Outliers Writing University Podcast Series

GET TO KNOW Author John David Bethel

John David Bethel was a speechwriter to Cabinet Secretaries at the Departments of Commerce and Education during the Bush 41 and 43 administrations. He also served as a press secretary and speechwriter to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Additionally, Bethel worked as a communications strategist for a number of national and international public relations firms, including Burson Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe. He is an award-winning author whose novels include Evil Town, Hotel Hell, Unheard Of, Holding Back the Dark and A Washington Trilogy. He has also been published in popular consumer magazines and respected political journals.
http://www.johndavidbethel.com/

GET TO KNOW Writer, Producer, Psychotherapist Sagit Schwartz

Sagit Schwartz is a writer, producer, and licensed psychotherapist. Her work has been featured in Medium, Slate, The Atlantic, Reddit NoSleep, and Lifetime Television. She resides with her husband, daughter, and rescue dog in a Southern California beach town.

GET TO KNOW Human Potential Coach Anne Trager

I’m a straight-talking optimist committed to building a positive future, one person at a time. I do this by opening doors to the possibilities that come from having more time, energy and focus. I believe we all have what it takes to show up fully and thrive among chaos of today’s time-crunched, information-overloaded, ever-changing world.
Certified Human Potential Coach (Human Potential Institute)
Professional Certified Coach (PCC), International Coaching Federation
Certified Heroic Coach
Certified Neurosensorial Coach
Certified Neurosystemic Management Consultant
Trained in success coaching, emotional intelligence, positive psychology, Theory U, mindfulness, tai chi/qi gong, and biohacking
Black belt and French national champion in Vietnamese martial arts
30+ years in international corporate communications, publishing and intercultural facilitation, supporting high-level executives in multinationals, non-profits and institutions.
Founded 3 businesses, including a publishing house, and translated 30+ books
 
https://www.annetrager.com/

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 30: Evidence

From HOWDUNNIT: FORENSICS
If Locard’s Exchange Principle is the cornerstone of forensic science, evidence is the heart and soul of the crime lab. Indeed, evidence is the sole reason it exists. Without evidence, what would the lab do? Evidence is used to determine if a crime has been committed, to link a suspect to a scene, to corroborate or refute an alibi or statement, to identify a perpetrator or victim, to exonerate the innocent, to induce a confession, and to direct further investigation. 
 
The modern crime lab attempts to identify and compare any evidence it receives and then links this evidence to a particular individual to the exclusion of all others. 
This brings up a critical concept: Evidence is used to eliminate suspects rather than to point the finger at any one person. Individualizing evidence eliminates everyone else and leaves the perpetrator standing alone. 
 
This isn’t a modern concept. Again, we look to Sherlock Holmes, who discusses in several of his stories his belief that good evidence and clear reasoning would eliminate all choices but one. My favorite comes from “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” in which he states, “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” 
 
DIRECT AND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
 
Evidence may be either direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence directly establishes a fact. Examples are eyewitness statements and confessions, which are subjective by nature and, as such, are burdened with the problems that plague all subjective information. Eyewitnesses are notoriously incorrect in their identification of a suspect and their recall of events because memory and recall are affected by the witnesses’ mental and physical health and abilities, prejudices, experiences, and the emotion of the situation. What if the witness had poor vision or poor hearing, or held racial prejudices, or was highly emotional? Could his perception of who did what to whom, when, and how be distorted? Absolutely. Though most often these distortions are not intentional, they exist nonetheless. Studies of this phenomenon have shown that eyewitnesses may be wrong as much as 50 percent of the time. 
 
On the other hand, circumstantial evidence is more objective and is subject to the laws of probability. This leads to the curious fact that circumstantial evidence is often more reliable than direct evidence. Unlike an eyewitness account, accurate science is not altered by subjectivity. Its interpretation might be, but the result is the result. 
Circumstantial evidence is any evidence that is not direct. Blood, hair, fibers, bullets, DNA—indeed, all forensic science evidence—are circumstantial in nature. This type of evidence requires that the judge and jury infer some- thing from the presented evidentiary fact. For example, if a fingerprint or hair found at the crime scene is matched to a suspect, the jury may infer that the print is that of the defendant and the fact that it was found at the crime scene links the defendant to the scene. Under most circumstances, this is not absolute proof, but is highly suggestive that he was involved in the crime. 
 
