Archive for the ‘Bin Laden’ Category

A New Addition to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

by Sarah Rosenstein

After the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 and the capture of James “Whitney” Bulger in June 2011, two spots opened up on the FBI’s ten most wanted list. On April 10, 2012 Eric Justin Toth replaced Osama bin Laden and became the 495h fugitive to be placed on the list.

 The FBI’s most wanted list was started March 14, 1950 due to the wide public interest in a news story published in 1949 about the “toughest guys” the FBI was after. The purpose of the list is to capture dangerous terrorist and fugitives. Since its inception nearly 60 years ago, 465 of the 495 people have either been found or captured. Of these 465, nearly one third was due to recognition by someone in the public.

 So how does someone get on the FBI’s most wanted list? It begins with a spot opening on the list. A group of wanted criminal candidates are sent to the FBI Headquarters from all 56 FBI field offices. The criminal candidates are reviewed by the Criminal Investigative Division (CID) and the office of Public Affairs. The chosen criminals are sent the assistant director of the CID and finally to the FBI director for final approval.

 The 495th spot was given to Eric Justin Toth, who also uses the alias David Bussone. Toth, a former private school teacher, is charged with possession and production of child pornography. Before an investigation could begin after pornographic images were found on a school camera he had been using, Toth was gone. He has been on the lam since June 2008 and his whereabouts are currently unknown.

 In 2008 his car was found at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport in Minnesota. Although it was suspected that Toth committed suicide at a nearby lake based on a suicide note left in his vehicle, a body was never found. Over the past four years, it is believed that Toth traveled across Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

 Toth was selected because of the threat he posed to the community. Not only is he a child predator but he is an individual who is able to gain the trust of children and adults. Prior to be put on the list, he was on the Washington field office’s list and was also featured on America’s Most Wanted. A tip was received in 2009 after the broadcast about a man living in a homeless shelter in Arizona that looked like, and was later confirmed to be Toth. He has since then disappeared.

 A $100,000 reward is being offered by the FBI for anyone who has information that could lead to Toth’s arrest. If captured, Toth faces up to 30 years in prison.

Check out our entry about James Bulger, who was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list until his recent capture

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The Role of Forensics in Bin Laden’s Defeat

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

By now the whole world has heard the news–Osama Bin Laden is dead. Before breaking that news, however, officials needed to be certain, and no scientific field is better at identifying the dead than forensic science. That’s why U.S. forces turned to forensic technology to positively identify Bin Laden.

Visual comparison to photographs is always the first step in identifying a body, but is by no means certain. In addition to looking at the body, therefore, the team that killed him used state-of-the-art facial recognition technology developed by Crossmatch. The device they used is called SEEK II (Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit), which in addition to facial recognition is capable of comparing fingerprints and iris scans to an FBI biometrics database.

The technology they used is portable enough that they were able to use it on Bin Laden soon after the firefight, matching the face of the man they killed to photographs on record. For more information on facial recognition technology, see [http://www.crimemuseum.org/blog/facial-recognition/]. To see Crossmatch technologies in action, come visit the National Museum of Crime and Punishment at the Child ID station next to the America’s Most Wanted studio.

In addition to the initial facial recognition tests, the U.S. used a DNA test to confirm Bin Laden’s identity to a 99.9% certainty by comparing the DNA from the body to that of known relatives. While most DNA tests take days or weeks to complete, the delay can be greatly reduced if the sample has a high enough priority. In this case, the test undoubtedly had the highest possible priority, so the technicians were able to focus entirely on one sample, without the backlog normal criminal cases usually have to deal with.

Fore more information, please click here or here.

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Bin Laden’s Death; Justice for All

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Osama Bin Laden, a name that strikes fear in to American hearts and the hearts of our allies, is dead.  A man that has been haunting the spirit of our nation for the last decade was killed in mere minutes by a team of American Navy SEALS, inside of his custom built hideout in Abbottobad Pakistan.  Three other males were killed in the raid, one of them being Bin Laden’s son who has not been named at this time.  Bin Laden was shot in the head when he and his bodyguards resisted forces.  Officials say that one woman was also killed when she was used as a human shield for one of the males.  No Americans were harmed, but in a matter of moments after President Obama’s speech, the State Department issued an alert, warning US embassies of the possibility of anti-American violence.

Despite the fact that the operation went seamlessly, the Bin Laden raid was not an easy one.  His compound was surrounded by 8 feet of barbed wire.  There were also additional 7 foot security walls within the compound. So what factors contributed to Bin Laden’s defeat you may ask? US officials say that inside information was an integral part of the operation’s success. The Bin Laden family was also the only family that burned trash, and the only million dollar home that was without phone or internet connections; a giveaway that the compound was ideal to hide someone of great significance.  Administration said that the raid was kept so secretive that no foreign officials were told in advance, and very few within the US government were privy to prior knowledge of the history that was about to unfold a world away.

On September 11, 2001, over 3,000 lives were lost in the worst attacks of terrorism on American soil. On May 1, 2011, the man responsible for this horrific amount of innocent bloodshed was finally brought to justice. Bin Laden’s capture sent throngs of cheering Americans in to the streets in both Times Square, and in front of the White House. Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93, issued a heartfelt statement saying, “This is important news for us, and for the world. It cannot ease our pain, or bring back our loved ones. It does bring a measure of comfort that the mastermind of the September 11th tragedy and the face of global terror can no longer spread his evil”.

Please check back soon for updates on the forensic discoveries relating to Bin Laden’s capture and killing. For more information, please click here or here.

Read about the role of forensicsin Bin Laden’s defeat

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Posted in 9/11, Bin Laden, Forensics in The News, Punishment: The Consequence of Crime, shooting, Terrorism | No Comments »