Tag Archives: Explosives

Hidden in the Ashes: The Role of Forensic Science in True Crime Narratives

By Jonathan Li and Eric Wang

Debris, charred to pitch blackness, lies scattered all over what once used to be a building. Now, only a gruesome mound of wood, concrete, stone, and corpses stand in its place. Whether such a tragedy was done with malicious intent or occurred purely by accident seems impossible to tell, since any potential clues remain hidden under the ruins. Yet, as shown in the “Fire and Explosives” chapter from David Owen’s Hidden Evidence, this site is actually a goldmine of evidence in the hands of a forensic investigator. Numerous chemicals, chromatography experiments, and technologies—miracles of modern science—can all be put towards finding clues as to how the crime occurred and even towards finding the perpetrators through DNA evidence. Still, when placed in the context of true crime narratives, forensic science seems oddly out of place. Writer and professor Jean Murley explains the true crime genre as, “a way of making sense of the senseless, but it has also become a worldview, an outlook, and a perspective on contemporary American life, one that is suspicious and cynical […], and preoccupied with safety, order and justice” (2). This trait of true crime, one that is so focused on psychology, emotions, and justice, is hardly fitting with the cold, data-driven facets of science. Yet, even despite the differences between forensic science and true crime narrative, we see a remediation between these two styles in David Owen’s Hidden Evidence, which produces a new type of crime narrative that has science play a more prominent role in solving mysteries.

As fire and explosive-related crimes do an incredible job in distorting or destroying physical evidence, the visual aftermath of these forces predominates observation and investigation. Nevertheless, there are underlying chemical and physical properties at work. The construction of models and other representations thus becomes integral in making scientific research in characterizing these properties applicable to modes of forensic inquiry. In their book on visualization, scholars Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright describe the escalating importance of scientific visualization as “encompass[ing] the acoustic and tactile world with the increased availability of digital rendering and display mechanisms” (349). As humans tend to rely on sight more than other senses, the growth of modern visualization technology becomes crucial in understanding and applying science to forensic investigation. The “Fire and Explosives” chapter by Owen reflects that desire to see the unseen through his abundant ‘techno-babble’ and descriptions of precise modern scientific experiments, coupled with their specific forensic utility regarding fire and explosions.
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The Puzzling Nature of Bombs and Fire

by CJ Hunter and Roberto D.

Lighting the Fire

Though devastating and destructive, David Owen presents fires and explosions as increasingly solvable crimes through the use of modern investigative techniques. Advances in science still allow cases to be solved where evidence has been destroyed or tainted. Owen illustrates many of these methods of investigation in his chapter “Fire and Explosives” from his work Hidden Evidence. However, Owen relies upon his background as a scientific journalist and a forensic expert to present these methods to us in a style that will appeal to the both the common reader and the forensic devotee. Through his rhetorical and visual style, which neatly creates niches for all technology and investigators but continually shows they must work together, Owen portrays fire and explosive cases as a giant puzzle. The puzzles technologically-analyzed evidence, but is solved and contextualized by the investigators. This picture of the crime is unaffected by the destructive nature of bombs and fires, and ultimately satisfies our desire to know that criminals cannot outsmart the police force. This fufills a need that true crime media historian Jean Murley describes as “both terrifying and oddly reassuring” among the readers and fans of the genre (Murley 1). Murley could recognize Owen`s work as a piece of true crime, whether Owen intended it to appear that way or not, because of the resolute nature he presents in his work. Whether or not arsonists or bombers destroy evidence, the “good guys” can still determine the perpetrator with combined force of technology and human investigative ability.

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