Elizabeth A Murray

Imagine being convicted of a crime you didn't commit and spending years behind bars. Since 1989 more than 1,400 Americans who experienced this injustice have been exonerated. Some of the people who have won their freedom include Ronald Cotton, who was falsely convicted of raping a college student; Nicole Harris, who was unjustly imprisoned for the death of her son; and intellectually disabled Earl Washington Jr., who was unfairly sentenced to death...

About 4,000 unidentified deceased persons are discovered in the United States every year. But forensic experts are successful in identifying about 3,000 of those bodies within a year. In Forensic Identification: Putting a Name and Face on Death, forensic anthropologist Dr. Elizabeth A. Murray takes readers into the morgues and forensic labs where experts use advanced technology to determine the identities of dead bodies whose names are not known because...

Continue exploring the forensics of political assassinations with the murder of Russia's ruling Romanov family in 1918 - and the stories of what became of their corpses. Did Anastasia or any of the other children actually survive? Then, fast-forward to the 1990s and follow anthropologists and others as they identify human remains, recreate that violent night, and finally lay the Romanovs to rest.

Planted evidence in a murder mystery in rural New Zealand. The torture of a Haitian immigrant in police custody. A government cover-up of police shootings on a mountaintop in Puerto Rico. These three unsettling cases are your windows into the terrifying world of police corruption - and how justice is finally served.

Step into the morgue to understand why and how a forensic autopsy is performed. The purpose is to determine the cause and manner of death, and often to identify the victim. Much like exploratory surgery, no two autopsies are the same.

Dealing with human behavior is at the root of the legal system. Delve into forensic psychology and forensic psychiatry by studying the disturbing case of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Then look at how the criminal justice system evaluates insanity pleas, separating frauds from the genuinely mentally ill.

Learn how forensic investigators extract evidence from computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices. Discover the importance of slack space on a hard drive, and review how GPS tracking solved one murder that ultimately led officials to link that killer to another murder over a decade earlier.

Learn how DNA profiling became the gold standard in both victim and perpetrator identification, even though humans have more than 99% of their DNA in common. Professor Murray discusses the landmark case in the United Kingdom that was the first to use DNA to convict a killer.

One of the most emotionally satisfying aspects of Professor Murray's work is identifying deceased unknown persons, helping to bring answers to a victim's family. Finish your study of forensic science with examples of her work in this area, including a nearly 40-year-old cold case that she helped solve.

Enter the field of wildlife forensics, which involves not just attacks by animals on people but the many ways that evidence from nature is used to solve crimes. Soils, wood, pollen, and animal traces can all connect a person or object to a crime scene.