COURT: Richard Zagwyn deemed a dangerous offender A3 Wednesday, March 7, 2012 Prince George teachers hit the picket lines this week A3
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www.pgfreepress.com ■ POLICE
CSI ... for real
De Ly nd a PILONS/ Fre e Pre s s
Const. Theresa Oelke is with the RCMP’s Forensic Identification Section and, for the record, hates the CSI shows.
Const. Oelke ... one of P.G.’s crime busters
DELYNDA PILON newsroom@pgfreepress.com
If you are like me, you have spent an inordinate amount of time with Catherine Willows and Horatio Caine, the crime-busting analysts who can track down baddies through spit on a stamp or a strand of hair. Chances are though, it would be difficult to enjoy any episode of CSI with Const. Theresa Oelke from the Prince George’s Forensic Identification Section. In fact, she gets a wee bit cranky just talking about it. “In one episode they took three partial prints, one from each number,” she said to me, pointing at the aluminum number panel on the elevator. “Then they put them together and made one print. One. Single. Print.” Her expression said everything she needed to about that kind of science. “And in one episode they got a print off of a kidney!” she looked at me, brows raised. “A kidney!” Back at her desk she asked me, “So, what do you think is better. Fingerprints or DNA?” “DNA,” I answered. “Why?” “Well, because ... because that’s always the bit of evidence that turns things around in those CSI shows.” “I hate those shows,” she told me. She went on to explain a national fingerprint office was established in Canada in the early 1900s, and in all the ensuing years no two people have ever been found to have identical fingerprints. That is not true about DNA, she said, adding that identical twins have the same DNA yet different prints. DNA results, she said, always come with a probability attached. Oelke knows a lot about fingerprints. She also collects DNA, takes impressions of shoe prints and tire treads in all sorts of conditions and collects a multitude of various types of evidence. She passed me a glass while we were in the lab, took it back and dusted it with white powder while holding it in what looked like a vented metal cabinet with a roof. It wasn’t long before the prints where I’d touched the glass were visible. In a real case, the area would get a number and date, with a sticker in place to show the width. The prints are marked
of the robbery has a glass of juice. I laughed at her example, and so did she. “But it happens,” she promised me. If the glass was fine, likely it would be returned to the owner. If not, if it was broken during the course of the robbery, then what good would it be? Where Oelke finds the prints on an item is also important. For instance, suppose she found them encircling the bottom of the glass in a way that made it clear it was being held upside down. Then it might have been used as a weapon. Prints can tell you a lot just by where they are. And, as any of us mystery lovers can tell you, they also
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according to finger and placement, right or left, and a photograph is taken. The original digital copy of that is kept. But something that surprised me, the item might not be. After all, aren’t all items related to a crime kept? Don’t we laymen hear about missing evidence all the time, and doesn’t it make us suspicious? Oelke pointed out the original digital photograph is kept, so why should the item be? For instance, a robber breaks into a home and during the course
identify people. Sometimes Oelke uses prints to eliminate suspects. For example, in the case of the robbery, you would expect the home owner’s prints to be everywhere. But sometimes a print is right where it ought not to be - like on the glass the robber drank from. Then if the police have a suspect, Oelke will compare the prints from that person to the ones she’s taken. If not, then they are run through RAFIAS, beginning with the provincial equivalent. A possible match will come back from the province in two or three days. From Ottawa it takes about three months. Once the name of the possible match comes through, Oelke can pull up the prints (something that takes seconds) and check for a match. The actual match is not done by a computer, like those high-tech babies on NCIS. Instead, she gets a hard copy and does it herself. Oelke and the rest of the unit are on-scene at nearly every major crime there is in and around the city. If they are called out to a possible homicide, the first thing they do is survey the exterior then the interior of the scene. Then they videotape both the exterior and interior. Then they photograph both the exterior and interior. The they mark any relevant evidence, from bul-
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