Episode 4

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This episode is the first in a series (non-sequential) providing overviews of different fields of forensic science.

Meredith Dekalb Miller is an FBI trained expert in Forensic Document Examination with almost twenty years experience in both criminal and civil matters. Her work revolves around determining the authenticity and sometimes reconstruction of documents.

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Ep 4 Transcript

[00:00:00] Angela: Greetings all. And welcome to another episode of Secrets from the Crime Lab. Today we're presenting the first in a series of technical discussions with a subject matter expert in questioned documents or documents examination. We have Meredith Dekalb Miller with us, and I'm going to allow Meredith to introduce herself to everyone.

[00:00:25] Meredith Miller: Hi everyone. I'm Meredith Miller and I am a forensic document examiner, and I've been involved in document examination for almost 20 years. So quite a long time. And I started at the FBI laboratory and am now in private practice doing document work.

[00:00:47] Angela: Thank you for taking the time to come on our show. Uh, just so everyone knows we've got a 12 hour time difference us, but it worked out okay. Cause I'm a night owl.

[00:00:56] Meredith Miller: I'm  a morning owl. So it did work.

[00:01:00] Angela: That does work really well. You mentioned that you're currently doing a lot of private work, so you've worked on both the criminal side. And, in the private side, do you find that you were doing a lot of work more on civil matters than on criminal? Or is it a mixture?

[00:01:17] Meredith Miller: I would say definitely in private practice, I'm hired predominantly for civil cases. Whereas at the FBI laboratory it was definitely more criminal side of things.

[00:01:28] Angela: So can you, for those in the audience that aren't familiar with questioned documents would you be able to just give a brief overview about what about that field and what it is that you can do and what you, maybe you can't do. Does CSI tell people the wrong thing?

[00:01:46] Meredith Miller: Ah, that's an whole other question. The field of question documents, basically relates to any kind of documentary evidence and an examiner might be hired to try to determine the origin of the document or the authenticity of the document, and lots of the cases we would perform examinations on, let's say signatures and other handwriting on documents. Sometimes we're asked to look at indented impressions that are maybe indentations you can't see on a document, but can be recovered through other methods. Sometimes document examiners are asked to perform ink examinations or examinations on the paper itself. But we also look at things like the printing processes on documents, stamps on documents, seals on documents. I mean anything within the document that can determine some type of origin to determine if it's a genuine document or not genuine, or like I said, the authenticity of the documents. So basically the four corners of the document what document examiner is focused on, that's pretty much it.

[00:03:02] Angela: What type of case do you think you see most often, what's the reason why most people seek you out? Is it document authentication or forgeries?

[00:03:13] Meredith Miller: I would, yeah, a lot of times I'm getting questions regarding maybe a signature on a document and one party will believe perhaps the signature has been forged. You know, all of a sudden, a document appears in a case and it hasn't been produced before and all of a sudden the documents coming forward in the case, that's gonna alter dramatically the results of the case. So usually I'm getting calls from attorneys asking if I can take a look at the document, maybe it's a signature or maybe it's a paragraph within a document and they're asking, can I look at it and try and tell them some information about the document, if it's genuine or not?

[00:03:57] Angela: Would these be situations of settling estates, things to do with people's wills or....?

[00:04:04] Meredith Miller: I do, yes. I get a lot of cases with estates, settling wills of people. Sometimes there's contracts that have gone back and forth between the two parties, whether they're employment contracts, or rental agreements, or mortgage documents, loan documents, and there's a dispute about a signature, or like I said, a paragraph maybe in a document. And so these types of cases come up and then they need all of a sudden they need a document examiner to try to help figure out what's going on with the case.

[00:04:39] Angela: So you're looking at the signatures to determine their veracity, or is it the document as a whole or is it all of the above?

[00:04:48] Meredith Miller: If it's a, if it's predominantly focused on a signature, of course, I, I look at the signature, but as a document examiner, you can't just focus on one narrow part of the document. So you would have to look at the document in its entirety. So I'd be looking at everything from the printing process to try and determine what type of printing process made it and looking at the dates, looking at any stamps or seals that might be on the document. Taking into account and making notes on everything and then focusing more on the signature if that's the main crux of the case, but I would be looking at everything.

[00:05:26] Angela: So the signature is just a portion of that. How reliable are those features that you have to look at what kind of opinion can you, can you draw from that information?

