Featuring stories by Michael Lewis, Patricia Wen, Ted Chiang, Katie Thornton, and Sarah Smarsh.
forensic science
The Heiress at Harvard Who Helped Revolutionize Murder Investigations—and the Case She Couldn’t Forget
“Frances Glessner Lee didn’t want to be known as a ‘rich woman who didn’t have enough to do.’ In her 60s, she became a pioneer of forensic science.”
Identity Crisis
“In a checklist of responses to a large-scale disaster, victim identification comes low down the pecking order.”
An Accident Compounded By Injustice
Wendell Lindsey, convicted of murdering his 10-year-old daughter in a fake drowning, has consistently maintained his innocence — and there’s a lot to suggest he’s telling the truth.
You’re Putting My Brain Where, Exactly?
When you donate your body to science, you don’t get a whole lot of say over what happens to your parts.
In Just 40 Hours, You Too Can Be an Expert
Pamela Colloff took the same 40-hour course that is the sum total of the training many blood spatter experts claim… and it did not inspire confidence in the reliability of this particular forensic “science.”
A profile of Rhonda Roby, a forensic scientist who has identified the bodies of victims of 9/11, victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Vietnam and Korean War MIAs, bodies of the Romanov family, victims buried in Chilean mass graves, and more: Standing there in the middle of the smoking apocalypse of the Twin Towers, […]