they didn’t rebuild their own lab facilities,” Fenger said. “We’re just finishing that project, and we’re moving on to Detroit. They have 10,000 sexual assault kits waiting in a garage, and we’re going to help with that.”

The center also helps with the cataloguing of DNA samples from every convict in the state for a database.

The DNA that comes to the lab may come in the form of a sexual assault kit provided by a health care facility, crime scene evidence or even partial skeletons.

“Our techniques are so advanced now,” said Fenger. “When I first came here, we needed a blood sample the size of a half dollar. Now we can get DNA from a licked stamp, a cigarette butt or a Coke can.

“From a pinpoint-size blood spot we can clone many copies of the DNA,” he said. “We first used the techniques in the Woodall case, and we’ve only improved since then.”

Computers can come up with a genetic profile from a DNA sample and narrow the accuracy of the results to astounding odds that it belongs to an alleged criminal.

“And that’s what we take to court,” Fenger said.

The Forensics Center offers a two-year master’s degree program in Forensic Science and attracts students from across the country and the world. Fenger said they are establishing a scholarship program to make the program affordable for more West Virginians.

“Right now two thirds of our classes are out-of-state students,” he said.

The program offers studies in DNA analysis, forensic chemistry, crime scene investigation and computer forensics. It is one of 10 accredited forensic science graduate programs in the country.

It is also a training facility for professionals, having provided opportunities for health care workers, law enforcement officers and cadets and laboratory personnel.

Copyright 2012 Charleston Newspapers

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU