Tag: forensic science
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The Khovananth Incident
July 20, 1985 ****This post contains details of sexual assault and crime scene information. Reader discretion is advised. **** After robbing and killing the Kneidings, seemingly the Night Stalker hadn’t had enough pillaging and murdering for the night, so he headed to Sun Valley. Per Somkid Khovananth’s report to the police, she woke up at…
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ODD ONE OUT
We’re back… The Night Stalker cases should have been split into separate trials to prevent a joinder or “spill-over” where evidence from another case is used to suggest a connection to another. There are several ways to divide the cases. This post will focus on those where Ramirez was prosecuted for rape-burglaries: Kyle, Dickman, Khovananth…
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Eight Richard Ramirezes
The unreliability of fingerprint forensics was previously discussed in Kaycee’s article on the Vincow Incident. Vincow’s was the only murder scene that supposedly linked Ramirez to a crime scene – or at least the outside of it – for the incriminating print was on a window screen. This was a latent print (invisible to the…
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The Petersen Incident
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ” – Martin Luther King Jr. Prosecutor Philip Halpin managed to convince a jury that Richard Ramirez attacked Virginia and Christopher Petersen in their home in Northridge on the 6th of August 1985. What does the evidence from that night tell us? The Petersens lived in Northridge,…
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The Light-Haired Man Who Attacked the Abowaths
Diamond Bar, Los Angeles County 8th August 1985 Some time after 2:30am, Sakina Abowath was woken by a loud “pop” of a gun, and was hit very hard on the head and forced onto her stomach. She was handcuffed and beaten about the head. Her assailant stood on the bed and kicked her in the head…
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The Murder of Mary Louise Cannon
East Haven Avenue, Arcadia, LA County 2nd July 1985. Mary Cannon was a two-time cancer survivor. She had been in a minor car accident the day before she was murdered. That evening, she had visited her neighbours, who had a spare key to her house. Despite staying up watching TV approximately 35 feet away from Cannon’s…