March 7, 2023 • 34 mins
Warning: This episode contains details of graphic violence and sexual assault.
Using bitemarks to investigate crimes dates back centuries to the Salem Witch Trials, but it became famous in the modern era during the prosecution of Ted Bundy. Bitemarks are often touted as being as unique as a person’s fingerprint. But Keith Harward calls that claim bogus. He was wrongfully convicted of murder and rape based on bitemark evidence.
If you'd like to learn more about Charles McCrory's case, check out Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith's article in the Intercept:
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/12/bite-mark-analysis-charles-mccrory-alabama/
CSI On Trial is a co-production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans. It is a Curiosity Podcast based on the Curiosity Stream series CSI On Trial. You can watch all six episodes of the video series here if you sign up for Curiosity Stream.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This episode contains details of graphic violence and sexual assault.
Please take care where and when you listen. It's the
morning of May thirty first, nineteen eighty five, in Andalusia,
(00:33):
a southern Alabama town that's about an hour and a
half away from the Gulf of Mexico. Twenty six year
old Charles McCrory is at work. He calls his estranged wife, Julie.
They're going through a divorce but still on good terms.
Just the night before, he visited Julie and their three
year old son, Chad at the home they used to share,
(00:53):
watching TV and folding laundry, and now he's calling, hoping
she can drop off a breakfast he forgot, but Julie's
not picking up the phone. Charles sends his father see
H to stop by and check on the house, finds
Chad in his bedroom and a gruesome scene in the
living room. Charles's sister, Renee, is at work. About eight
(01:17):
thirty I received a call from my dad and he
said he just said Julie's dead, and I left work
and went over to the house. My dad was outside,
so went over. He had taken Chad across the street
and went over to cross the street to the neighbors.
We didn't really know at that point a lot of details.
Paramedics and police are called. They find twenty four year
(01:37):
old Julie Bonds lifeless on the floor. She's on her
stomach with a red bandanna tied around her right wrist.
She's been savagely beaten and stabbed multiple times, with a
bloody wound on the back of her head in her
hand strands of hair. Charles, meanwhile, is on his way
to the house. He's a volunteer paramedic for the Andalusia
(02:00):
Rescue Squad, so he hears the call over the radio
while driving. He's upset and calls the squad to let
them know he's on his way. Detectives question Charles when
he arrives. They notice something on his shoe that looks
like blood. After seeing the horrific wounds on Julie's body,
Charles asks, what they think is an odd question, if
(02:23):
the injury on the back of her head is what
killed her. Though he says he didn't stay at the house,
a neighbor will tell police that they may have seen
Charles's vehicle in the driveway all night. Police suspect Charles
murdered his wife, but don't turn up any forensic evidence
to prove it. So Charles and his young son Chad
(02:43):
mourn the loss of Julie. The family plans and attends
her funeral three days later. We were at the funeral.
As soon as it was over, he went in for questioning,
and then that afternoon. Later that afternoon actually hired from
a relative that they were going to arrest him, and
then he didn't come back home. Police think they may
have a smoking gun. What they believe is a mark
(03:05):
on Julie's upper right arm. It's bruising around two red marks.
Charles is arrested and a bite. Mark's expert named doctor
Richard Seuvaron testifies at his trial that the mark was
made by Charles McCrory. Doctor Seuvaron is famous, having testified
at a trial that made national news a few years back.
(03:27):
The local jury thinks it's a big deal he's come
to their small town, but other forensic evidence from the
scene tells a different story. Biological evidence investigators pull from
the scrapings from under Julie's fingernails is not a match
with Charles. Neither is the hare found in her hand.
Charles's family doesn't understand why police think he did it.
(03:52):
The original accusations were that he had blood on his
shoes that had later been proved that it was his coke.
They had checked his car, they checked his apartment, they
checked her car. They couldn't find you know, they didn't
find anything connecting him. But he's found guilty and sentenced
to life in prison. I'm Molly Herman and this is
(04:17):
CSI on trial. Two or three stains are really not
enough to call something an impact better from gunshot that's
going to put someone in prison the rest of your life.
Thought that making up a lie was gonna get you
home sooner? What is it about a bite mark that
we make a dentist, an expert in this area who
(04:38):
shot at you. He said, I will sit in this
jail and I will rot before I take a plea bark.
The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system
today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and
not an awful lot of science. Episode two bite marks.
(05:00):
So where does bite mark evidence come from? The earliest
reporting an court dates back to the Salem witch trials
In sixteen ninety two, the Reverend George Burroughs stood accused
of witchcraft and conspiracy with the devil. Several young girls
claimed the possessed reverend had bitten them. He was forced
(05:22):
to let the court examine his teeth. According to reports,
they literally pride his mouth open to compare his teeth
to the bite marks on the girls. They decreed that
his bite matched the bite marks, and he was hanged
by the way. Years later, he was declared innocent and
Massachusetts compensated his children. But it wasn't until three hundred
(05:45):
years later that bite marks entered the criminal justice system
as evidence. In nineteen seventy four, prosecutors in Los Angeles
exhumed the body of a murder victim weeks after her
burial back home in Texas to examine bite marks on
her nose. Three dentists then testified those marks were made
(06:05):
by one man, and he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
This set the precedent the legal rule that has allowed
bite mark testimony into US courtrooms. But it's one case
just a few years later that really made bite mark
evidence famous. In nineteen seventy eight, police arrested Theodore Bundy,
(06:27):
a clean cut former law student, from multiple kidnappings rapes
and murders Theodore Robert Bundy. You are charge indictment two
counts burglary, two counts murder in the first degree, three
counts attempted murder in the first degree. I'll plead not
guilty right now. Ted Bundy's case was the first nationally
(06:49):
broadcast live criminal trial. It was a huge celebrity defendant.
That's Chris Fabricant from The Innocence Project. We met him
last episode and he's written extensively on bite mark evidence.
At the trial, dentists matched Bundy's teeth to the bite
marks on one of his victims. The bite marks made
the dentist stars. One of those star dentists was doctor
(07:13):
Richard Suvaron. Armed with a court order, Suvaron said he
visited Bundy in his Tallahassee jail cell and took impressions
of his teeth. Later, Subaron declared in his opinion, Bundy's
teeth left that mark. Bundy himself argued against letting that
testimony in today, but the judge ruled against him. Whoever
(07:34):
made this mark in the skin in the flesh had
crooked teeth. That's the same doctor Suvaron. That was the
prosecution's key witness in the case against Charles McCrory. We'll
talk about that more later in the episode, But back
to the science. We know how bite mark analysis started,
but how does it work in practice. Bite mark analysts
(07:57):
matches suspects dental impressions to the marks of an injury
left una victim's skin. It's based on two fundamental assumptions
that skin can reliably record tooth marks, and that the
arrangement and condition of an individual's teeth are unique like
a fingerprint. The problem is these fundamental principles have never
(08:19):
been proven, and for four decades, bite mark analysis has
been used in court without rigorous scientific validation of those
basic assumptions. Bite marks fall under the umbrella of forensic odentology,
a discipline mostly known for ideing victims. Here's Chris again.
The only thing that can legitimize a forensic technique is research,
(08:42):
scientific research and proficiency testing, neither which bite marks or
the forensic dentists have at all. But there are aspects
of forensic dentistry forensic odentology that are more credible. So,
for example, identification of dead bodies is something that forensic
dentists can do and requires some knowledge of dentistry and
(09:06):
mouths and teeth. There's an organization that certifies forensic dentists,
the American Board of Forensic Odentology or the ABFO. They've
been around since nineteen seventy six, right before the Ted
Bundy trial. But how are forensic odentologists qualified to evaluate
bite mark evidence? What is it about a bite mark
(09:28):
that would make a dentist an expert in this area?
And I've never gotten a straight answer. Is it the
proximity to teeth? You know? I mean, because there's nothing
about being a dentist that makes you an expert at
interpreting an injury on skin. And interpreting those injuries, specifically
connecting a bruise or mark on skin to the teeth
that created it is the basis of bite mark analysis.
(09:52):
So what happens when they get it wrong? Here's one
man who was convicted on bad bite mark evidence. I
spent more than half my life in prison behind the
opinions in the expert egos of two odentologists. Tug you
(10:33):
a mustache and hold on top hat. It's all going
to hell anyways. This is Keith Harward. Keith served over
thirty years in prison after being falsely convicted in a
murder case. The key piece of evidence used against him.
Bite Marks joined the Navy in nineteen eighty one in
(10:54):
an effort to straighten my life out, and then I
was stationed on the USS Carl Vincent CV and seventy one,
which was a nuclear power aircraft carrier. In nineteen eighty two,
while Keith was serving aboard the Vincent, a man wearing
a US Navy white service uniform breaks into a home
(11:15):
just down the street from where the carrier was docked,
the home of the Perrone family. The man bludgeons thirty
year old Jesse Perrone to death, Then, over the course
of several hours, he sexually assaults twenty two year old Teresa,
threatening to kill her three children if she makes a sound.
(11:35):
Teresa survives. Her attacker leaves behind a horrific calling card
bite marks all over her legs. Police take photographs to
document the bites. Teresa helps detectives create a composite sketch
of her attacker. She describes him as a clean shaven
sailor with an insignia on his sleeve that looked like
(11:57):
three upside down vs. Investigators board the USS Vincent to
conduct a very unusual search. They had these dentists and
they lined everybody up and they kind of ran them
through there, and they looked in the mouths and looked
to see, you know, what they were looking for, which
at the time I had no clue what it was.
But they were looking for teeth that were crooked or
(12:20):
being or broke or whatever they try to identify someone.
Of course I found this out later on, but at
the time I had no clue. It didn't send no
red flags up to me. Why would it. I was
just doing my thing. Keith wasn't singled out then, but
months later he got into an altercation with his girlfriend.
(12:41):
Gladys reported that she had to fight with a boyfriend,
and in the course of making that report, she said,
he bit me. This is Roy Lazarus, who represented Keith
at one of his trials. It was a true tussle,
as Keith described it in this testimony. It wasn't in
the nature of a rape. He wasn't biting or hunder
a thigh. It was just their fighting with one another,
(13:02):
and they apparently did that. It was some regularity. That's unfair,
but that's sometimes the way they resolved certain things. But
the nature of the bite was just simply in a
defense of nature. He says what he did wasn't right,
and when she reported him to the police, he became
a suspect in the Perune case. The detectives approached me,
(13:25):
they said, hey, we wanted to take mosia teeth. We're
trying to clean some stuff up. And I had moles
taken and I went back with my parents to Willis, Virginia,
and then several weeks later the detective from Newport News
came and arrested me at their home. The authorities sent
a cast of his teeth to a dental expert and
a rising star in the growing field of bite mark
(13:46):
analysis named Lowell Levine. Levine too had testified just a
few years earlier in the Ted Bundy trial. Levine told
investigators that Harward's teeth matched the marks on Perrone's legs.
There was also an eyewitness who came forward after the
crime became public. Keith's attorney at the time, Kenny Murrov,
(14:09):
remembers that witness a shipyard guard named Donald Wade, and
Donald Wade observed somebody in the early morning hours of
the crime, a navy person coming through his gate with
blood on his uniform, and they brought some pictures to
Donald Wade, and he identified Keith as being the guy
(14:34):
that came through the gate. Even though Keith's mustache didn't
line up with Teresa Perrone's description of the attacker being
clean shaven, and even though his uniform insignia did not
look like upside down vs. The case went to trial.
Lowell Levine testified for the prosecution, telling the jury that
(14:55):
everybody has a set of teeth which are unique and individual,
and said that with reasonable medical certainty, mister Harwood caused
the bite marks on leg A second expert echoed Levine's testimony.
The defense challenged both analysts with the fact that they
based their statements on a single photograph. In October nineteen
(15:17):
eighty three, Keith was found guilty of first degree capital
murder and first degree rape. That was the hand that
was dealt me. I said, okay, let me go forward,
and I will just wait for the day I dropped.
Day they we're going to never let me go. So
Lowell Levine's testimony that everybody has a set of teeth
that are unique, and therefore so are their bite marks.
(15:39):
Is that true? I'm Mary Bush. Actually I should say
I'm doctor Mary Bush. I'm a dentist. I'm also a
forensic dentist, and i am full time faculty at Sunnior
Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. I'm Peter Bush. I'm a
research scientist at the University of Buffalo, and we've produced
some work which we believe is thirty significant both in
(16:01):
advancement of victim identification in forensic dentistry. The husband and
wife team, thanks to a nudging from a persistent student
who wanted to study bite marks, end up taking on
a huge project. So we started looking into the literature
and we realized there really wasn't a lot of published
(16:21):
papers in the area of bite marks. There almost appeared
to be a lag in the field, meaning that some
of the papers came out in the early seventies and
there wasn't much going through the eighties and the nineties.
They wanted to have as much data as possible, so
they collaborated on some of their work with David Sheets. So,
I am a professor of physics and of data analytics.