[00:05:36] Meredith Miller: That's, that's a good question. So a lot of the examinations for documents are objective. So things like paper, things like ink, things like indentation analysis are more objective. So you can have other standards to do a comparison. The handwriting portion, I would say is more subjective. And so it's gone through a lot of issues in the past about the reliability of handwriting or signatures. And so it's come under question a lot more than other parts of document examination.

[00:06:12] Angela: I'm a DNA person, right? So we statistics heavy in our reports, probably more so than anybody really wants to read about on statistics. And, uh, that's, it's not, not quite the same thing for your, field because you can't necessarily quantify what you're doing the same way that we can in DNA, we can quantify things based on the frequency of genetic markers. So how, how do you do that in question documents or has, has that kind of evolved more recently with criticism of forensic science in general?

[00:06:49] Meredith Miller: Right. So there has been a lot of criticism about forensic science and handwriting was also, you know, part of that discussion. Of course. I would say since I've been working in the field for 20 years, there was, I would say almost in the late nineties. If I can go back that

[00:07:09] Angela: Yeah, can.

[00:07:10] Meredith Miller: I can right? Okay, there were a group of, law professors that were questioning, the validity of handwriting identification. And so they wrote a number of articles that were published in some law journals and it kind of put the, the spotlight on handwriting in particular. And so, what happened is they were questioning, the validity of handwriting identification and the reliability. They had done some research to try and find empirical studies that were supporting, handwriting identification and saying, well, we just we've looked everywhere and we can't find anything. So the FBI was really proactive at that time and started conducting more empirical studies to try and kind of boost, I guess you would say, document examination and in particular handwriting expertise. And so the FBI then commissioned a series of studies to be done which were released, trying to show that handwriting it is an expertise, and here's the foundational, empirical evidence that can support that. And then it seems like it's, it just went on and on and on about trying to quantify these, measurements and these things. And so today it's still, it's still an ongoing battle. But I would say the peak of it was probably the late nineties and early two thousands when some of these Daubert challenges were coming for handwriting examination in particular.

[00:08:38] Angela: Is that really the aspect of the document examination that receives the most criticism?

[00:08:46] Meredith Miller: Absolutely. I think, handwriting still to this day would receive a lot of criticism as being too subjective. That there's not enough statistical backing behind it, but I do feel like it's slowly changing where, different groups are trying to infuse, handwriting with a more statistical basis. And so it's, just starting to become more of that now.

[00:09:15] Angela: So are those, some of those research projects are related to the NIST Organization of Scientific Area Committees? I know everybody, all forensic disciplines used to have these, we call them the SWG groups, the scientific working groups. And I know there, there be one for document exams SWGDOC I think.

[00:09:36] Meredith Miller: Yes

[00:09:37] Angela: And I'm, assuming they've also been absorbed into the Organization of Scientific Area Committees, but it looks like most of the work from the research I was able to do on it, most of the work is very much ongoing and they're very active in still doing a lot of research in the field.

[00:09:58] Meredith Miller: Yes, I would agree. I mean, the SWGs that you talked about, so the scientific working groups were really instrumental, I think, in bringing our community together and really forced us to work together to create really good standards for the field. The SWGs did come up with a number of standards, about handwriting examinations, procedures, methodology, and flushed that out for a lot of different examination techniques. And then eventually, like you said, the SWG was dissolved and then it got absorbed by different groups. Another group was ASTMs for standards and testing, and then it went into, like, you talked about the group with the human factors groups with OSAC. Yeah.

[00:10:41] Angela: I would expect that because a lot of what you do is, I don't want to say subjective, that's not really what I mean. It's very opinion-based and it's difficult in fields that aren't quantifiable to maintain more objectivity. Has it changed how over the years, like how you explain the scientific evidence when, when you are court on a case? Just the way you talk it?

[00:11:08] Meredith Miller: Yes. I feel like since I started at the laboratory... at the FBI laboratory, so we like five levels of opinions that could be reached. Identification was one opinion. So you're saying a hundred percent, this writer prepared this signature, for example. Then you had an opinion that was like, may have, may have written. Then you had the center opinion, like no conclusion, you couldn't decide one way or the other. May not have prepared, and you would eliminate a writer. And I feel like over the course of the last 20 years, that language has probably changed a lot. And it moved. When I went into the private field, then the opinion levels to nine opinion, which is cutting the pie even more....

[00:11:55] Angela: No relation to Dante's Inferno there with nine if it's that many, how many levels were in that?

