“Bad” Cases – Misleading or Incompetent Interpretations
Peter R. De Forest, Peter A. Pizzola, Brooke W. Kammrath · 2021
This chapter discusses the instructive examples of erroneous or misleading reconstructions. It should be readily appreciated that misleading reconstructions can have serious pernicious effects in the administration of justice. The chapter presents several case examples. These include: David Camm, Dew theory, murder of an off-duty police officer, the imagined “mist” pattern, concealed blood traces, and the stomping homicide: misuse of enhancement reagents. The hasty overinterpretation of a limited number of possible blood droplet deposits on David Camm's t-shirt was the result of a crime scene photographer, Robert Stites, who was not qualified to render opinions on reconstruction issues. The blood traces on the quilt were in the form of roughly circular deposits with dark red centers and lighter-colored peripheries, similar in configuration to a "sunny-side up fried egg."