Gathering and Identifying Facts...

Gathering and Identifying Facts...

Within this stage of the investigation facts are gathered meaning the forensic evidence any witness statements that have been taken are taken into consideration and analysed. By doing this the police may gather a suspect from linking both the forensic evidence and the witness statements. The smallest piece of information coming from a witness statement can be vital within the investigation. Witness statements have to be researched into before taken into consideration as some cannot be reliable due to lies being spoken to cover up someones tracks or bias occurring.

Gathering and Identifying facts within the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman

The evidence within the murder investigation that linked OJ Simpson to the murders was astounding. However due to the way the evidence was collected it was not viable within court. Within the process of collecting the evidence, critical pieces of evidence were photographed without any scales and most being photographed without any documentation of what it was or where it was found. This made it virtually impossible for the investigation team to link evidence to an area within the crime scene. Throughout the poor collection of evidence performed by the authorities items where collected and placed within the same container as a number of other different items. By containing several different pieces of evidence together cross contamination will occur which means that the result in which the scientists find when analyzing the evidence will not be an accurate finding. Evidence that was wet was placed into containers without drying, this will cause vital biological and chemical change to the evidence.

Within collecting the evidence a common approach path should have been set up by the police. CAP prevents any contamination to evidence within the scene may it be located on the floor or elsewhere. However within this case no path was set up meaning officers and SOCO's could freely walk around the scene contaminating evidence, this can tell us that most of the evidence was contaminated.

Another critical point within this investigation that was a downfall for the police was the fact no evidence viable within court that was on the bodies of the victims due to the way the bodies were handled by the police. Due to the media turning up before the SOCO's the police panicked and covered the bodies with a blanket from within Nicole's house. This blanket contained fibers and DNA from previous use which contaminated any of the vital evidence that was upon the bodies and surrounding them.  

A vile of Simpsons blood was recorded after several hours after it had been accumulated from Simpson. Blood was then recovered from the scene and the DNA matched OJ's. Due to the fact the blood only appeared at the scene after a blood sample was collected from OJ caused speculation on whether the blood had been planted within the scene. When analyzing the blood within the laboratories a trace of EDTA was present within it. EDTA is a chemical used only within specialist laboratories this caused even more questioning as to whether the blood was planted as OJ could not have had EDTA in his blood for any other reason. 

One of the key implications within this double murder case was the lack of knowledge surrounding Forensic Science. This knowledge is critical when analyzing the evidence and the team was particularly lacking in the understanding of DNA. Due to the lack of knowledge and understanding surrounding the DNA evidence expert witnesses were unable to give comprehensible statements meaning that the jury could not understand what they had fund within their findings. The judge (Lance Ito) ruled the DNA evidence out due to this complication.