[00:12:02] Meredith Miller: Oh and now I feel like the language about expressing opinions has changed now to almost like these probabilities. And you're taking two probabilities of likelihood ratios of whether this person prepared the signature or did somebody else prepare the signature. And you're trying to either support that or not support that based on what the evidence shows you. I feel like now the language has changed completely. As far as forensic science, which is a good thing, I think it's all very positive moving in the right direction.

[00:12:38] Angela: I kind of got off track a little bit, cause I always get excited when people say something and then I think of questions. One of my thoughts is that if someone, like we have some students that listen to the podcast, in becoming a question document examiner what's required for that?

[00:12:56] Meredith Miller: to college students is always have a science background. So get a degree of the sciences. It's great to have statistic courses. And I think the type of person has to also be quite academic. So I think the thing that field needs the most is having those relationships between academics, the bench scientist, and the legal community. So I feel like if you can bring those three communities together, you're going to have the best chance of creating good research projects and a good chance of getting everything published. So I always tell college students focus on science first, but also try to make sure one of those people that also have an understanding of statistics and the legal process in general, and trying to bring people together that can help you do really good research projects for whatever field forensic science you want to go into.

[00:13:59] Angela: How long did it take to become a fully trained questioned document examiner?

[00:14:07] Meredith Miller: So the FBI laboratory has minimum of two year training program.

[00:14:13] Angela: Okay.

[00:14:13] Meredith Miller: Sometimes it runs little bit longer just depending on the speed of the training. But other laboratories, like I remember the Secret Service laboratory was a three-year training program. So anywhere between two and three years, I would say is the norm for document training.

[00:14:31] Angela: That's actually pretty consistent because most, most of the disciplines in addition to having the right educational background, and some of them are very specific about like, no, it has to be chemistry or it has to be biology, or you have to have these specific courses, but even if you're not in one of those fields that have all specific things that they require, like you said, getting that science degree gives you those critical thinking skills need and an understanding of the scientific process. I definitely agree with you the statistics just keep getting more and more complicated.

[00:15:12] Meredith Miller: I Agree.

[00:15:12] Angela: We used to send it off to this specialist statistician and not going to do it ourselves. And I don't think any more that the field is there. I think you need to have a solid grounding in statistical theories and at least a good understanding of how statistics are applied your field. I think that a lot of the, the comparison fields like yours, it's a little bit harder because it's not something that's so cut and dried, well I say cut and dried DNA is not cut and dried, but we can actually can get genetic frequencies and that makes our calculations a little bit easier in some respects, then more complicated in others but...

[00:15:56] Meredith Miller: Yeah, I totally agree with you about the statistics background. I, you know, now in my career over 20 years, I, kind of kicked myself, wishing I had a better understanding of the statistics and what's needed because I asked to be part of a research project that the FBI was doing. And there was a lot of statistics involved in a decision analysis study that I was involved in and the project was going on for a few years. It was like a black box study on forensic document, examiners, accuracy, and reliability, and the decisions that they are reaching. And obviously putting it all together at the end for publication involved, a lot of statistics, even in the conversation we would be having about some of the results that we received from the examiners taking the test, it was, it was difficult to understand all this statistical modeling that was being used. And have a background in that, I, I, I was really lost, you know, for awhile. I was like, I really don't understand what this model of statistics that they're using. So you really do have to kind of play a little bit of catch up and try to figure it out and how it can apply field. So, yes, you know, if there's any students listening, try to get a good grasp on statistics.

[00:17:20] Angela: Definitely. I have to say that I spend out of all the scientific papers and things that I read, I would say that at this point in time, the majority of them are related to statistical issues. I think that just reflects how important statistical modeling is now in forensic interpretation.

[00:17:40] Meredith Miller: And because it's good to know how, like, if you're in this adversarial setting, how is the other side going to be using those statistics to help sway let's say a judge or jury to their way of seeing things have that background, right. Because you're going to possibly be trying to refute that with your own statistics. And so you really do have to have a good handle on everything.

[00:18:03] Angela: Yeah. You just, need to know the language that everyone's speaking. I've talked to some other independent experts and most of what they're doing, it's not most of the time everybody's in agreement. It's very rare that we're, we're not agreeing with each other and sometimes we agree with each other on everything, up to a point. And sometimes it ends up being this little fine nitpicky little detail on how

[00:18:30] Meredith Miller: Yes.