IDENTIFICATION AND COMPARISON 
 
The forensic analysis of evidence items is done for two main purposes: identification and comparison. Identification is done to determine what exactly a particular item or substance is. Is this white powder heroin or crystal meth- amphetamine or sugar? Who manufactured the shoe that left the print at the crime scene? Are there petrochemical residues present in the debris of a suspicious fire? Is this brown carpet stain dried blood or chocolate sauce? 
 
Identification in such circumstances is critical since, if the powder is sugar and not heroin or the stain is indeed chocolate sauce and not blood, there might be no crime at all. Conversely, if heroin or blood is identified, either may become the crucial evidence in a criminal proceeding. Such identifications make up an important part of the work done by the crime lab. After testing, the examiner may state that the questioned substance is present, not present, or that the testing is inconclusive and the presence of the substance can be neither ruled in nor out. 
 
Comparisons are done to see if a suspect item or substance shares a common origin with a known one. That is, did they come from the same person, place, or object? Did this fingerprint, hair, or blood come from the suspect? Does this paint smudge found on a hit-and-run victim’s clothing match that of the suspect’s car? Does the bullet removed from a murder victim match the one test-fired from the suspect’s gun? 
 
For example, after comparing a crime scene fingerprint to one obtained from a suspect, the examiner may state that the two match (bad news for the suspect), do not match (may exonerate the suspect), or that the comparison was inconclusive, perhaps because the crime scene print was of poor quality. In the last case, the suspect is neither cleared nor condemned. 
 
CLASS VS. INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
Some types of evidence carry more weight than others. Hair and fibers can suggest, while DNA and fingerprints can absolutely make a connection. The difference is that some evidence shares class characteristics and others individual characteristics. 
Class characteristics are those that are not unique to a particular object, but rather serve to place the particular bit of evidence into a specific class. For ex- ample, if a victim has been shot, the determination that the bullet was from a 
.38 caliber handgun would make all .38 caliber handguns the possible murder weapon. Other calibers would not belong to this class and would be excluded from consideration. Alternatively, blood recovered from a crime scene could be found to be type B. It could have come from any of the tens of millions of people who share this blood type. If the suspect has type B blood, he remains a suspect and DNA testing will be required to conclusively match the sample to the suspect. But if he has type A blood, he is excluded.
 
A single piece of class evidence can rarely convict, but it can often exonerate. The above type B blood would exclude all persons with a different blood type. They belong to a different class and only those in the class of individuals with type B blood would remain in the suspect pool. However, if multiple types of class evidence are associated with one suspect, the weight of the evidence may make a strong case. A classic example is the Atlanta child murders case. 
 
In cases such as this, the sheer number of the pieces of class evidence makes coincidence extremely unlikely. What are the odds that someone else left behind this combination of fibers and hair? Though class evidence is not absolute proof that a suspect is connected to a particular location, and each bit of class evidence taken alone may not be strong, when a large number of matching evidence is found, the odds that the suspect was present at the crime scene becomes overwhelming. 
Individual characteristics are as close to absolute proof of the origin of the evidence item as is possible. The most individualizing types of evidence are finger- prints and DNA, since no two people possess either the same prints or the same DNA (the exception being identical twins who have the same DNA but different fingerprints). 
 
Impression evidence, such as bullet ballistic markings, shoe and tire tracks, and tool marks, may be unique enough to be considered individual evidence. Also, fracture or tear patterns, such as in broken glass, torn paper, or matches ripped from a matchbook, may possess edges that fit perfectly together like a jigsaw puzzle, thus indicating the pieces shared a common source. 
 
The overriding principle in the analysis of individual characteristics is that no two things are exactly alike. No two guns mark a bullet the same way. No two pieces of glass fracture in the same manner. No two pairs of shoes or sets of car tires wear in exactly the same way. 
 
