For example, bite marks can retain the biter’s DNA which could provide a more scientific link to the biter.” “However, if the case was tried today there would probably be a lot of other evidence, scientific evidence, that could have been used.
#Oxygen forensic trial trial
“If the Ted Bundy trial was going on today, I hope the statements of scientific certainty relating to the bite mark evidence would be met with a lot more scrutiny, if not rejected entirely,” she said. Osborne doesn’t think that would happen today.
That, along with eyewitness testimony, sealed his fate. Souviron responded, “I think that’s a fair statement.” He went on to admit that his conclusions are “a matter of opinion.” Additionally, she explained that teeth may make a different impression each time a bite is made, depending on a myriad of factors.īut in Bundy’s trial, the jury was convinced, even though the defense attempted to frame bite mark evidence as “primitive.”īundy's attorney Ed Harvey even asked Souviron during the trial, "Analyzing bite marks is part art and part science, isn't it?” according to Rule’s book.
#Oxygen forensic trial skin
She said skin is not a clear and precise impression material. The more distortion you have, the more ambiguity and subjectivity you have, the more room you have for bias and error.” She added that “based on a comparison of his teeth to the impression, it may be possible to say that you ‘cannot exclude’ Bundy as the source of the bite mark’” but that such a statement is “critically different than saying that ‘Bundy is the source of the bite mark to the exclusion of all others.' That is how it how it appears to have been used in the Ted Bundy case.”Īs for the bite mark on Levy, Osborne noted, “When talking about a bite mark on the breast or the buttocks where the skin is soft and malleable, there’s a lot more room for distortion. Without a large, objective database of teeth to compare to, such likelihood ratios cannot be calculated.” “To make such a statement, you also need to know the likelihood of observing those same features if someone - or something - other than Bundy’s teeth left that impression. “To say that Ted Bundy is the source of this bite mark based only on a comparison of his teeth to the impression is a scientifically impossible statement to make,” she told. Niki Osborne, a forensic research scientist based in New Zealand who studies decision-making and reliability in forensic sciences, says such a statement is impossible.
He even testified within a reasonable degree of certainty that the suspect’s teeth matched the bite mark. He put a transparent sheet, which showed Bundy’s teeth impression, on top of that photo and stated, ”They line up exactly!” On the board was a photo of the bite marks on Levy. Richard Souviron testified at the first trial along with a display board. Her killer had literally torn at her buttocks with his teeth, leaving four distinct rows of marks where those teeth had sunk in,” author Ann Rule, wrote in her 1980 true crime novel about Bundy, entitled “The Stranger Beside Me: The True Crime Story of Ted Bundy.” She also insisted that a “forensic odontologist would be able to match those bite marks to a suspect’s teeth as precisely as a fingerprint expert could identify the loops and whorls of a suspect’s fingers.” As for Levy, “there was a double bite mark on her left buttock. Both women - Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy - were bludgeoned to death in their sorority house during the early morning hours of January 15, 1978. On July 24, 1979, Bundy was found guilty of killing two female students at Florida State University. But the thing is, if Bundy's original trial had been held today, he very well may have walked free: because the prosecution focused so much on bite mark evidence. While Ted Bundy maintained his innocence until (almost) the end - then he started confessing - it's a given now that he was responsible for the murders of at least 30 women.
#Oxygen forensic trial serial
Serial killer Ted Bundy was convicted of murder twice and received three separate death sentences, which today seems like a no-brainer.
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