(16:43):
You're a kinesious college director of a graduate program in
data analytics. So one of the things we looked at
was simply is are there people out there whose denticians
really are not distinguishable from one another? Right? There have
been the claim within the forensics literature of uniqueness of
the human dentician, meaning that everybody has a unique dentician.
Dentician means how teeth are arranged in the mouth. And
(17:07):
we built up some really big databases, right, number of
different databases. So what we saw was that in reasonably
sized data sets, say four hundred sets of dentation from
a random population, you'd find one or two individuals in
that who had a match within the population. So, in
other words, you couldn't tell their teeth apart, the cutting
portion of their teeth, the section's going to leave a
bite and a boite mark apart, even with two D
(17:28):
or three D data. We also did look at some
people who had orthodonic treatment, which is kind of neat, right,
And you know, we had one hundred and ten casts
of people who had had orthodonic treatment, about forty of
them had matching bites. So orthodonics works right because they
try to kind of make people's teeth uniform and consistent,
and they do a good job of it, and you
can't tell their white marks apart. So depending on what
(17:48):
the population is, and there are going to be some
level of unrelated people who leave the same bite mark.
That's what it comes down to you. That means multiple
people could leave a bite mark that looks the same
to investigators. Mary and Peter also focused on what seems
like a simple question. We decided to start with some
very basic research the nature of the skin and how
(18:09):
to skin respond to when bitten. To create the bite markings,
they built a sensitive mechanical device. It's a precise metal
clamp that acts like a human jaw and holds a
mouthful of molded teeth, but they didn't get reliable matches.
The Bushes learned that skin distorts and stretches, and when
(18:31):
it stretches, it moves differently in different directions. We found
that all of the bite marks that we were test
biting with looked different from the set of teeth that
actually created those bites. They were thorough changing the position
of the teeth and even removing teeth to see what
would be reflected in the bite marks. Some of the
(18:52):
bites looked like the teeth were still there even though
they were not part of the biting dentitian Mary and
Peter found no two sets of bite marks made by
the same set of teeth looked the same. Basically, they
disproved the idea that bite marks left on skin are
conclusively unique to individuals. The Bushes began publishing the results
(19:14):
in scientific journals in two thousand and nine, soon after
they were being asked to testify in cases, but prosecutors
and bite mark analysts pushed back, saying that this kind
of work done in a laboratory isn't comparable to the
real world. Most of that criticism comes from the organization
that certifies forensic dentists, the ABFO. So when we hear
(19:39):
derogatory terms and we're using dead skin and we're using
a device, but we're like, yes, but we're getting this
level of distortion using these simplistic devices that we can't
possibly make it better by adding more variables, meaning that
if you're seeing these results in a lab where you
can control all factors, logic would tell you the problems
(20:02):
only get worse in the real world. Chris Fabricant from
The Innocence Project. We deal with bite marks that are
partially inflicted during a violent struggle, after healing, after decomposing.
All the things that make bite marks impossible were what
they claimed were the reasons why you had to ignore
and discredit the Bosh research. So it was like kind
(20:22):
of a judo move right, and so that they used
the basic tenants of science against the scientists to discredit
their own science. We reached out to several bite mark
analysts to see what they had to say about bite
marks and to explain the process, but all of our
interview requests were turned down or ignored, which brings us
back to Keith Harward. Years into his prison sentence, another
(20:47):
inmate suggests he contact the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that
works to exonerate the wrongly convicted. They took up the
case and his legal team found a new piece of
evidence in Keith's case file. The foringic examiner on the
blood noted that there were certain types of secretions that
(21:07):
would not have been consistent with Keith's blood type, and
they didn't disclose that. That's huge that creates doubt. His
new defense team got a court order for DNA testing
science that hadn't existed at the time of his original
trial in nineteen eighty three. The result the analysis definitively
(21:30):
excluded Harward as the source of blood and seamen from
the crime scene, just as he had always claimed, Keith
was innocent. Not only did the DNA clear Keith, it
identified the actual suspect, someone who already had their DNA
in the system, someone, unsurprisingly, who had been convicted of
(21:52):
violent crimes. Defense attorney Kenny morov a very bad criminal
by the name of Jerry Crotty, who was a multiple offender.
There was a solid match on him him as being
the perpetrator. He was a crew member with Keith. He
was on the Vincent But Krody died in an Ohio
(22:14):
prison in two thousand and six. In twenty sixteen, the
Virginia Supreme Court issued Keith Hardwood a writ of actual innocence.
He had been in prison for thirty three years. Why
I use bike mark evidence when just this year long
to other people but besides myself have gotten now and
(22:34):
bikemark evidence was used in the trial. How many people
have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this
stuff's all bogus, It's all it's all made up. Back
(23:10):
to the case of Charles McCrory. You heard about him
in the beginning of this episode, he's been arrested and
charged with the murder of his wife, Julie Bonds. Here's
Chris Fabrikant again. There was no eyewitness, there was no confession,
there was no forensic evidence, and there was no motive.
And so the idea apart from the fact that they
(23:31):
were going through a divorce, but there was nothing even
about the divorce, it suggested that it had ever been
violent or that there was any kind of motive that
mister McCary would have had to kill or his wife.
When they noticed an injury on the body that looked
to somebody like a bite mark. And I have looked
at it very carefully, more than once, and it looks
(23:52):
nothing like a bite mark to me. And I've seen
more than your average lawyer, that's for sure. But they
got that bite mark evidence and they shipped it off
to Dick Suban. Doctor Richard Suvaran, the forensic dentist you
heard about earlier that testified in the Ted Bundy trial.
He took some images, look at the images, took a
mold from mister McClory's teeth, and opined that indeed was
(24:17):
a bite mark, that it was inflicted by mister McClory's
teeth and that it was inflicted at the time of death.
That's Mark Loudon Brown, lawyer at the Southern Tower for
Human Rights. So doctor Superan testified in Ted Bundy trial.
Put yourself back in that trial as a juror. They
saved him for the end right the prosecutions. He was
(24:39):
their last witness, He was their star witness, and he
concluded his testimony saying, it's mister McCrory's teeth on her
body and he did it at the time of death. Right.
If you end your case like that, how does the
defense overcome bat Charles McCrory is convicted and sentenced to
life for killing Julie. During his decades in prison, he
(25:01):
gets a PhD in religious studies, preaches in the prison
sure and mentors other inmates. His son, Chad, is raised
by his grandparents. In many ways, he's lost both parents.
I live my grandparents most of my years growing up.
They were very adamant that I make my own decision
about the case about things that have happened. Chad is
(25:22):
now married and a father himself. Despite the circumstances, he
does have a relationship with his Dad, We sent cards, pictures,
we talked a pretty fair bit. We call and with
a video message and you know, now actually helps. So
we try to stay in contact and he's always been
very supportive of, you know, of anything I got going on.