[00:18:30] Angela: Yes, everyone study hard, take extra statistics classes.

[00:18:36] Meredith Miller: Right. Which you probably won't hear unless you are listening to this podcast, because I think forensic sciences has just, like we said, it's changed so much over the time we've been involved in the profession. So that is one thing I always tell students, like getting the science background and then getting some, some kind of basis in statistics is so important now.

[00:18:56] Angela: I think that a lot of the people who originally went into forensics, I mean, there were definitely scientists involved from the beginning, the birth of forensics, so to speak, but a lot of the disciplines, it did tend to be people who were former investigators or crime scene investigators. I know a lot of people that were involved in trace up becoming some of the first DNA analysts. One of the agencies I worked with the question documents, department was where the digital forensics developed out of, it's interesting. I know, I to that laboratory or if it was just slightly different everywhere else. I mean, the FBI lab would have probably been ahead of most everyone else with getting some of the different fields up and running.

[00:19:44] Meredith Miller: The FBI lab obviously has a very strong and long history in forensic sciences, I think back dating from like the 1930s. But my understanding of the document field was really because, there were questions about handwriting and signatures. And so back in the days they used to consult people like bank tellers or professors, or even penmanship teachers to try to help out with these document questions that were going on back in like 1930s and forties. And then eventually, like you said, it evolved into this field of questioned documents and trying to find, the right people to put in these positions at the FBI lab way back in the day. And then yes, I think the, I don't know about the FBI lab right now if you could say the digital evidence kind of came out of the documents unit, but I definitely there's a correlation there for sure.

[00:20:47] Angela: So that, that reminds me and I know asked you this in one of our, previous conversations, when it comes to handwriting and everybody has their, iPads or you're at the checkout and they want you to sign with this crappy stylist on a little tiny little square and you know, you feel like that's not even really your signature or they don't even have a stylist and you have to use your finger. How have advances in technology changed your field?

[00:21:18] Meredith Miller: One thing I can say is there don't seem to be any original documents anymore. Everything is a copy. So almost everything I examine is a photocopy, a scanned document. I barely ever receive original documents anymore. So that's one thing. Secondly, you're right about the signatures being digitized and they do come up sometimes in cases. But I would say not as often as you might think. I'd still say predominantly, what I think I'm looking at is a genuine signature because I, I see that there's still some quality and I can see from a scan, I can see the variations in the pen pressure. So I know it's actually been signed probably with a ballpoint pen or something. But yes, the digitization of signatures has started to factor in documents. And I see more research and studies and papers and workshops being put on in field for people to try to get a better understanding of how it can be, how this information can be analyzed in casework. The pitfalls of it, what we need to be careful about what we can say about it, what we can't say about it. So all of that is definitely becoming more, a part of document examination.

[00:22:41] Angela: When you end up issuing your report with your findings on it, do you find that you have to qualify your statements based on the quality of the scan that you've received?

[00:22:52] Meredith Miller: Exactly. That's one of the first things I look at is the quality of the scanned document. Am I able to see significant details of the handwriting or of the features that I need to examine? the photocopy is crappy, then I'm not really going to be able to see those finer details that I'm going to need to see to, to give the opinion. So sometimes just based on the quality of the copy I receive I'm going to have to say in the report, listen, there's going to be a limitation here to what I can say, because I received a copy. I don't have the original and the copy quality is not sufficient, or it's limited in sufficiency for me to examine these finer details. And I might break out what those features are in the report to say why I couldn't examine them. And then I would have to include that in the conclusion for sure. language would have to reflect that.

[00:23:50] Angela: If it's an official document, a lot of times they'll have the seals on them on the original. And I mean, I know I've seen scans of those things and sometimes you can sort of tell the shapes of some of the letters or the impressions that that seal made on there. But I think I would think that would be very difficult to verify that. Do you ever get exemplars for what the seal is supposed to look like?

[00:24:15] Meredith Miller: I understand what you're saying. So if you're looking at a seal or a stamp on a copy, sometimes, like you said, the clarity isn't that great. There are occasions where are. I would be able to pull a sample, maybe an original sample, to do a side-by-side comparison. That's always the best, the best way. Obviously that's the ideal way to do it. But sometimes we don't have it and maybe there won't be a definite determination that can be made about the seal to say if it's, if it's genuine or not, there might be some characteristics in common, that you could point out, but there might be some differences as well. both the similarities and the differences. And just write it up in your report.

