U.S. forensic scientist says investigation of student's murder was flawed
By Jeremy Kirk, Seoul bureau
chief
Jamie Lynn Penich |
A forensic scientist and criminal profiler in California called the investigation of
Jamie Lynn Penich’s murder flawed.
Brent Turvey, a court expert in forensic evidence, has reviewed Penich’s autopsy
report and some crime scene photos. Stars and Stripes shared with him witness accounts
about the March 18 murder in Seoul.
He has not been to Seoul and is not an investigator in the case.
"This is the only question that matters: Are you interested in solving the case or
not?" Turvey said.
Each police department in the United States has its own methods of dealing with
homicides, said Turvey, who holds a master’s degree in forensic science from the
University of New Haven in West Haven, Conn.
Also, he has testified as an expert on criminal profiling, crime reconstruction and
crime scene analysis in court trials.
There are no set rules that every investigative agency follows to collect evidence,
test DNA and interview witnesses, he said. Often, he said, police detectives have little
or no training in criminal investigation and forensic science. Some departments may have
never dealt with a homicide and have problems properly collecting evidence, Turvey said.
While detectives may read books on forensic science, it’s insufficient to
intelligently analyze and work a crime scene, Turvey said, and that means fewer cases are
solved.
Turvey criticized the evidence collection and investigation methods in the Penich case,
citing gathering up garments from the crime scene and placing them all in the same
container as irregular.
Korean police brought two pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene — a
black jacket and a brown pullover — to a lab in the same bag, Korean forensic
officials said. Turvey said that evidence should not have been clumped together.
"Every item of clothing — every shoe, every sock — should have its own
bag," Turvey said. "You should never ever put two items in the same bag."
Penich’s roommate in the hotel said the jacket completely covered Penich’s
face when she found the body. Two other witnesses said they remember Penich’s face
was covered with what they believed to be her black jacket.
The jacket is not seen over Penich’s head in numerous crime scene photos shared
with Stars and Stripes, or in the autopsy report. In some photos, the jacket is seen near
Penich’s body.
The covering of Penich’s face is significant because it’s possibly an act of
remorse by the killer or killers, Turvey said.
"They don’t want to look at what they did," Turvey said.
He also said investigators need to ask Penich’s roommate additional questions.
The roommate, a Netherlands woman who requested anonymity, said she slept through the
murder. She was questioned for four days, said Peter Hooft, second secretary of consular
and administrative affairs at the Netherlands Embassy. He advised her parents to retain a
lawyer. On the fifth day after the murder, police dismissed the roommate. She flew back to
the Netherlands on March 27 after giving police a blood sample.
In an interview last week, the Netherlands woman said she remembers the door of the
motel room opening and closing at some point after she went to bed. She also said she
remember someone touching her shoulder.
But she says she doesn’t remember the beating that was brutal, some of
Penich’s teeth and blood splattered across the room.
"The version of events given by the roommate is not credible, and it requires
significant further investigation," Turvey said. "She is giving a version of
events that could not happen in the universe."
Another area of contention is whether Penich was sexually assaulted or had intimate
relations with her attacker.
Lee Won-tae, chief medical examiner and director of the department of forensic medicine
in Seoul, said he’s worked more than 800 murder cases. He said that evidence
collection hinges on the quality of the detective.
"Sometimes, they [investigators] are very highly qualified," Lee said. He
said he considers the Yongsan Police department officials good at collecting evidence.
Lee said his lab was unable to get a DNA fingerprint from semen samples on two pairs of
underwear belonging to the Netherlands woman and Penich, respectively. During the autopsy,
investigators also took a sample from Penich’s body that tested positive for semen.
Lee said it was not unusual to not recover DNA. Turvey agreed, but said it could be a
case of inexperience.
"I would say that’s very possible [to not get DNA results] if the lab
doesn’t have experience doing that kind of test," Turvey said. "Another lab
with more experience may be able to find something."
Turvey also questioned the role of U.S. investigators.
One soldier originally suspected in the murder told Stars and Stripes that U.S. Army
Criminal Investigation Command, known as CID, agents came to his barracks room to check
his clothing. They donned goggles, turned off the room lights and scanned the clothes with
a special light, he said.
"They told me it was to see if [my clothes] had any body fluids, traces of
blood," he said.
The agents found nothing, the soldier said, and allowed him to keep his clothes.
"This is ridiculous and speaks to the horrible level of training in forensic
science on the part of CID investigators," Turvey said. "The clothes should
simply have been taken and submitted to a lab for analysis. Investigators should not be
doing that kind of thing themselves."
Marc A. Raimondi, chief of public affairs for CID in Virginia, said CID agents are
well-trained.
"We are better-trained than any federal law enforcement agency in the
country," he said.
According to Raimondi, agents routinely use a Polilight to find biological fluids and
stains. The light uses selected wavelengths across the visible spectrum to fluoresce or
identify stains or latent fingerprints for analysis.
Turvey said that method might not show all traces of fluids that could be present.
Investigators can use other methods to detect blood, and clothes can be analyzed for
fibers, he said. "There are so many things they can do with evidence," Turvey
said. The soldier said CID agents returned a few weeks later to confiscate his clothing.
It is flawed when evidence is not collected immediately and retained, Turvey said.
Delaying evidence collection makes analysis more problematic, he said.
Turvey also criticized a face-to-face meeting between a primary witness and a
then-suspect in a CID parking lot at Camp Casey, calling it "unbelievable." The
soldier stood about four feet away from the witness, who looked at him for a minute. He
was then told the woman did not recognize him.
Putting a suspect and a witness face-to-face is "sheer stupidity" and
dangerous, Turvey said.
Turvey suggested that investigators examine and test the evidence again.
Beverly Sargent contributed to this report.
RELATED STORY:
Investigation into student's
death in Korea starts from scratch
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May 7: Family frustrated by lack of
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May 6: Information sought in murder of
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May 6: Long-awaited trip to Korea
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