(25:46):
And then thirty four years after his conviction, Charles's sister
brings the case to the attention of Chris Fabrikant and
Mark Loudon Brown. They take it on. During the time
of Charles's incarceration, there's been some progress made in how
bite mark analysis is being used in US courts. A
(26:06):
man named Stephen Cheney was exonerated in a Dallas murder
case after a bite mark expert who testified against him
recanted his statement. Chris Fabricant represented Cheney, and he wanted
more than just an exoneration. In conjunction with our representation
of mister Cheney, we filed a complaint with the Texas
Forensic Science Commission, asking the Commission to do a deep
(26:28):
dive into the literature and some of the assumptions surrounding
bite mark evidence and producer report not just about mister
Cheney's case, but about bite marks in general and what
evidence there was, if any, to support some of what
courts have been accepting for at least fifty years. The
Texas Forensic Science Commission heard testimony about a study done
(26:49):
by the American Board of Forensic Odentology. They sent out
one hundred case studies of bite marks to thirty nine
of their most senior analysts. Those thirty nine analysts came
to a unanimous agreement on just four cases out of
one hundred four. The Commission recommended a moratorium on the
(27:10):
use of bite mark evidence in Texas, and they released
a scathing rebuke of the ABFO. In twenty eighteen, the
ABFO made significant restrictions to its standards and guidelines, no
longer allowing members to quote express conclusions unconditionally linking a
bite mark to a dentician, but they are still allowed
(27:31):
to testify whether or not someone can be excluded. When
you exclude somebody, you're using the same level of certainty
that you would if you were naming somebody the biter.
So if you exclude the wrong person, you still have
the same problem. So, with momentum building against the scientific
(27:52):
validity of bite mark analysis, Charles McCrory's new legal team
gets to work. They decide to go back to that
star bite mark witness doctor Richard Suvaran Mark Loudon Brown
now represents Charles McCrory. He agreed to look at what
he did in this case, and after looking at it,
(28:14):
he said, knowing what I know today, as a forensic
dentist with decades of experience, I could not and would
not make offer those opinions today. So recanted his testimony
and said, you know, he couldn't and would not say
that this was a bite mark than mister Bikari inflicted.
And so with that he gave a sworn affidavit and
(28:37):
with that we sought, you know, really a new trial.
In the spring of twenty twenty one, Charles's new legal
team meets up in Andalusia, Alabama. It's the night before
an evidentiary hearing where the team will be pushing for
Charles to get a new trial. The prosecutor offers to
agree to Charles being released for time served if he
(28:59):
pleads guilty, but Charles refuses. Here's his sister, Renee. We
spoke with them right after that had happened, and he
was like, you know, I had that chance back thirty
six years ago. I turned it down. He said, I
don't know why they would you ask me again. The
next day, the defense presents its case to the court. Remember,
the biological material found under Julie's fingernails and the hair
(29:23):
found in her hand were not a match for Charles.
In nineteen eighty five, there was one piece of the
us mister McQuary. It was a bite mark. And they
thought at that time that bite marks were good science,
and now we know that they're not, and so he
should get out. Charles McCrory and his family wait a
long ten months before Covington County, Alabama Judge Charles Short
(29:47):
issues his decision. In that time, the district attorney and
chief Assistant District Attorney submit a four page brief arguing
against McCrory's request for a new trial. So, after ten months,
and in spite of the expert witness recanting his testimony
and the emergence scientific evidence, Judge Short was unconvinced that
(30:09):
quote the outcome of the trial would have been different
and refused to grant Charles McCrory a new hearing. The
ruling said that it didn't matter that doctor Suvaron recanted
his testimony because anyone on the jury could have seen
that mister McCrory's teeth were a match for the bite.
Mark and Judge Short's four page decision was a near
(30:32):
duplicate of the brief submitted by the district attorneys. Mark
and Chris couldn't believe it. The court waited ten months,
and we had every reason to think that the judges maybe,
you know, engaging in some analysis or thinking about weighing
the different arguments and gnawing on what to do and
(30:54):
going back and forth. And it's clear that that wasn't happening.
Just waited ten months to get around to signing. The
prosecution's order doesn't address you submitted something like a page brief,
doesn't address any of the points we raise, and so
it's clear that there was no real legal, honest legal
(31:16):
analysis going on. I was stunned by the decision. I
was done by the reasoning of the decision. It's a
really good example of just how hard it is to
overturn a conviction, and a really good reason why we
should stop admitting unvalidated and unreliable evidence in criminal trials,
because it's really almost impossible to overturn even when you
have such clean facts as you have in this case.
(31:39):
Charles's defense team is planning to appeal Judge Short's decision,
but that process could take years. It's been really hard,
but you know, this is where our friends and family
are two, so it was worth waiting it out and staying.
We spent it felt like maybe twenty twenty five years
felt like nothing was happening, just spinning our wheels, and
then all the last five years, maybe things are happening,
(32:02):
things like we're you know, we've got support now. I
think it's got to be an amazing feeling to him
to feel like that people believe in him and support
and that, you know, things are actually moving forward. We're waiting,
but patiently waiting, I guess, and Chris believes there is
still a huge problem when it comes to how much
bite mark analysis is still used throughout the US criminal
(32:25):
justice system. It took ten years of litigation at the
Innocence Project to even get courts to openly questioned bite marks.
Right now, today prosecutor can come into court and use
this technique that is convicted at least thirty three people wrongfully.
Centuries of wrongful conviction still admissible today. Meanwhile, Charles McCrory
(32:49):
continues to count the days in prison, where he has
spent most of his adult life. In twenty twenty three,
he was denied parole. He won't be eligible again for
another five years. The glimmer of hope he, his son,
Chat and his supportive sisters had of winning his freedom
is back in limbo next time on CSI on Trial.
(33:16):
How Firearms Analysis got its start from an infamous crime,
the Valentine's Day massacre on the flaming battleground called Chicago.
We got a nice Valentine all ready to deliver a
Valentine bug, say Jack does. Make sure it's a great
(33:39):
make Red Valantino. CSI on Trial is a co production
of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans, based on the
Curiosity stream series CSI on Trial, created by Eleanor Grant
(34:01):
and produced by the Biscuit Factory. You can watch all
six episodes of the video series right now at curiosity
stream dot com. This episode is hosted and written by
me Molly Herman and researched by Katie Dunn and myself.
Our producer is Miranda Hawkins. Jessica Metzker is the senior producer.