[00:25:04] Angela: on that copy, you're not really going to be able to look at the ink?

[00:25:08] Meredith Miller: Haha, no, that's of the things you can't see. So that's a struggle for sure.

[00:25:14] Angela: When you're actually looking at these different characteristics, like, so you're looking at the impressions and things, what are some, are there specific techniques that you use to recover and bring those up so that you can make a determination of what they are?

[00:25:30] Meredith Miller: Are you talking about the indentations or?

[00:25:33] Angela: So if you've got, you've got indentations, like what kind of characteristics do you look for that, or same thing with the handwriting? You know, how do you tell if something looks like it might not be an original signature?

[00:25:46] Meredith Miller: So with indentation analysis where that's a process where we're using a certain type of equipment called well, the name is as long, I won't get into details, but if we're talking about indentations, the way that I would look at that you'd have to have the original document to see if there's any impressions that have been made on the evidence and generally that's done with sidelighting. So you're going to hold the and a light source to the side, and then possibly you can see with your eyes. Okay, there's indentations I can see on the paper, so I want to process that for indented writing examination, then you would process that on the machine and you can recover the indentations. So that's definitely you would need the original document to do that. Obviously you can't do that on a copy. But as far as handwriting, I'm sorry. I forgot like rest of your question. I think you mentioned handwriting?

[00:26:40] Angela: No it's okay. Well, no, I was just curious about, I was curious about some of the techniques, so you're using oblique lighting to kind of see if there, see the impression. So that's, a pretty common technique in, in all sorts of forensic analyses is you hold the light at a certain angle and it kind of helps you visualize something on the document, or item of clothing, or any other type of thing you might be looking at. So what is it that this machine does with the indentations? Does it do a, some kind of a scan of it to get an image?

[00:27:11] Meredith Miller: So, the process is quite long process, it is sometimes a quick analysis. So you have to first humidify the document for about two minutes. And then once you take it out of the humidity chamber, you place it on the machine is called the ESDA, the Electrostatic Detection Apparatus. You place on the ESDA then you, you charge the document. This sounds very, it's very hard process, really to explain without seeing the machine,

[00:27:40] Angela: You're doing great. doing great, actually.

[00:27:43] Meredith Miller: You charge documents and then you're pouring toner particles or cascading the toner particles over the top of the document once you've secured the document underneath some clear films, so it doesn't damage the document. And then they're able to lift the indentations, hopefully, on this clear film and see if there's any, and the indentations come up on the clear film, and then you transfer that to a clear piece of paper and kind of preserve it that way. So that's kind of a long story about how to do indentation analysis.

[00:28:13] Angela: No, it's, it's interesting. I expect it's very similar to the way some of the latent impressions are lifted.

[00:28:21] Meredith Miller: I, I don't know. I'm not really familiar with how like latent fingerprints, lifts their indentations for, for latent fingerprints. I know they use like ninhydrin and fuming and things so...

[00:28:33] Angela: Some footwear are done with electrostatic techniques. So there must be some, there's probably some similarities. But that, that reminds me of one of the other things that we mentioned is we're all forensic but we've all become so specialized and so almost siloed in our different specializations that we don't, we don't talk to each other enough anymore.

[00:28:59] Meredith Miller: I know.

[00:28:59] Angela: We have big meetings like this week right now, the American Academy meeting is going on, but that meeting is huge. Presentations are like 15 minutes spot. So you're probably so busy running from one presentation and poster sessions and breakout sessions. Do you, how much time are you having to really converse with your colleagues. But I used to learn things by going out on the crime scenes. And that was a really, the only time that I got to spend time with the, the trace evidence and the latent and the firearms examiners, but they never sent a question document people out on crime scenes with us.

[00:29:36] Meredith Miller: I can't imagine why, why not? But you make a good point about interacting with your other forensic scientists. And I would say one of the great qualities, great things about working at the FBI laboratory is we were really connected. Because when cases would come through the evidence system, they would assign one of the units who had the most examinations was assigned as like the manager of that case. And we used to physically hand carry the evidence to each of the different laboratory units. So frequently documents would also be working, let's say with the fingerprint unit. Or perhaps the hair and fiber unit or, the DNA unit. And so we did actually use to get to know our neighbors and our friends in the lab because we'd and spend time with them, handing off evidence and signing the chain of custody and being able to kind of talk. sometimes they'd say, oh, do you want to see something really cool I'm working on? And you could go and see things in their laboratory space. So you did get a little bit of an understanding of how the whole process all works together. And it, it is like so important to stay touch and see how it all works together. The meetings that you're talking about the American Academy meeting is, is one of the only meetings where you can just talk to everybody. And we're all together for a week and get to see each other, it's really important.

