A defense attorney hired Herbert MacDonell to work in his Detroit, Mich., murder case in 2001. A lawyer had been accused of hiring a hit man to murder his wife, and MacDonell was brought in to review the evidence.

MacDonell was given 20 18-year-old, faded photographs of the crime scene to analyze. But the forensic science veteran found the subtle droplets of blood spatter still recognizable. With the photographs, MacDonell reconstructed the entire case with the position and posture of the victim when she was shot. By determining the origin of blood spatter, his findings corroborated the prosecution’s eyewitness testimony. The defense was not happy and MacDonell never testified.

‘The defense attorney’s didn’t want the truth. They wanted me to crawl under a rock. They wanted me gone,’ MacDonell said.

This is something the ‘father’ of bloodstain pattern analysis said he’s experienced many times in his 60-year career.

He will speak Tuesday night, in a lecture titled ‘Sixty Years of Forensic Investigations.’ The speech will be held in the Life Sciences Complex Auditorium and is presented by the forensic science program in the College of Arts and Sciences.

MacDonell is currently the director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y. He testified as an expert witness in 33 states, as well as internationally. He appeared at O.J. Simpson’s double murder trial in Los Angeles, and the assassination trials of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

‘People always ask me, ‘What is the most significant case you’ve ever worked on?’ From the standpoint of the defendant, you know what I tell them? They all were, especially if I’m there as a defense expert – that is their case, their life or liberty,’ he said.

MacDonell is known as the father of blood spatter analysis, said James Spencer, associate professor of chemistry and a longtime friend of MacDonell’s. It’s a field he revolutionized through his books and research.

Spencer defines blood spatter analysis as the ‘physics of blood pattern analysis.’

‘When there’s blood distributed around a crime scene, you can use the shapes and direction of the droplets and where they’re located to try to figure out what happened,’ he said.

Spatter analysis can determine the place someone was hit, how they were standing, if the object they were hit by was blunt, and its speed of travel and distance from the victim, he said.

MacDonell taught at Milton College in Wisconsin, Corning Community College and Elmira College. He said he would occasionally take students to the crime scene and into trials with him. In a rape and murder case, MacDonell brought students to see him testify for the prosecution on blood spatter, and then the students met the parents of the deceased young girl.

‘I introduce them and their eyes open – all of a sudden it’s not a chapter in a book,’ he said. ‘Those are the parents of the girl you’ve seen, they suddenly realize the world is real.’

Spencer said there’s a growing need for good forensic education, as stressed by a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences. Spencer described the report on forensic science as ‘scathing.’ It cited the training of qualified people as a major obstacle facing the field.

‘What we’re trying to do is focus on exactly that. Train people to be good scientists first and secondly to apply it to forensics,’ Spencer said

He said lecture series play a big role in education. MacDonell is the first speaker in what will be a group of seminars on forensic science at SU.

MacDonell said his interest in forensics is rooted in his affinity for puzzles.

‘There’s nothing more challenging than a good homicide to try to put the pieces back together and see what kind of a picture comes out,’ he said.

So the final puzzle for MacDonell – If O.J. Simpson didn’t do it, who did?

‘Someone else. He walked, didn’t he? He was not even present at the time Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered by persons unknown. He was not there.’

And MacDonell said he has the slides and explanation to prove it, for those who want to make an appointment to see him. For the rest, their opinions don’t matter to him.

‘It’s not my mission in life to convince 98 percent of the population. They’re wrong, but that’s their conviction,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I’m so damn loyal to him, he still owes me $8,000.’

jmterrus@syr.edu

Published on March 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm