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Renowned forensic scientist Henry Lee said Thursday that the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial in 1995 not only revealed the racial chasm in America but the importance of strictly following established protocols in processing crime scenes.
“There were so many issues with the major crime scene in that case,” said Mr. Lee, who holds a doctorate and who testified for five days as a defense expert for Simpson. “This case set the landmarks for crime scene and laboratory handling of evidence.’
Mr. Lee’s comments came on the first day of the two-day inaugural conference “Pioneers of Forensic Science,” at which he is the first honoree. One of the world’s foremost criminalists, Mr. Lee has been involved in the Laci Peterson, JonBenet Ramsey, Caylee Anthony and Vince Foster cases, among many others.
Mr. Lee, Connecticut’s chief emeritus of scientific services, has served as that state’s commissioner of public safety, forensic science laboratory director and chief criminalist. He is the founder of the University of New Haven’s Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science and is the namesake of its Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences.
He spoke on a panel “People v. O.J. Simpson: An Interdisciplinary Retrospective on the Case that Brought Forensic Science to the World.”
Other panelists included F. Lee Bailey, a member of Simpson’s “Dream Team” of defense attorneys; Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for New York City who also was a Simpson defense expert; and Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, Pittsburgh’s renowned forensic pathologist who was an expert commentator on the Simpson case on national television programs. He also is the namesake of Duquesne University’s Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law, the conference sponsor. University President Kenneth G. Gormley, who holds law degree, moderated the two-hour panel discussion.
A native of China, Mr. Lee said he had no idea who Mr. Simpson was when he was asked to be an expert for him at trial. He reconstructed the crime scene and examined every piece of evidence collected.
“I knew there was something wrong with the case by the physical evidence. There were lots of problems.”
He discovered that notes taken by Los Angeles Police Department criminalists at the scene were later substituted with other documents. “We found this out because the notes are stapled, but we found extra staple holes,” meaning they had been re-stapled.
Mr. Lee recounted his testimony about a crucial piece of the prosecution’s evidence—a bloodstain found on the walkway outside the Bundy Drive home where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman were killed in June 1994.
DNA tests indicated O.J. Simpson was the likely source of the blood, but Mr. Lee testified he was suspicious because he discovered four small patches of blood on the paper packet wrapped around the Bundy evidence. That would indicate the blood swatches were wet and leaked onto the paper, yet LAPD technicians had testified that they left the swatches to dry overnight.
Asked by defense attorney Barry Scheck to account for the stains, Mr. Lee famously answered, “The only explanation I can give under these circumstances is, something’s wrong.”
As a scientist, Mr. Lee wouldn’t speculate either at the trial or at Thursday’s conference about how that could have occurred, but Mr. Bailey isn’t a scientist, so he wasn’t so circumspect. That evidence and the infamous glove and the bloody sock and anything else indicating Simpson’s guilt was planted, he said.