[00:31:03] Angela: One of the things that I was hoping you could talk to us about is maybe some of the more interesting cases that you've worked on during your career, criminal or civil, what was something that was really, not necessarily fun, cause it's crime is not necessarily fun for anybody involved in it just something that's really interesting.

[00:31:24] Meredith Miller: Right. I had a chance to work on lot of interesting cases at the FBI lab. one of the reasons I think I'm still in the field to this day is because I find the work so interesting and varied. And I always get excited when I get a new case because it's, you know, no two cases are exactly the same. And do different types of examinations on different types of cases. So I really appreciate Forensic science for that level of variety. So you never really get too bored or too comfortable, like doing thing over and over again. So I really like that. But one of the cases I was assigned to at the FBI laboratory involved a series of bombings going on pretty much centered, around the Midwest of the U S. The FBI became involved in almost like this manhunt, trying to figure out who was putting these bombs in these mailboxes that were exploding and, and how were they going to find person? And so it, came to be something that the national was covering the story unfortunately there were quite a few victims. I want to say, like eight or nine, people that had been, you know, just having your typical day going to retrieve their mail and the mailbox blowing up and getting either seriously injured, by the bomb fragments. I don't think there was any deaths if I'm recalling this correctly, but I do believe quite a few people were seriously injured. Anyway, there was a along with the bombs, there were letters that were put in the mailboxes. So when the mailboxes were exploding, crime scene technicians were coming and gathering up all the evidence and gathering up these paper documents. And so they were being sent into the FBI laboratory. And after a few weeks, they captured a suspect and his name was Lucas Helder and he was a college student. I believe from Michigan, maybe Minnesota, not quite to recall the details. He was a college student and they retrieved quite a few notebooks from his car. And so one of the tasks I was asked to do was trying to recover, these explosions, that had been created in the letters that had been left in the mailbox. There were giant holes left in the middle of these letters. So one of the examinations me do was trying to recover what, what those missing portions were. Once Lucas Helder was apprehended and the notebooks were found in his car they were sent in to the FBI laboratory and I was able to conduct a indentation analysis on those notebooks. And in the notebooks, I could find those missing portions of the letters. The indentations had traveled down from other pages in the notebooks and could be recovered to the writing that had been missing in the original, bomb blasts. So that was one of the cool cases I worked on at the FBI lab.

[00:34:34] Angela: That is really interesting. And so were they able to use that to understand what his motivations were for even wanting to do that?

[00:34:44] Meredith Miller: I don't think through the letters, they were able to understand his particular motivations. And I still think it's a mystery as to what his motivations were. I know he was dubbed the smiley face bomber because the pattern he was going through as he was driving through the different states was creating like the smiley face. And so he was kind of dubbed the smiley face bomber, but to really get down to the nitty gritty of what his absolute motivation was doing it, it didn't seem to be very clear.

[00:35:20] Angela: Well, that's still very interesting that you were able to essentially reconstruct the documents that he had put in there just from the indentation evidence.

[00:35:29] Meredith Miller: The other cool case that I worked on at the FBI lab was a sniper case. I don't know if you remember, there was...

[00:35:38] Angela: Oh the, the DC sniper?

[00:35:39] Meredith Miller: D C sniper case.

[00:35:41] Angela: Yeah, I remember that one.

[00:35:43] Meredith Miller: I worked on that case as well, so for people listening that aren't familiar with the case, it involved a man named John Allen Muhammad and another, I want... it wasn't his son, but it was almost like his stepson.

[00:35:58] Angela: It was a young man that was with him...

[00:36:01] Meredith Miller: Yeah, another young man, right? That were eventually were apprehended for going around the Washington DC area, and basically performing a sniper attack and killing people.

[00:36:13] Angela: Yeah. They killed a lot of people. If I recall correctly.

