by Colin Evans
Inevitably, as time passed, the OCME’s investigation reached a point of diminishing returns. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, about seventy staff members were assigned to the World Trade Center identification unit. By 2005 that number had fallen to just two. In April of that year, families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks gathered at an interfaith service where they thanked Hirsch and his staff for the quite extraordinary job they had done. He promised that the identification work would never end, but after three and a half years of work costing a total of eighty million dollars, there was the frank admission that the OCME had reached the limits of current scientific technology when it came to identifying victims.
But that didn’t mark the end of the story. In September 2005 workers clearing Ground Zero for future redevelopment set about preparing the adjacent Deutsche Bank Building at 130 Liberty Street for demolition. A section of the South Tower had gouged an ugly gash in the facade of the forty-one-story building as it collapsed. Workers on the roof made a startling discovery: fragments of what looked like human bones. These ranged in size from a half-inch to two inches. They were immediately taken to the OCME to determine if they were human. (Back in August 2003, similar fragments had been found at the Deutsche Bank, but testing showed these to be nonhuman.) Further searching of the building revealed a total of 760 body fragments. Sophisticated analysis confirmed that the bones were human, and subsequent DNA testing was able to identify yet another victim of the atrocity.
In October 2006 yet more human remains—some as large as arm or leg bones—were found in rubble excavated from a manhole. These will obviously be analyzed, and hopefully more identifications will follow.
At the time of writing, 58 percent of the victims of the trade center attack—1,603 persons—have been identified. Of the 20,730 body parts recovered, so far only 10,933 have been matched to a known victim, while 9,797 remain unidentified. Those that remain have been dehydrated and placed in storage to await advances in DNA techniques. It’s also why the remains will stay in separate bags with separate numbers even after they are placed in the Ground Zero memorial tomb. It is sobering to think that if this tragedy had occurred just fifteen years earlier—before the advent of DNA typing—then the number of identifications would have numbered in the hundreds. Cutting-edge science has brought a grain of comfort to thousands of bereaved relatives, and the work will go on. As Ellen Borakove, a spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner put it, “This office has given a promise to the families that we are never going to stop trying. We are never going to give up.”
Wartime has a knack of accelerating technological progress, and the war against terror has been no exception. Identification techniques pioneered in the aftermath of 9/11 have since been employed in Thailand to identify victims of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. And the next generation of DNA analysis is already under way.
In February 2007 the OCME opened a new high-sensitivity forensic biology DNA laboratory at 421 East 26th Street. Costing in excess of $250 million, it is the finest facility of its kind in North America, and as good as any in the world. Everything is top of the line. And to make sure it all functions as intended, a sophisticated laboratory battery backup power protection system has been installed to ensure that the lab suffers no potentially calamitous power fluctuations of the kind that might damage both crime-related samples and expensive hardware.
Within this cutting-edge laboratory, scientists are able to carry out a still controversial technique known as low copy number DNA analysis. In the past, conventional DNA testing required approximately 150 cells of genetic material for testing. But all too often, crime scene investigators were harvesting samples of less than that amount, samples that were, in evidentiary terms, worthless. And then, in 1999, British scientists pioneered a method of microanalysis whereby they could obtain a DNA profile from as few as thirty cells. At this new laboratory, OCME scientists have lowered the threshold to an astonishing six cells’ worth of genetic material! Sensitivity of this order allows them to test, say, even skin cells left on a smudged fingerprint.
The technique works by amplifying, or copying, the DNA in cycles, as in conventional testing. Where the difference lies is in the numbers. Conventional testing generally calls for twenty-eight cycles; low copy testing will require at least thirty two-cycles. Unfortunately, with each cycle, the DNA lose clarity. Think of it as a photocopy of a photocopy; the first copy might be acceptable but with each repetition thereafter the image degrades.
Not everyone is convinced by low copy number DNA analysis. They argue that the smaller the sample the greater the risk of contamination. Concerns have also been raised about the process’s heightened sensitivity. Say, for example, you shake hands with someone and that person then goes on to commit a crime, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that your DNA might be transferred to the crime scene. If it has, the chances are that low copy number analysis will find it. Taken in isolation this would be cause for considerable concern, but there is another, much bigger drawback to low copy number DNA analysis: the process actually destroys the sample. It may be all well and good for a prosecutor to claim that low copy number DNA analysis has placed a person at a crime scene, but if the defense is unable to physically examine the sample themselves, then they are in no position to test the truth of that allegation. The legal ramifications of such an imbalance are all too obvious.
