The Killer Book of Cold Cases (28 page)

Fire triangle
—Fuel, heat, and oxygen, the elements needed for fire, were called the fire triangle until the element of chemical reaction was added. Now the group of fire-starting elements is called the fire tetrahedron. Vapor is needed to start a fire. Indeed, you could stick a lit match into liquid gasoline and the gas would extinguish the flame like water would.

Flashover
—Fire is propelled by the phenomenon called a “flashover” when carbon in the smoke is hotter than 1,000 degrees and makes everything in its path explode into flame.

Hesitation marks
—Cuts on the wrists or neck of a suicide victim indicating that the person who committed suicide hesitated before making the fatal cut or cuts. Such marks do not always reflect suicide. As Vernon Geberth points out in
Practical Homicide Investigation
, “an assailant who is knowledgeable about these [marks] might leave similar markings to cover up a homicide.”

Incendiary device
—A device designed to start a fire.

Lividity
—Lividity is an asset to investigators because it can indicate the approximate time of death and whether or not the body was moved. Lividity occurs because the heart has stopped pumping blood to various parts of the body. Since the blood is not moving, gravity causes it to settle in the body. This usually starts within thirty minutes of death, and the process is complete within eight to ten hours. Lividity can help investigators determine whether a body has been move because after the blood has settled, it stays put. It does not “resettle” when the body is moved. If the body has been moved, the blood will not be in a logical position.

ME
—Common abbreviation for medical examiner, the physician who determines the cause of death. By law, the ME must be at the crime scene of deaths due to suicide, accident, or homicide; any death under suspicious circumstances; sudden death when health was good; and convict deaths. The ME takes charge of any crime scene he or she is called to, and the body may not be removed without the ME’s permission. The body is then taken to the morgue, where an autopsy is performed.

Mirandize
—To warn a suspect before questioning that he or she has the right to speak with a lawyer and has protections against self-incrimination. The term was named for Ernesto A. Miranda, a man who was arrested in 1963 without his rights being read to him. He filed suit against the state of Arizona, and he was ultimately victorious in the U.S. Supreme Court, where his case was linked with four others. The decision has had a profound effect on law-enforcement procedures. Before making an arrest, every officer is now required to read the suspect his rights under the Miranda ruling, and if the suspect is not properly Mirandized by the officer—which sometimes happens—the suspect is sure to be set free by the courts.

Point of origin
—The point at which fire investigators determine a fire started. John Orr, the arsonist in
Fire Lover,
wrote a novel called
Points of Origin
.

Post
—Short for postmortem examination, or autopsy. The resulting report is called a protocol.

Postmortem
—After death.

Pour patterns
—Patterns along the path a fire takes that may indicate the use of an accelerant and arson. Arson investigation is a sophisticated job that requires lots of experience. After a fire, investigators look for details like pour patterns. For example, if they see evidence of a fire on one side of a room, no evidence of it in the middle, and evidence of fire on the other side, they will ask, “How did the fire get from one side of the room to the other without burning the middle area?” The obvious answer is that an accelerant was poured on one side of the room and then on the other to ignite two separate places.

Probable cause
—Reasonable assumption that someone committed a crime.

Psychopathic personality
—Vernon Geberth defines this type of person as “a person whose behavior is largely amoral and asocial and who is characterized by irresponsibility, lack of remorse or shame, perverse or impulsive (often criminal) behavior, and other serious personality defects, generally without psychotic attacks or symptoms.” That would seem to perfectly describe Jack Gilbert Graham, who blew up a plane on which forty-four people, including his mother, were traveling.

Psychotic killer
—A person who is driven to kill.

Pyromania
—A deep-seated behavior disorder that allows an arsonist to handle emotions such as anxiety, anger, a feeling of powerlessness, and revenge. The arsonist believes that fire gives him power.

Rigor mortis
—A term describing how the body goes rigid after death. Investigators use rigor mortis to identify time of death because the body goes stiff at a certain rate.

S and M
—Referring to sadism and masochism, although on a broader scale, the term relates to sexual interactions featuring sadistic and masochistic activities with one person the M and the other the S. John Robinson, the serial killer discussed in Chapter 5, was into this activity, but one can be sure he was quite vicious. The most famous practitioner of sadism was the Marquis de Sade, for whom this practice was named.

Serial murder
—The FBI defines serial murder as three or more killings with an emotional cooling-off period between the deaths. In the author’s opinion, some killers can be classified as serial killers even with just one or two murders behind them. The reason is that they have the potential for killing many more.

Serology
—Screening evidence for biological stains to determine if they are blood, saliva, semen, or other bodily fluids. Serology units apply enzymes, proteins, and antigens as a way of distinguishing biological samples from different people. In most crime labs, serology screenings are used to describe the steps taken before DNA testing is done.

Torch
—A professional arsonist. He or she can start a fire and burn a place down so that even the most sophisticated fire marshal won’t be able to tell the blaze was set on purpose.

Trace material
—The physical minutiae that are exchanged or deposited when two objects impact. The word derives from the sense that traces of material are deposited when objects meet with some force. For example, when a car hits someone, there typically is physical evidence from the victim, such as fibers and hair, on the car and physical evidence from the car, such as paint and lens material, on the victim. Such evidence can be very important because it is physical and missing sections can be fit into gaps. Many state and local departments do not have forensic labs large enough or sophisticated enough to analyze trace material so they call on the FBI, which has state-of-the-art equipment and well-trained technicians.

Though valuable, trace material is not infallible. Matching hair and paint samples and fibers are not as conclusive as fingerprints, and there is always the possibility that the technician made a mistake.

Whodunit
—Any murder that has gone unsolved for at least forty-eight hours. Most homicides are solved within the first forty-eight hours, usually because of a well-known connection. This may be someone close to the victim. The murder might have also had many witnesses, as in a bar fight. Interviewing the witnesses quickly turns up suspects.

Tom Philbin is a longtime freelance writer who has written many books, both fiction and nonfiction. Two of his books,
Copspeak: The Lingo of Law Enforcement and Crime
(1997) and
A Warmer Shade of Blue
(2007), the latter written with ex-cop Scott Baker, won the Quill and Badge Award for Excellence in Communications from the International Union of Police Associations. He is the only writer to win the award twice.

Tom Philbin is the coauthor, along with his brother Michael, of
The Killer Book of True Crime
,
The Killer Book of Serial Killers
, and
The Killer Book of Infamous Murders
.