[00:36:16] Meredith Miller: In the most random places, you know, where people go every day to run errands. So people were getting killed at gas stations and in the parking lot of Home Depot. And I remember being in the DC area at the time and living there, and there was so much fear surrounding driving around that area. And I remember the gas stations putting up giant tarps around places where you would pump gas, because everybody felt like you could be the next target of this DC sniper. And anyway, I remember once they finally... there was a series of letters had been the police and taunting the investigators that were tasked with trying to figure out who were, who was, who was responsible for these things. And one of the phrases that the snipers had used was a phrase you could "call me God" was one of the phrases they had used as like a taunting of the police. And I remember when the evidence was finally recovered, I was going through a manual that had been kept in the glove box of the car once they apprehended the suspects. And I was doing again indented writing on that driver's manual because everything that was the car was taken out and processed through the laboratory. And I remember being absolutely shocked when doing the indented analysis and the appearance of that phrase came up on one of the papers, the "call me God" and other parts of that letter had been retrieved through indented writing analysis. After a few years, the case went to trial and I had to go and testify at the trial. And at that time, the main suspect John Allen Muhammad had fired all of his attorneys and he was at the trial then serving as his own attorney. So he was asking the questions the witness stand. So, it was a strange, strange case to be a part of when I was asked to answer his questions and he was asking, so what exactly did you find on this driver's manual? And I told him, and I remember there was a big, like, Oh, everybody was objecting. Oh, she can't say that. She can't say that, you know, because it was kind of like this main piece of evidence. And so it was, it was a really freaky thing to be questioned by the main suspect of the case instead of like, an attorney.

[00:39:04] Angela: That I, yeah, that's definitely an experience. I haven't had to do that myself, but I've been the person observing someone else giving testimony and they're being questioned by the defendant. It's, it's a different style of questioning than what you get from a defense attorney.

[00:39:25] Meredith Miller: Yeah, I guess, because we're trained in testifying as experts as part of usually our training. Right? So we're, we're used to going through mock courts and having testified before we can anticipate questions that a defense attorney might ask you, but when it's the actual defendant asking you questions, like you said, that the form of the questions and what they're really curious about, really, you have no idea, like what they're going to ask you. No idea.

[00:39:56] Angela: So that's definitely an experience to have had.

[00:40:00] Meredith Miller: Yeah, it was a good experience. I mean, I have say I'm I'm... yeah, it was a good experience. One that I always, I think I'll have to tell my grandkids about someday.

[00:40:09] Angela: Yeah, definitely. what do you have planned for the future? Are you going to be doing, I know you do a lot of custom training in document examination techniques. So you do have anything coming in the future that people can be looking out for?

[00:40:26] Meredith Miller: Yes. I am hoping to start working with Florida International University. They've hired me and also my coworkers. They're gonna hire us to do some document training in Sri Lanka. So I'm going to be doing a couple blocks of training for that. And I'm continually getting more cases. I was sad to miss out like I said, on the American Academy meeting this year, but yeah, I'm just going to keep pushing, trying to learn more, try to go to more meetings, continuing education, like you would agree is so important in our field... trying to keep on top of everything. So yeah, I'll just trying to keep on top of everything and keep moving forward for sure.

[00:41:10] Angela: If somebody finds themself in need of a question, document examiner, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you? Just through LinkedIn? Or do you have a website that you like to direct people to?

[00:41:23] Meredith Miller: I mean, either way, I am on LinkedIn, just under my name. And I do have a website, which is just my last name, dekalbmiller.com. And you can find me there and send me an email if you have any questions.

[00:41:34] Angela: I will be sure to link those in the show notes. So you'll be easy for people to find if they need a document examiner in the future. And with that I just wanted to say thank you for agreeing to have a nerdy conversation with me. I appreciate it. I learned new things today,

[00:41:52] Meredith Miller: Thank you.

[00:41:54] Angela: Hey there, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to join the secrets from the crime lab, Facebook group, to make sure that you don't miss out. I really appreciate feedback. So if you have any to give me please email hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.com, that's hello@secretsfromthecrimelab.com.

Now recently the San Francisco district attorney shocked all of us with news that he had dismissed charges against a woman whose DNA had been collected years ago during a sexual assault medical examination. That sample was put into the DNA database and the police used it recently to link her to a property crime. Join me next week on Secrets from the Crime Lab. We're going to discuss why this is a no-no. The proper use of DNA databases and consent. And yes, I do mean that kind of consent or the lack of thereof. We're going to discuss what's meant by informed consent and how this hearkens all the way back to Henrietta Lacks in the 1950s. And we're going to begin a multi-episode discussion on ethics and forensic genetics so be sure that you're following the podcast or follow us on Facebook to make sure that you don't miss an episode. Thank you. I hope you learned something new today.