(34:23):
Virginia Prescott, Jason English, Brandon Barr and el C Crowley
are the executive producers. Sound design in mix by Miranda Hawkins.
Special thanks to John Higgins, Rob Burke, Rob Lyle, and
Brandon Craigie. If you're enjoying the show, leave a review
in your favorite podcast app. Check out the Curiosity Audio
(34:47):
Network for podcasts covering history, pop culture, true crime, and more.
School of Humans
This episode contains details of graphic violence and sexual assault.
Please take care where and when you listen. It's the
morning of May thirty first, nineteen eighty five, in Andalusia,
(00:33):
a southern Alabama town that's about an hour and a
half away from the Gulf of Mexico. Twenty six year
old Charles McCrory is at work. He calls his estranged wife, Julie.
They're going through a divorce but still on good terms.
Just the night before, he visited Julie and their three
year old son, Chad at the home they used to share,
(00:53):
watching TV and folding laundry, and now he's calling, hoping
she can drop off a breakfast he forgot, but Julie's
not picking up the phone. Charles sends his father see
H to stop by and check on the house, finds
Chad in his bedroom and a gruesome scene in the
living room. Charles's sister, Renee, is at work. About eight
(01:17):
thirty I received a call from my dad and he
said he just said Julie's dead, and I left work
and went over to the house. My dad was outside,
so went over. He had taken Chad across the street
and went over to cross the street to the neighbors.
We didn't really know at that point a lot of details.
Paramedics and police are called. They find twenty four year
(01:37):
old Julie Bonds lifeless on the floor. She's on her
stomach with a red bandanna tied around her right wrist.
She's been savagely beaten and stabbed multiple times, with a
bloody wound on the back of her head in her
hand strands of hair. Charles, meanwhile, is on his way
to the house. He's a volunteer paramedic for the Andalusia
(02:00):
Rescue Squad, so he hears the call over the radio
while driving. He's upset and calls the squad to let
them know he's on his way. Detectives question Charles when
he arrives. They notice something on his shoe that looks
like blood. After seeing the horrific wounds on Julie's body,
Charles asks, what they think is an odd question, if
(02:23):
the injury on the back of her head is what
killed her. Though he says he didn't stay at the house,
a neighbor will tell police that they may have seen
Charles's vehicle in the driveway all night. Police suspect Charles
murdered his wife, but don't turn up any forensic evidence
to prove it. So Charles and his young son Chad
(02:43):
mourn the loss of Julie. The family plans and attends
her funeral three days later. We were at the funeral.
As soon as it was over, he went in for questioning,
and then that afternoon. Later that afternoon actually hired from
a relative that they were going to arrest him, and
then he didn't come back home. Police think they may
have a smoking gun. What they believe is a mark
(03:05):
on Julie's upper right arm. It's bruising around two red marks.
Charles is arrested and a bite. Mark's expert named doctor
Richard Seuvaron testifies at his trial that the mark was
made by Charles McCrory. Doctor Seuvaron is famous, having testified
at a trial that made national news a few years back.
(03:27):
The local jury thinks it's a big deal he's come
to their small town, but other forensic evidence from the
scene tells a different story. Biological evidence investigators pull from
the scrapings from under Julie's fingernails is not a match
with Charles. Neither is the hare found in her hand.
Charles's family doesn't understand why police think he did it.
(03:52):
The original accusations were that he had blood on his
shoes that had later been proved that it was his coke.
They had checked his car, they checked his apartment, they
checked her car. They couldn't find you know, they didn't
find anything connecting him. But he's found guilty and sentenced
to life in prison. I'm Molly Herman and this is
(04:17):
CSI on trial. Two or three stains are really not
enough to call something an impact better from gunshot that's
going to put someone in prison the rest of your life.
Thought that making up a lie was gonna get you
home sooner? What is it about a bite mark that
we make a dentist, an expert in this area who
(04:38):
shot at you. He said, I will sit in this
jail and I will rot before I take a plea bark.
The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system
today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and
not an awful lot of science. Episode two bite marks.
(05:00):
So where does bite mark evidence come from? The earliest
reporting an court dates back to the Salem witch trials
In sixteen ninety two, the Reverend George Burroughs stood accused
of witchcraft and conspiracy with the devil. Several young girls
claimed the possessed reverend had bitten them. He was forced
(05:22):
to let the court examine his teeth. According to reports,
they literally pride his mouth open to compare his teeth
to the bite marks on the girls. They decreed that
his bite matched the bite marks, and he was hanged
by the way. Years later, he was declared innocent and
Massachusetts compensated his children. But it wasn't until three hundred
(05:45):
years later that bite marks entered the criminal justice system
as evidence. In nineteen seventy four, prosecutors in Los Angeles
exhumed the body of a murder victim weeks after her
burial back home in Texas to examine bite marks on
her nose. Three dentists then testified those marks were made
(06:05):
by one man, and he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
This set the precedent the legal rule that has allowed
bite mark testimony into US courtrooms. But it's one case
just a few years later that really made bite mark
evidence famous. In nineteen seventy eight, police arrested Theodore Bundy,
(06:27):
a clean cut former law student, from multiple kidnappings rapes
and murders Theodore Robert Bundy. You are charge indictment two
counts burglary, two counts murder in the first degree, three
counts attempted murder in the first degree. I'll plead not
guilty right now. Ted Bundy's case was the first nationally
(06:49):
broadcast live criminal trial. It was a huge celebrity defendant.
That's Chris Fabricant from The Innocence Project. We met him
last episode and he's written extensively on bite mark evidence.
At the trial, dentists matched Bundy's teeth to the bite
marks on one of his victims. The bite marks made
the dentist stars. One of those star dentists was doctor
(07:13):
Richard Suvaron. Armed with a court order, Suvaron said he
visited Bundy in his Tallahassee jail cell and took impressions
of his teeth. Later, Subaron declared in his opinion, Bundy's
teeth left that mark. Bundy himself argued against letting that
testimony in today, but the judge ruled against him. Whoever
(07:34):
made this mark in the skin in the flesh had
crooked teeth. That's the same doctor Suvaron. That was the
prosecution's key witness in the case against Charles McCrory. We'll
talk about that more later in the episode, But back
to the science. We know how bite mark analysis started,
but how does it work in practice. Bite mark analysts
(07:57):
matches suspects dental impressions to the marks of an injury
left una victim's skin. It's based on two fundamental assumptions
that skin can reliably record tooth marks, and that the
arrangement and condition of an individual's teeth are unique like
a fingerprint. The problem is these fundamental principles have never
(08:19):
been proven, and for four decades, bite mark analysis has
been used in court without rigorous scientific validation of those
basic assumptions. Bite marks fall under the umbrella of forensic odentology,
a discipline mostly known for ideing victims. Here's Chris again.
