Sue Black revealed that she had a fear of rodents because her parents had a hotel in the West of Scotland and during the dustman strike, her father beat a rat to death and she always carried with her the red eyes and growl of the rat. Because of this, she could not do rat dissection, so human identification was what was left for her at University. There was no formal structure for human identification in terms of crime when she was a lecturer in anatomy, so because of the 'landfill' case, she was asked to look by the police at plastic bags to identify what was what and she so impressed them, they asked for her ever after, so she felt she kind of fell into her career.
She felt that although Burke and Hare were murderers, getting fresh bodies to the anatomists brought forensics through. When asked what drives her apart from accreditation she admitted that it was the judicial system in that she feels that it is very aggressive - you will either come out an expert or a fool depending on who is the better lawyer.
Sue agreed that you train properly for a discipline, so it is not a Miss Marple approach. For example, in the mid 1990s during a high suicide rate, skeletalized remains were found in woodland. There were only trainers and a jacket left, but in the high branches of a tree a bit of the jacket was found with a second vertebrae in it. They still did not have a name so they start with whether the death was recent, soft tissue, male or female, age, height, ethnicity and individual, e.g. dental as there were four teeth removed, fractured ribs, kneecap etc. and joint laxity. The police computer brought up 1500 names, so they did a facial reconstruction which they used in Crime Watch. There were 40 phone calls naming the same individual as Jake, then once spoken to his Mum, a DNA sample confirmed it was him.
Val found it fascinating that you can tell where a person has grown up just from the bones, teeth and hair because of what you have been eating. Even where your Mother was when she was expecting show in your teeth, so you can tell which county and which village. Sue revealed that hair from the London bombers revealed no change in diet, so no training camps, just Leeds.
Val and Sue met on a TV programme and Sue offered to help Val and she appreciates that Sue breaks the science down so that it can be understood by a layperson. Sue aims the science towards the courts as she is not a good witness if the public/jury cannot understand. Sue laughed because she would never be in competition with Val as she is in awe of people who can hold a story together and she feels that the information in crime novels should give respect to readers - no bunkum, got to have some factual information.
She feels she developed a clinical detachment as it is the only way to detail with it; to remain impartial in order to solve and get the evidence. She has had successful identifications just from photo's of hands in sexual abuse cases that have resulted in a change of plea and then victims don't have to go through the court system. Some are more difficult because the person is beyond your help and there are a lot of instances of PTS. It is true that black humour is used - police, ambulance, doctors etc. She gave the example of the prostitute's heads in the buckers. She is never disrespectful to the deceased. In Verona there was a multiple murderer of prostitute's because of several thousand photo's found in a farmhouse and in a couple it was clear they were dead. The farmhouse was excavated and eight bodies were found. Prostitutes are a transient population and of the two bodies, a facial reconstruction would need to be performed using the heads, but because of continuity of evidence, the heads were placed in plastic buckets in Gucci bags to be transported from Italy to the U.K. The first security station just read the letter explaining what was in the bags, he did not scan them and moved her to business class, but the stewardesses ignored her for the full flight. When she landed she declared in the red channel and was asked 'Is it for your own consumption then?' at Heathrow. Again the letter got her through and in Scotland, so she feels if you were brave enough it would be a great way to smuggle things through customs!
She is Director of Anatomy and using the Theil method there is movement of the deceased as opposed to the use of formalin embalming, where there is no movement and the bodies are grey and resemble 3 day old turkeys. Nine authors gave their time and ideas to raise £1m in money for a brand new mortuary, e.g. by auctioning names of corpses in their books. It has raised money and awareness that people need to bequeath their bodies in order to Theil the deceased. They can hook up a cadaver to a ventilator and simulate breathing to help with laser guided MRIs to take out cancerous tissue in livers and simulate haemorrhage etc. It is only done in Dundee and as some students don't even have access to an anatomy department, so they have never practised on a cadaver, some are hiring minibuses to see it elsewhere.
Sue and Val often go off at tangents when they talk about forensics and stimulate ideas, so it doesn't conflict. For facial recognition they CT or scan the skull, lay down muscle, fat and layer of skin over the top. In time, DNA might predict nose size etc.
For a body not to have fingerprints it depends on the presentation, i.e. a peat bog hundreds of years later. Principle of food preparation - alcohol, anaerobic and has acids, don't use finger ridges, dry or soak to retain fingerprints.
Sue finished by informing the audience that forensic pathologists are manner of death and hers is identity and specialism, i.e. decapitation - so she's more Temperance Brennan than Kay Scarpetta!
#TheakstonsOldPeculierCrimeWritingFestival
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