The goal of the criminalist is to identify individualizing characteristics, for these truly “make the case” by positively identifying the source of the questioned evidence. If ballistics matched the markings on a .38 caliber bullet to those from a bullet test-fired by a suspect weapon, these markings are individual evidence. They separate this particular gun from all other .38 caliber weapons and indicate that this particular .38 was the murder weapon. Similarly, in the earlier type B blood example we just discussed, DNA could be used to eliminate all of the people with type B blood except for the one person who actually left the blood at the crime scene.
 
The bottom line is that class evidence can considerably narrow the field of suspects and individual evidence can narrow it further, perhaps to a single person. 
 
RECONSTRUCTIVE AND ASSOCIATIVE EVIDENCE 
 
Whether the evidence is class or individual in quality, it may be used to recon- struct the events of the crime or to associate a suspect with the crime scene. 
 
Reconstructive evidence is any evidence that helps in reconstructing the crime scene. Broken glass or pried doors and windows may reveal the perpetrator’s points of entry and exit. Was the window broken from the inside or the outside? Did the perpetrator use a key or a screwdriver to gain entry? Shoe prints, blood spatters, and the trajectory of bullets may show where in the room everyone was and exactly how and in what sequence the crime occurred. Was the victim attacked from the front or from behind? Was the murder quick or did a struggle occur? Was the prime suspect at the scene at the time of the murder or did he, as he says, stumble into the scene later? 
 
Reconstructive evidence helps the ME determine who did what, where, when, and how, as well as helps determine who is being truthful and who might be lying. Crime scene reconstruction is discussed in greater detail later in the chapter. 
 
Associative evidence is evidence that ties the suspect to the crime scene. Fingerprints, shoe prints, hair, fibers, blood and other body fluids, knives, bullets, guns, and paint, among others, may be used to link the suspect to the scene, or prove that the fingerprints, hair, or blood is not his and that some- one else must have committed the crime.
 
This linkage was discussed in Chapter One, but is worth a brief mention here. Evidence is supposed to link a suspect to a person, place, or object. The finding of a victim’s hair or fibers from the victim’s clothing on the clothing of the suspect suggests that they had some degree of contact, and thus links the two together. A suspect’s fingerprint, blood, or semen at the scene of a robbery, murder, or rape strongly links him to the crime scene. A murder weapon that holds a suspect’s fingerprints requires a great deal of explaining. Each of these circumstances links elements of the crime to the suspect. The link can be established through the criminalists collecting evidence and the analytical procedures of the crime lab work. When successful, the evidence may find its way into court and result in a conviction. 
 
 
To dig deeper into this subject grab a copy of either:
 
HOWDUNNIT: FORENSICS: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/howdunnit-forensics.html
 
OR
 
FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/forensics-for-dummies.html
 
 
 

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 29: SKIN IN THE GAME

 
Cain and Harper:
Raised as siblings by an itinerant “gypsy” family, knife expert Bobby Cain, trained by the US military in the lethal art of covert eliminations, and Harper McCoy, nurtured by the US Navy and the CIA to run black ops and wage psychological warfare, are now civilians. Of a sort. Employing the skills learned from the “family” and their training, they now fix the unfixable. Case in point: Retired General William Kessler hires the duo to track down his missing granddaughter, a Vanderbilt University co-ed. Their search leads them to a small, bucolic, lake-side town in central Tennessee and into a world of prostitution, human trafficking, and serial murder. The question then becomes: Will their considerable skills be enough for Cain and Harper to save the young woman, and themselves, from a sociopath with “home field” advantage, a hunter’s skills, and his own deeply disturbing agenda?

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 28: The MacGuffin

What is a MacGuffin? Since Alfred Hitchcock coined the term, his definition—such as it is—might be best:
 
“The main thing I’ve learned over the years is that the MacGuffin is nothing. I’m convinced of this, but I find it difficult to prove it to others.”
 
FAMOUS MACGUFFINS:
 
OBJECTS:
 
The Military Secrets in THE 39 STEPS
 
The Maltese Falcon in THE MALTESE FALCON
 
The Microfilm in NORTH BY NORTHWEST
 
The briefcase in PULP FICTION
 
The Letters of Transit in CASABLANCA
 
The Ring in the LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy
 
The Death Star Plans in STAR WARS
 
The Holy Grail in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and in the DIVINCI CODE
 
The Arc of the Covenant in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
 
The Genesis Device in STAR TREK2: THE WRATH OF KHAN
 
PEOPLE/CREATURES:
 
Colonel Kurtz in APOCALYPSE NOW
 
Private Ryan in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
 
The shark in JAWS
 
Doug the groom in THE HANGOVER
 
LeeLoo in the FIFTH ELEMENT
 
John Conner in THE TERMINATOR series
 
PLACES:
 
The Big “W” in IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD
 
MYSTERY:
 
Rosebud in CITIZEN KANE
 
Suspected murder in REAR WINDOW
 
LINKS:
 
Strand Magazine: The Care and Feeding of a MacGuffin:
https://strandmag.com/the-care-and-feeding-of-a-macguffin/
 
Wikipedia: MacGuffin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin
 
Alfred Hitchcock Explains the Plot Device He Called the “MacGuffin”: http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/alfred-hitchcock-explains-the-plot-device-he-called-the-macguffin.html
 
What Is A McGuffin? https://nofilmschool.com/2016/09/hitchcocks-macguffin-explained-what-it-how-do-you-use-one-your-film

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 27: ABO Blood Typing

ABO Blood Type System
 
From FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES
 
By simply typing the blood at a crime scene, investigators narrow their suspect list and completely exonerate some suspects by using the population distribution information for the four ABO blood types. 
 
Population Distribution of ABO Blood Types
 
O: 43%
A: 42%
B: 12%
AB: 3%
 
Besides determining the ABO type, serologists are able to further individualize blood samples. RBCs contain more proteins, enzymes, and antigens than those used in the ABO classification system. These include antigens with such catchy names as Duffy, Kell, and Kidd and intracellular enzymes such as adenylate kinase, erythrocyte acid phosphatase, and the very useful phosphoglucomutase (PGM).
 
PGM is an enzyme that appears in many different forms, or isoenzymes, and at least ten of them are fairly common. Regardless of ABO type, a particular individual can have any combination of the isoenzymes of PGM. The ME and the serologist use that fact to further narrow the list of suspects for further DNA analyses and confirmation that they were capable of leaving a particular bloodstain.
 
For example, say that a stain is Type AB and has PGM 2. The ME knows the AB blood type is found in only 3 percent (see Table 14‐1) of the population, and PGM 2 is found in only 6 percent of people. Because these two factors are inherited independently, the probability of a particular individual being Type AB, PGM 2 is only 0.18 percent or less than 2 per 1,000. 
 
If the police find blood at the scene that matches the blood of a suspect who has Type AB, PGM 2 blood, the probability that that suspect is not the perpetrator is 2 in 1,000. Although not perfect, those odds still are much better than a coin toss. 
 
Testing for Paternity 
 
You inherit your blood type from your parents. For that reason, a serologist can assess paternity in many cases. The crime lab is often involved in paternity testing because paternity may be a critical component in determining child support, custody, and visitation. It also may play an important role in crimes and civil proceedings that involve kidnappings, insurance fraud, and inheritance conflicts. 
 
Inheriting your blood type 
 
ABO blood types, or phenotypes, come in only four varieties: A, B, AB, and O. But, for some blood types two genotypes, or gene pairings, are possible. A phenotype is what something looks like (in this case the ABO blood type), while the genotype is the underlying genetic pattern. We receive our ABO genes from our parents, one from Dad and one from Mom. 
 
The important thing to know in this system is that A and B genes are co-dominant (equally dominant), while the O gene is recessive. So someone who receives an A gene from one parent and an O gene from the other has Type A blood, but not Type O, because the A gene is dominant. 
 