The only thing that can legitimize a forensic technique is research,
(08:42):
scientific research and proficiency testing, neither which bite marks or
the forensic dentists have at all. But there are aspects
of forensic dentistry forensic odentology that are more credible. So,
for example, identification of dead bodies is something that forensic
dentists can do and requires some knowledge of dentistry and
(09:06):
mouths and teeth. There's an organization that certifies forensic dentists,
the American Board of Forensic Odentology or the ABFO. They've
been around since nineteen seventy six, right before the Ted
Bundy trial. But how are forensic odentologists qualified to evaluate
bite mark evidence? What is it about a bite mark
(09:28):
that would make a dentist an expert in this area?
And I've never gotten a straight answer. Is it the
proximity to teeth? You know? I mean, because there's nothing
about being a dentist that makes you an expert at
interpreting an injury on skin. And interpreting those injuries, specifically
connecting a bruise or mark on skin to the teeth
that created it is the basis of bite mark analysis.
(09:52):
So what happens when they get it wrong? Here's one
man who was convicted on bad bite mark evidence. I
spent more than half my life in prison behind the
opinions in the expert egos of two odentologists. Tug you
(10:33):
a mustache and hold on top hat. It's all going
to hell anyways. This is Keith Harward. Keith served over
thirty years in prison after being falsely convicted in a
murder case. The key piece of evidence used against him.
Bite Marks joined the Navy in nineteen eighty one in
(10:54):
an effort to straighten my life out, and then I
was stationed on the USS Carl Vincent CV and seventy one,
which was a nuclear power aircraft carrier. In nineteen eighty two,
while Keith was serving aboard the Vincent, a man wearing
a US Navy white service uniform breaks into a home
(11:15):
just down the street from where the carrier was docked,
the home of the Perrone family. The man bludgeons thirty
year old Jesse Perrone to death, Then, over the course
of several hours, he sexually assaults twenty two year old Teresa,
threatening to kill her three children if she makes a sound.
(11:35):
Teresa survives. Her attacker leaves behind a horrific calling card
bite marks all over her legs. Police take photographs to
document the bites. Teresa helps detectives create a composite sketch
of her attacker. She describes him as a clean shaven
sailor with an insignia on his sleeve that looked like
(11:57):
three upside down vs. Investigators board the USS Vincent to
conduct a very unusual search. They had these dentists and
they lined everybody up and they kind of ran them
through there, and they looked in the mouths and looked
to see, you know, what they were looking for, which
at the time I had no clue what it was.
But they were looking for teeth that were crooked or
(12:20):
being or broke or whatever they try to identify someone.
Of course I found this out later on, but at
the time I had no clue. It didn't send no
red flags up to me. Why would it. I was
just doing my thing. Keith wasn't singled out then, but
months later he got into an altercation with his girlfriend.
(12:41):
Gladys reported that she had to fight with a boyfriend,
and in the course of making that report, she said,
he bit me. This is Roy Lazarus, who represented Keith
at one of his trials. It was a true tussle,
as Keith described it in this testimony. It wasn't in
the nature of a rape. He wasn't biting or hunder
a thigh. It was just their fighting with one another,
(13:02):
and they apparently did that. It was some regularity. That's unfair,
but that's sometimes the way they resolved certain things. But
the nature of the bite was just simply in a
defense of nature. He says what he did wasn't right,
and when she reported him to the police, he became
a suspect in the Perune case. The detectives approached me,
(13:25):
they said, hey, we wanted to take mosia teeth. We're
trying to clean some stuff up. And I had moles
taken and I went back with my parents to Willis, Virginia,
and then several weeks later the detective from Newport News
came and arrested me at their home. The authorities sent
a cast of his teeth to a dental expert and
a rising star in the growing field of bite mark
(13:46):
analysis named Lowell Levine. Levine too had testified just a
few years earlier in the Ted Bundy trial. Levine told
investigators that Harward's teeth matched the marks on Perrone's legs.
There was also an eyewitness who came forward after the
crime became public. Keith's attorney at the time, Kenny Murrov,
(14:09):
remembers that witness a shipyard guard named Donald Wade, and
Donald Wade observed somebody in the early morning hours of
the crime, a navy person coming through his gate with
blood on his uniform, and they brought some pictures to
Donald Wade, and he identified Keith as being the guy
(14:34):
that came through the gate. Even though Keith's mustache didn't
line up with Teresa Perrone's description of the attacker being
clean shaven, and even though his uniform insignia did not
look like upside down vs. The case went to trial.
Lowell Levine testified for the prosecution, telling the jury that
(14:55):
everybody has a set of teeth which are unique and individual,
and said that with reasonable medical certainty, mister Harwood caused
the bite marks on leg A second expert echoed Levine's testimony.
The defense challenged both analysts with the fact that they
based their statements on a single photograph. In October nineteen
(15:17):
eighty three, Keith was found guilty of first degree capital
murder and first degree rape. That was the hand that
was dealt me. I said, okay, let me go forward,
and I will just wait for the day I dropped.
Day they we're going to never let me go. So
Lowell Levine's testimony that everybody has a set of teeth
that are unique, and therefore so are their bite marks.
(15:39):
Is that true? I'm Mary Bush. Actually I should say
I'm doctor Mary Bush. I'm a dentist. I'm also a
forensic dentist, and i am full time faculty at Sunnior
Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. I'm Peter Bush. I'm a
research scientist at the University of Buffalo, and we've produced
some work which we believe is thirty significant both in
(16:01):
advancement of victim identification in forensic dentistry. The husband and
wife team, thanks to a nudging from a persistent student
who wanted to study bite marks, end up taking on
a huge project. So we started looking into the literature
and we realized there really wasn't a lot of published
(16:21):
papers in the area of bite marks. There almost appeared
to be a lag in the field, meaning that some
of the papers came out in the early seventies and
there wasn't much going through the eighties and the nineties.
They wanted to have as much data as possible, so
they collaborated on some of their work with David Sheets. So,
I am a professor of physics and of data analytics.
(16:43):
You're a kinesious college director of a graduate program in
data analytics. So one of the things we looked at
was simply is are there people out there whose denticians
really are not distinguishable from one another? Right? There have
been the claim within the forensics literature of uniqueness of
the human dentician, meaning that everybody has a unique dentician.
