British forensic anthropologist prof. Over the years, Sue Black has identified hundreds of pedophiles and rapists using only veins, scars, and other special marks on their hands. In order to identify it, a woman looks at videos or photos of the limbs. Thanks to their extraordinary skills, the Black team helps police officers all over the world.
- Before Sue Black started identifying pedophiles and rapists, she analyzed unidentified bodies of tragically deceased people on the basis of scraps of bodies and bones
- Already after the first case, the woman realized that the problem was much larger than she had imagined
- The woman mainly analyzes the backs of the hands, as they are most often visible in the recordings with which she works in criminal cases
- The researcher places a 24-cell grid on her hand, covering the entire area from the nails to the wrist, and then analyzes each cell for specific signs
- Thanks to their actions, the Black team helps police all over the world — including the FBI, Interpol and Europol
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
Sue Black is professor of anatomy and forensic anthropology at the University of Dundee. In Poland, she is known, inter alia, as the author of the books “What do the corpse say. Tales of a forensic anthropologist “and” What the bones say “. However, identifying the corpses of tragically deceased people is not her only occupation. In his work, Black identifies people by scraps of flesh and bones. This remarkable skill was noticed by forensic photographer Nick Marsh, who in 2006 contacted the woman and engaged her in a pedophile identification case.
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“My task is not to find anything of value for the investigation”
When a pedophile or rapist films his crime, Professor Sue Black can track him down using only veins, scars, and other marks on his hands. The first case of this type Black dealt with was the case of a teenage girl who claimed that her father came to her bedroom at night to molest her..
When my mother refused to believe her the girl had left a webcam facing her bed turned on for the whole night. The camera caught the hand and forearm of the person touching it. The father denied that he was the person visible in the video. This material was handed over to Black.
It was one of the scariest and scariest things I’ve ever seen. A real kind of horror movie
— Black admitted in an interview with Wired magazine.
Though Black had no experience of identifying anyone with her hand, after watching the video, she noticed that the veins on the back of the man’s hand were clearly visible. As an anatomy expert, Black knew that the vein pattern in her hand was unique to each individual, even in identical twins.
So she asked the police to take pictures of her father’s hand and forearm — the patterns of the veins matched each other. Black then appeared in court as an expert, presenting her analysis of the vein pattern. It was the first time in the history of British law that such evidence had been presented in legal proceedings.
Such studies have never been carried out. I couldn’t say anything more than it just fit, and we couldn’t tell that it definitely wasn’t him
— Black as quoted by Wired Magazine.
Although the evidence was strong, the man was acquitted because, as the lawyer explained to the woman, “the jury simply did not believe the girl”.
Shortly after the trial of the girl’s father, the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) asked Black if she could help with a police-led investigation called ‘Ore’, which aimed to identify over 7 people. Brits suspected of downloading obscene images.
For the first time, I realized that this kind of thing could have so much scope. I was naive. I thought they were single people in single cases. However, this is a huge problem and the police are not able to see through them all or arrest them
— Black revealed in an interview with the magazine «Wired».
Since then, Black has been involved in new matters. The researcher’s participation in the trial of eight men belonging to the largest pedophile network known in Scotland turned out to be of key importance in the conviction of Neil Strachan. In the attempted rape photo (also called the Hogmanay photo) of the 18-month-old boy who was cared for by the man on New Year’s Eve 2005, the only visible parts of Strachan’s body were his penis and left arm.
When a man’s defense attorneys commissioned photos of the thighs, possibly to show that parts of the body could not be used to identify the person. Black used the perpetrator’s left thumb in the frame. By comparing the thumb in the photo with the photo from Hogmanay Black, she discovered a matching detail — an unusually shaped lump, i.e. a white area at the base of the nail. In October 2009, Strachan was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Unfortunately, the cruel matters in which Black is involved can only be multiplied. As she admits, the recordings she watches are sometimes extremely shocking. «Pictures of child abuse affect everyone who watches them. I feel anxious watching the video because I don’t know what will happen next. However, one must remain objective. My task is not to go back to analyzing the incident, but to find something valuable for the investigation » — Black explained in an interview with Wired magazine.
The basis of her work is precision and asking herself questions, which she may not have noticed yet.
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Hand analysis process
Black mainly analyzes the backs of the hands, as they are most often visible in the recordings with which he works in criminal cases.. First, she applies a 24-cell grid to the palm of her hand, covering the entire area from the nails to the wrist. Next analyzes each cell, looking for identification marks and examining the vein pattern.
Scars, freckles, birthmarks, moles, nails and skin folds are only one part of the analysis. The second way is to analyze the morphological features of the hands that are unique to a given person. First of all, these are the patterns of the veins, which are not only unique, but also, due to the fact that they are closed in the skin, cannot be changed..
Unfortunately, having even the clearest photos of the suspect’s hands, compatibility cannot be scientifically guaranteed as it depends on all anatomical features. The suspect can be excluded with XNUMX% certainty, but the match can only have the degree of “strong confirmation” that the suspect and the perpetrator are the same person.
This means that the probability that it could be someone else is between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10. Black emphasizes, however, that the mere indication is often enough for the accused to tell the truth, because usually there is also additional evidence pointing to his guilt.
In order to refine her analyzes, Black needed to assemble a powerful database. In April 2007, when the women’s department won a tender to train more than 550 police, coroners and legal officials in identifying disaster victims, the woman decided to seize the opportunity.
The researcher asked the participants to take pictures of their hands, forearms, feet and legs — most agreed. In 2017, Black already had a thousand analyzed hands in its database. Based on them, the team noted that the likelihood of a linear scar is greatest at the tip of the other finger or in the center of the back of the hand. It also seems that no one has moles on their little fingers.
Black emphasizes that while managing the project herself, the police are paying the university as any payment to Black’s team could be viewed as a breach of its objectivity. Photos and videos are delivered on encrypted disks and handed over to it personally.
You have to watch everything the first time to know what’s up. Then you can narrow them down and look at the passages that are more important to the work that needs to be done
— says Black.
Although Black works in a team of three, she watches all the videos herself first. He then shares what he considers important with Lucina Hackman, a specialist in biological and forensic anthropology, and Chris Rynn, a photo enhancer.
The Black team helps police all over the world — including the FBI, Interpol and Europol. In 2017, he worked on 30-50 cases per year, a in the cases she has worked on since 2006, the percentage of defendants who pleaded guilty in response to her analysis was 82%.
As reported by Wired magazine, when asked about the possibility of pedophiles wearing gloves as forensic hand analysis becomes more widespread, Black answers firmly, “They won’t start. Most people who commit crimes aren’t very bright. They think they will never be caught«.
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