Determining Possible Genotypes from Phenotypes 
 
Type A: AA or AO
Type B: BB or BO
Type AB: AB
Type O: OO
 
People with Type O blood must have an OO genotype. They can have neither an A nor a B gene because having one or the other dominates the O gene and produces either Type A or Type B blood. 
 
A person with Type A blood can either receive an A gene from each parent and thus have an AA genotype or an A gene from one parent and an O gene from the other for an AO genotype. Remember, A is dominant, so when it is paired with the recessive O gene, the A gene determines blood type. People with the AA and AO genotypes both have Type A blood, but genetically speaking, they’re different. 
 
Type A parents who have AA genotypes can provide only A genes to their offspring, because all their eggs or sperm have an A gene. But Type A parents who have AO genotypes can provide either an A gene or an O gene to their offspring, because half their eggs or sperm have an A gene, and the other half have an O gene. When both parents are Type A, several possibilities exist for the genotype their offspring will have.
 
In each of the scenarios presented in Figure 14‐1, the child’s blood type is Type A, except when both parents donate an O gene. In the latter case, the child’s genotype and blood type (phenotype) respectively are OO and Type O. These parents can’t have any offspring who have Type B phenotype or BB, BO, or AB genotypes, because neither parent has a B gene to donate. 
 
Determining Fatherhood
 
Blood typing can exclude paternity but cannot absolutely verify it. For example, a man with Type AB blood can’t father a child with Type O blood. So if a child has Type O blood, all men with the Type AB are ruled out as the child’s father. A man with Type A (genotypes AA or AO) blood can be the father, but only if he has an AO genotype. Men who have AA genotypes also are excluded. Men with the AO genotype, however, can’t be ruled out at this point. 
 
To dig deeper into this complex system grab a copy of either:
 
FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/forensics-for-dummies.html
 
or 
 
HOWDUNNIT: FORENSICS: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/howdunnit-forensics.html

GET TO KNOW Best-selling Author Meg Gardiner

Meg Gardiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels. Her thrillers have won the Edgar Award and been summer reading picks by The Today Show and O, the Oprah magazine. In August 2022 Heat 2, co-authored with Michael Mann, debuted at #1 on the New York Times best seller list. A former lawyer, two-time president of Mystery Writers of America, and three-time Jeopardy! champion, Gardiner lives in Austin. 
https://meggardiner.com/

GET TO KNOW Best-selling Author Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham is one of the UK's most acclaimed and popular crime writers. A former actor, television writer and stand-up comedian, his series of novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has twice won him the Crime Novel Of The Year Award as well as the Sherlock Award for Best British Detective and been nominated for seven CWA Daggers. His standalone thriller IN THE DARK was chosen as one of the twelve best books of the year by the Times and his debut novel, SLEEPYHEAD was chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 books that had shaped the decade. Each of his novels has been a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller.
A television series based on the Thorne novels was screened in Autumn 2010, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne and a BBC series based on the standalone thrillers IN THE DARK and TIME OF DEATH was shown in 2017.
Mark is also a member of Fun Lovin' Crime Writers. Performing alongside Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Stuart Neville, Doug Johnstone and Luca Veste, this band of frustrated rockers murders songs for fun at literary festivals worldwide.

GET TO KNOW Best-selling Author Laura McHugh

Laura McHugh is the award-winning, internationally-bestselling author of novels The Weight of Blood, Arrowood, The Wolf Wants In, What's Done in Darkness, and Safe and Sound. The Weight of Blood won the International Thriller Writers Award and the Silver Falchion Award for Best First Novel and the Missouri Author Award for Fiction, and was named a Best Book of the Year by BookPage, the Kansas City Star, and the Sunday Times in the UK. Arrowood was a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel, The Wolf Wants Inwas named a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal, and What's Done in Darkness won the Missouri Literary Award. McHugh’s work has also been nominated for an American Library Association Alex Award, a Barry Award, a GoodReads Choice Award, and a Pushcart Prize. McHugh lives in Missouri with her family.