Dentician means how teeth are arranged in the mouth. And
(17:07):
we built up some really big databases, right, number of
different databases. So what we saw was that in reasonably
sized data sets, say four hundred sets of dentation from
a random population, you'd find one or two individuals in
that who had a match within the population. So, in
other words, you couldn't tell their teeth apart, the cutting
portion of their teeth, the section's going to leave a
bite and a boite mark apart, even with two D
(17:28):
or three D data. We also did look at some
people who had orthodonic treatment, which is kind of neat, right,
And you know, we had one hundred and ten casts
of people who had had orthodonic treatment, about forty of
them had matching bites. So orthodonics works right because they
try to kind of make people's teeth uniform and consistent,
and they do a good job of it, and you
can't tell their white marks apart. So depending on what
(17:48):
the population is, and there are going to be some
level of unrelated people who leave the same bite mark.
That's what it comes down to you. That means multiple
people could leave a bite mark that looks the same
to investigators. Mary and Peter also focused on what seems
like a simple question. We decided to start with some
very basic research the nature of the skin and how
(18:09):
to skin respond to when bitten. To create the bite markings,
they built a sensitive mechanical device. It's a precise metal
clamp that acts like a human jaw and holds a
mouthful of molded teeth, but they didn't get reliable matches.
The Bushes learned that skin distorts and stretches, and when
(18:31):
it stretches, it moves differently in different directions. We found
that all of the bite marks that we were test
biting with looked different from the set of teeth that
actually created those bites. They were thorough changing the position
of the teeth and even removing teeth to see what
would be reflected in the bite marks. Some of the
(18:52):
bites looked like the teeth were still there even though
they were not part of the biting dentitian Mary and
Peter found no two sets of bite marks made by
the same set of teeth looked the same. Basically, they
disproved the idea that bite marks left on skin are
conclusively unique to individuals. The Bushes began publishing the results
(19:14):
in scientific journals in two thousand and nine, soon after
they were being asked to testify in cases, but prosecutors
and bite mark analysts pushed back, saying that this kind
of work done in a laboratory isn't comparable to the
real world. Most of that criticism comes from the organization
that certifies forensic dentists, the ABFO. So when we hear
(19:39):
derogatory terms and we're using dead skin and we're using
a device, but we're like, yes, but we're getting this
level of distortion using these simplistic devices that we can't
possibly make it better by adding more variables, meaning that
if you're seeing these results in a lab where you
can control all factors, logic would tell you the problems
(20:02):
only get worse in the real world. Chris Fabricant from
The Innocence Project. We deal with bite marks that are
partially inflicted during a violent struggle, after healing, after decomposing.
All the things that make bite marks impossible were what
they claimed were the reasons why you had to ignore
and discredit the Bosh research. So it was like kind
(20:22):
of a judo move right, and so that they used
the basic tenants of science against the scientists to discredit
their own science. We reached out to several bite mark
analysts to see what they had to say about bite
marks and to explain the process, but all of our
interview requests were turned down or ignored, which brings us
back to Keith Harward. Years into his prison sentence, another
(20:47):
inmate suggests he contact the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that
works to exonerate the wrongly convicted. They took up the
case and his legal team found a new piece of
evidence in Keith's case file. The foringic examiner on the
blood noted that there were certain types of secretions that
(21:07):
would not have been consistent with Keith's blood type, and
they didn't disclose that. That's huge that creates doubt. His
new defense team got a court order for DNA testing
science that hadn't existed at the time of his original
trial in nineteen eighty three. The result the analysis definitively
(21:30):
excluded Harward as the source of blood and seamen from
the crime scene, just as he had always claimed, Keith
was innocent. Not only did the DNA clear Keith, it
identified the actual suspect, someone who already had their DNA
in the system, someone, unsurprisingly, who had been convicted of
(21:52):
violent crimes. Defense attorney Kenny morov a very bad criminal
by the name of Jerry Crotty, who was a multiple offender.
There was a solid match on him him as being
the perpetrator. He was a crew member with Keith. He
was on the Vincent But Krody died in an Ohio
(22:14):
prison in two thousand and six. In twenty sixteen, the
Virginia Supreme Court issued Keith Hardwood a writ of actual innocence.
He had been in prison for thirty three years. Why
I use bike mark evidence when just this year long
to other people but besides myself have gotten now and
(22:34):
bikemark evidence was used in the trial. How many people
have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this
stuff's all bogus, It's all it's all made up. Back
(23:10):
to the case of Charles McCrory. You heard about him
in the beginning of this episode, he's been arrested and
charged with the murder of his wife, Julie Bonds. Here's
Chris Fabrikant again. There was no eyewitness, there was no confession,
there was no forensic evidence, and there was no motive.
And so the idea apart from the fact that they
(23:31):
were going through a divorce, but there was nothing even
about the divorce, it suggested that it had ever been
violent or that there was any kind of motive that
mister McCary would have had to kill or his wife.
When they noticed an injury on the body that looked
to somebody like a bite mark. And I have looked
at it very carefully, more than once, and it looks
(23:52):
nothing like a bite mark to me. And I've seen
more than your average lawyer, that's for sure. But they
got that bite mark evidence and they shipped it off
to Dick Suban. Doctor Richard Suvaran, the forensic dentist you
heard about earlier that testified in the Ted Bundy trial.
He took some images, look at the images, took a
mold from mister McClory's teeth, and opined that indeed was
(24:17):
a bite mark, that it was inflicted by mister McClory's
teeth and that it was inflicted at the time of death.
That's Mark Loudon Brown, lawyer at the Southern Tower for
Human Rights. So doctor Superan testified in Ted Bundy trial.
Put yourself back in that trial as a juror. They
saved him for the end right the prosecutions. He was
(24:39):
their last witness, He was their star witness, and he
concluded his testimony saying, it's mister McCrory's teeth on her
body and he did it at the time of death. Right.
If you end your case like that, how does the
defense overcome bat Charles McCrory is convicted and sentenced to
life for killing Julie. During his decades in prison, he
(25:01):
gets a PhD in religious studies, preaches in the prison
sure and mentors other inmates. His son, Chad, is raised
by his grandparents. In many ways, he's lost both parents.
I live my grandparents most of my years growing up.
They were very adamant that I make my own decision
about the case about things that have happened. Chad is
(25:22):
now married and a father himself. Despite the circumstances, he
does have a relationship with his Dad, We sent cards, pictures,
we talked a pretty fair bit. We call and with
a video message and you know, now actually helps. So
we try to stay in contact and he's always been
very supportive of, you know, of anything I got going on.
(25:46):
And then thirty four years after his conviction, Charles's sister
brings the case to the attention of Chris Fabrikant and
Mark Loudon Brown. They take it on. During the time
of Charles's incarceration, there's been some progress made in how
bite mark analysis is being used in US courts. A
(26:06):
man named Stephen Cheney was exonerated in a Dallas murder
case after a bite mark expert who testified against him
recanted his statement. Chris Fabricant represented Cheney, and he wanted
more than just an exoneration. In conjunction with our representation
of mister Cheney, we filed a complaint with the Texas
Forensic Science Commission, asking the Commission to do a deep
(26:28):
dive into the literature and some of the assumptions surrounding
bite mark evidence and producer report not just about mister
Cheney's case, but about bite marks in general and what
evidence there was, if any, to support some of what
courts have been accepting for at least fifty years. The
Texas Forensic Science Commission heard testimony about a study done
(26:49):
by the American Board of Forensic Odentology. They sent out
one hundred case studies of bite marks to thirty nine
of their most senior analysts. Those thirty nine analysts came
to a unanimous agreement on just four cases out of
one hundred four. The Commission recommended a moratorium on the
(27:10):
use of bite mark evidence in Texas, and they released
a scathing rebuke of the ABFO. In twenty eighteen, the
ABFO made significant restrictions to its standards and guidelines, no
longer allowing members to quote express conclusions unconditionally linking a
bite mark to a dentician, but they are still allowed
(27:31):
to testify whether or not someone can be excluded. When
you exclude somebody, you're using the same level of certainty
that you would if you were naming somebody the biter.
So if you exclude the wrong person, you still have
the same problem. So, with momentum building against the scientific
(27:52):
validity of bite mark analysis, Charles McCrory's new legal team
gets to work. They decide to go back to that
star bite mark witness doctor Richard Suvaran Mark Loudon Brown
now represents Charles McCrory. He agreed to look at what
he did in this case, and after looking at it,
(28:14):
he said, knowing what I know today, as a forensic
dentist with decades of experience, I could not and would
not make offer those opinions today. So recanted his testimony
and said, you know, he couldn't and would not say
that this was a bite mark than mister Bikari inflicted.
And so with that he gave a sworn affidavit and
(28:37):
with that we sought, you know, really a new trial.
In the spring of twenty twenty one, Charles's new legal
team meets up in Andalusia, Alabama. It's the night before
an evidentiary hearing where the team will be pushing for
Charles to get a new trial. The prosecutor offers to
agree to Charles being released for time served if he
(28:59):
pleads guilty, but Charles refuses. Here's his sister, Renee. We
spoke with them right after that had happened, and he
was like, you know, I had that chance back thirty
six years ago. I turned it down. He said, I
don't know why they would you ask me again. The
next day, the defense presents its case to the court. Remember,
the biological material found under Julie's fingernails and the hair
(29:23):
found in her hand were not a match for Charles.
In nineteen eighty five, there was one piece of the
us mister McQuary. It was a bite mark. And they
thought at that time that bite marks were good science,
and now we know that they're not, and so he
should get out. Charles McCrory and his family wait a
long ten months before Covington County, Alabama Judge Charles Short
(29:47):
issues his decision. In that time, the district attorney and
chief Assistant District Attorney submit a four page brief arguing
against McCrory's request for a new trial. So, after ten months,
and in spite of the expert witness recanting his testimony
and the emergence scientific evidence, Judge Short was unconvinced that
(30:09):
quote the outcome of the trial would have been different
and refused to grant Charles McCrory a new hearing. The
ruling said that it didn't matter that doctor Suvaron recanted
his testimony because anyone on the jury could have seen
that mister McCrory's teeth were a match for the bite.
Mark and Judge Short's four page decision was a near
(30:32):
duplicate of the brief submitted by the district attorneys. Mark
and Chris couldn't believe it. The court waited ten months,
and we had every reason to think that the judges maybe,
you know, engaging in some analysis or thinking about weighing
the different arguments and gnawing on what to do and
(30:54):
going back and forth. And it's clear that that wasn't happening.
Just waited ten months to get around to signing. The
prosecution's order doesn't address you submitted something like a page brief,
doesn't address any of the points we raise, and so
it's clear that there was no real legal, honest legal
(31:16):
analysis going on. I was stunned by the decision. I
was done by the reasoning of the decision. It's a
really good example of just how hard it is to
overturn a conviction, and a really good reason why we
should stop admitting unvalidated and unreliable evidence in criminal trials,
because it's really almost impossible to overturn even when you
have such clean facts as you have in this case.
(31:39):
Charles's defense team is planning to appeal Judge Short's decision,
but that process could take years. It's been really hard,
but you know, this is where our friends and family
are two, so it was worth waiting it out and staying.
We spent it felt like maybe twenty twenty five years
felt like nothing was happening, just spinning our wheels, and
then all the last five years, maybe things are happening,
(32:02):
things like we're you know, we've got support now. I
think it's got to be an amazing feeling to him
to feel like that people believe in him and support
and that, you know, things are actually moving forward. We're waiting,
but patiently waiting, I guess, and Chris believes there is
still a huge problem when it comes to how much
bite mark analysis is still used throughout the US criminal
(32:25):
justice system. It took ten years of litigation at the
Innocence Project to even get courts to openly questioned bite marks.
Right now, today prosecutor can come into court and use
this technique that is convicted at least thirty three people wrongfully.
Centuries of wrongful conviction still admissible today. Meanwhile, Charles McCrory
(32:49):
continues to count the days in prison, where he has
spent most of his adult life. In twenty twenty three,
he was denied parole. He won't be eligible again for
another five years. The glimmer of hope he, his son,
Chat and his supportive sisters had of winning his freedom
is back in limbo next time on CSI on Trial.
(33:16):
How Firearms Analysis got its start from an infamous crime,
the Valentine's Day massacre on the flaming battleground called Chicago.
We got a nice Valentine all ready to deliver a
Valentine bug, say Jack does. Make sure it's a great
(33:39):
make Red Valantino. CSI on Trial is a co production
of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans, based on the
Curiosity stream series CSI on Trial, created by Eleanor Grant
(34:01):
and produced by the Biscuit Factory. You can watch all
six episodes of the video series right now at curiosity
stream dot com. This episode is hosted and written by
me Molly Herman and researched by Katie Dunn and myself.
Our producer is Miranda Hawkins. Jessica Metzker is the senior producer.
(34:23):
Virginia Prescott, Jason English, Brandon Barr and el C Crowley
are the executive producers. Sound design in mix by Miranda Hawkins.
Special thanks to John Higgins, Rob Burke, Rob Lyle, and
Brandon Craigie. If you're enjoying the show, leave a review
in your favorite podcast app. Check out the Curiosity Audio
(34:47):
Network for podcasts covering history, pop culture, true crime, and more.
School of Humans
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