For now, though, the OCME’s new high-sensitivity laboratory is an example of life imitating art: CSI: New York in the real world. A series of rooms is connected by sanitized glass cabinets, through which evidence is passed by technicians wearing gowns, gloves, masks, even bootees. Everything is done to ensure that purification levels are the highest possible. Test tubes, instead of being sterilized, which guards against just bacteria, are irradiated to destroy potentially harmful stray chromosomes.
In the past the high cost and time-consuming nature of DNA testing meant it was reserved for only the most serious offenses, typically homicides and sex crimes. This new laboratory’s capabilities will allow the OCME to assist in burglaries, home invasions, and other crimes of this type. Another useful corollary is that it will significantly increase the number of forensic samples that New York City contributes to the state’s DNA database. (Pending legislation, the state hopes to require that all convicted criminals provide DNA samples for inclusion in the state DNA and the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System databases.)
When Charles Norris took charge of the OCME in 1918, the popular notion of forensic science was embodied in an image of Sherlock Holmes, magnifying glass in hand, crouching over some half-glimpsed clue. The reality wasn’t so very different. Investigative procedures, where they existed at all, bordered on the risible. Crime scenes were poorly processed, clues were misinterpreted, evidence was often lost or else contaminated. All in all it was pretty shambolic. Just about the only identification tools available to the crime scene investigator—beyond an often unreliable eyewitness—were fingerprint analysis and blood grouping, both of which were in their infancy. Yet within a decade or so all that changed. Suddenly Norris and his staff had a whole new range of forensic tools at their command. There was the comparison microscope for ballistics analysis; then came the first electron microscope, which offered hitherto unimaginable powers of magnification. Year after year the array of toxicological identification techniques grew exponentially. Whenever these innovations led to the capture of some callous killer, the press coverage was suitably wide eyed. As a result, chemists like the reclusive and brilliant Dr. Alexander Gettler became almost household names. Suddenly it was a time when science promised everything and all things seemed possible. If the hyperbole occasionally got out of hand, well, that was the press just doing its job, and generally there was someone like the sage and sanguine Milton Helpern on hand to rein in the excess.
As forensic science has moved on, so have the crimes it investigates. In Norris’s earliest days, it wasn’t uncommon for newspaper editors to splash
40-point headlines on the kind of domestic murder case that nowadays would struggle to make the metro section. Homicide has become so commonplace and we have become so case hardened to its incidence, that, without a noteworthy participant or some compelling backstory, a single murder rarely makes the front pages. The days when thousands would stand bareheaded in the streets to witness the funeral of a hitherto unknown murder victim such as Jennie Becker are long gone. In the modern world we have had to adjust to a reality in which fanatics ram canisters of steel, bulging with jet fuel, into skyscrapers, obliterating thousands at a time. However, while the numbers might have escalated hugely, one factor hasn’t changed: the utter wastefulness of murder, any murder. A life taken and countless others ruined—these remain the immutable constants of homicide investigation.
As the OCME enters its tenth decade, it does so bearing a burden of pressure and expectation that would have made Charles Norris blink with disbelief (and possibly reach for another martini). Progress in any field or institution is rarely linear; to get the highs, one must endure the inevitable lows, and the OCME is no exception. Its unique standing on the national stage guarantees that it is rarely out of the spotlight, and any problems it encounters are magnified a hundredfold. As we have seen, most of the major difficulties have arisen not from any technological or professional deficiencies but because of personality clashes and thwarted ambition. When Dr. Charles Hirsch assumed leadership of the OCME in 1989, he inherited a department demoralized by years of internal feuding and outside meddling. Its international reputation for probity, impartiality, and top-quality science had taken a big hit since the glory days when Helpern had been at the helm. Perhaps one of Hirsch’s greatest achievements has been the restoration of that status. Under his auspices, the OCME investigated the worst crime in American history, and it did so with a skill, dedication, and sensitivity that few, if any, medico-legal facilities in the world could have matched.
But, of course, you can’t please everybody all the time. And the snipers are always well within range. You can almost bet that whenever the OCME investigates a headline-making death or homicide, some opportunist will emerge from the woodwork bellowing demands for an “independent autopsy!” Hirsch makes no secret of his contempt for this oblique slur. In November 2003 he crystallized his disgust thus: “I believe it impossible for a well-informed, fair-minded person to have any doubt whatsoever about the independence of New York City medical examiners.” Then, in a barb directed at those experts who might be financially motivated to reach a particular conclusion, he added caustically, “My paycheck is going to be the same whatever we conclude.”
It was this desire for independence that led to the establishment of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and for the most part it has performed magnificently. Thousands of murderers have been brought to justice by the OCME’s expertise. But catching killers has been only part of the story. In its ninety years of existence, the OCME has investigated well over one million deaths, a herculean achievement by any reckoning and one made more remarkable still by the fact that the only beneficiaries of all this endeavor are the millions of New Yorkers who daily go about their lives with scarcely a thought for the blue and black tiled building that stands on First Avenue. For, as Dr. Hirsch once remarked, “We’re not doing our job for the sake of the cadavers.”
INDEX
ABO blood grouping
Acevedo, Thomas
Acquin, Lorne
Agave lechuguilla
Agrippina
Albano, Edwin H.
alcohol-related deaths
automobile accidents and
during Prohibition
alkaloids
Almodovar, Anibal and Louise
Altman, Richard M.
Alvarez, Raul
American Airlines flight
American Airlines flight
American Medical Association’s Distinguished Service Award
Annich, Russell W., Jr.
Arnold, William J.
Articles of Eyre
Arzt, Emma
Attica prison riot
autoeroticism
automobile-related deaths
Baden, Michael
as acting CME, New York City
appointment of
credentials of
demotion of, by Koch
lawsuit over
Ferrer’s verbal attack on
Morgenthau’s verbal attack on
Rockefeller’s death and
Soman death certificate dispute and
testimonials on
background and education of
candor of
civil suit filed by
departure of, from OCME
as deputy CME, New York City
Jascalevich case and
as deputy CME, Suffolk County
Helpern and medicolegal textbook co-edited by
as mentor to
successor of, battle over
vendetta with
New York State Police Forensic Sciences Unit and, as organizer of
Baez, Anthony
ballistics analysis
Barber, F. E.
barbiturates
Beame, Abraham
Beaudoin, Cheryl and Frederick
Beck, Martha (“Lonely Hearts” killer)
Becker, Abraham
Becker, Alexander
Becker, Celia and Sarah
Becker, Harry
Becker, Jennie Karbritz
Becker, Marie
Becker-Norkin case
Beekman Towers
Behanan, K. T.
Behanan, Roy
Bellevue Hospital
Cornell Medical Division of
Medical School, Department of Forensic Medicine of the New York University
OCME and, association with
Pathological Building at
Benussi, Vittorio
Berkowitz, David (“Son of Sam”)
Berlin, Lowell E.
Berlin Ballet
Bernard, Claud
Bernstein, Carl
Berson, Saul
Bianco, Samuel F.
Biegenwald, Richard F.
Biggs, Frank
Blackbourne, Brian D.
Black Museum
blood grouping
of bodily fluids
blood typing
Blue Angel nightclub
Board of Ethics
Board of Health, New York City
Boettinger, Carl
Borakove, Ellen
Boston
Boston Harbor
Bowers, J. Milton
Braid, James
Briski, Robert J.
Brodie, Sir Benjamin
Bronx
coroners in
deputy CMEs of
morgue in
Bronx County Jail
Brooklyn
coroners in
deputy CMEs of
morgue in
Potter’s Field interments and
“the Brooklyn Strangler” (Vincent Johnson)
Brown, Arden
Brown, Raymond A.
de Bruijn, Albert
Bryant Park
bullet wounds
ballistics analysis
finding, difficulty in
investigation of
overlooked, cases involving
Carpi
Saleeby
powder burns from
burials of unidentified bodies
Byrne, Brendan
Cabey, Darrell
Cahill, Kevin
Calissi, Guy
Camb, James
Cannon, John
Cantor Fitzgerald
Cape Cod Canal
capital punishment
abolition of, debate regarding
racial inequalities in, historical
Carbo, Nicholas
carbon monoxide poisonings
Carpi, Colin
Carpi, Colin, Jr.
Carpi, David
Carpi, Jennifer
Carpi, Laura Miller
The Case of the Hesitant Hostess (Gardner)
Celera
Center for Biomedical Education, City College
Central Park
Chandler, Raymond
chicken pox
Chief Medical Examiner (CME)
applicant requirements of
Civil Service examination for
first
oral examination for
qualifications of
see also Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME); individual CMEs
Chinese “truth test”
Christie, Agatha
chromatography
Churchill, Winston
Ciallella, Maria
Civil Service Commission
Civil Service examination
Civil Service law
“Classical Mistakes in Forensic Pathology” (Moritz)
CME. See chief medical examiner (CME)
Cohen, Ellis
Cohn, Albert
Coll, Vincent “Mad Dog”
Collay, Frederick G.
Commonwealth Pier 5, South Boston
comparison microscope
Copeland, Joseph J.
Coppolino, Carl
Cornell Medical School
coroner(s), history of
authority of
cadavers and, value of
cause of death discrepancies and
extortion among
function of
juries and, impaneling
larceny among
