8-year-old boy charged with murder of father

[bryang]

Here is another twist to this story. They had an interview on Good Morning America with the mother of the 8yr. old boy accused of murder.

Mom Defends Son Accused of Murder

The mother of an 8-year-old accused of murdering his father and another Arizona man said today that her son is a good boy who had no problems with his dad.

There is a video of the interview and portions of the video of the boy being questioned by police...
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6320539&page=1

So sad, very sad.

-geo

[seamusTX]

Five weeks later, no resolution:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD951VK682" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

[Excaliber]

I would think the police would dust the rifle for fingerprints and test the boy for powder residue. That would prove that the boy had fired the weapon.

- Jim

Fingerprinting on guns isn't what TV makes it out to be. I've heard from forensics folks that pulling a good print off a gun is actually pretty rare, especially if it is maintained, making it inherently oily.

I had my van dusted after it was broken into. They had been all over the van, going as far as drinking a gatorade and a beer that I had left in the cooler in back from New Year's. They dusted the beer bottle and lots of other surfaces and got nothing, and only found one in the end... on the inside of the plexiglass vent window they busted into. Even that wasn't a good print. Also unlike the movies, they can't pull prints of most things. No paper, and nothing but smooth/shiny flat surfaces. Most of the officer's time was spent dusting my windows and paneling of my van. Very few of the interior surfaces were candidates for dusting.

Even if they did find the kid's prints on the gun, that only proves that he has handled it, which means nothing as he was instructed and allowed to use it. I still have trouble believing an 8 year old who had no indications of mental issues or other telling symptoms planned a double murder like this and carried it out with a single-shot rifle. It smells very fishy to me. I'm with stroo in my suspicions that he's a scapegoat, and there's more to this story.

Getting usable prints from a crime scene is very difficult, and there's a lot of luck involved. Very smooth nonporous surfaces are best, but prints are easily smudged enough to make them useless as items are handled normally.

Prints can be developed on the surfaces of non ideal materials through a technique called cyanoacrylate fuming. It basically involves heating superglue in a closed take. The fumes will develop prints that can't be recovered by other methods. This is pretty time consuming, and is usually done only in major cases.

[NcongruNt]

I would think the police would dust the rifle for fingerprints and test the boy for powder residue. That would prove that the boy had fired the weapon.

- Jim

Fingerprinting on guns isn't what TV makes it out to be. I've heard from forensics folks that pulling a good print off a gun is actually pretty rare, especially if it is maintained, making it inherently oily.

I had my van dusted after it was broken into. They had been all over the van, going as far as drinking a gatorade and a beer that I had left in the cooler in back from New Year's. They dusted the beer bottle and lots of other surfaces and got nothing, and only found one in the end... on the inside of the plexiglass vent window they busted into. Even that wasn't a good print. Also unlike the movies, they can't pull prints of most things. No paper, and nothing but smooth/shiny flat surfaces. Most of the officer's time was spent dusting my windows and paneling of my van. Very few of the interior surfaces were candidates for dusting.

Even if they did find the kid's prints on the gun, that only proves that he has handled it, which means nothing as he was instructed and allowed to use it. I still have trouble believing an 8 year old who had no indications of mental issues or other telling symptoms planned a double murder like this and carried it out with a single-shot rifle. It smells very fishy to me. I'm with stroo in my suspicions that he's a scapegoat, and there's more to this story.

Getting usable prints from a crime scene is very difficult, and there's a lot of luck involved. Very smooth nonporous surfaces are best, but prints are easily smudged enough to make them useless as items are handled normally.

Prints can be developed on the surfaces of non ideal materials through a technique called cyanoacrylate fuming. It basically involves heating superglue in a closed take. The fumes will develop prints that can't be recovered by other methods. This is pretty time consuming, and is usually done only in major cases.

Like in Beverly Hills Cop II!

[Excaliber]

Fingerprinting on guns isn't what TV makes it out to be. I've heard from forensics folks that pulling a good print off a gun is actually pretty rare, especially if it is maintained, making it inherently oily.

I had my van dusted after it was broken into. They had been all over the van, going as far as drinking a gatorade and a beer that I had left in the cooler in back from New Year's. They dusted the beer bottle and lots of other surfaces and got nothing, and only found one in the end... on the inside of the plexiglass vent window they busted into. Even that wasn't a good print. Also unlike the movies, they can't pull prints of most things. No paper, and nothing but smooth/shiny flat surfaces. Most of the officer's time was spent dusting my windows and paneling of my van. Very few of the interior surfaces were candidates for dusting.

Even if they did find the kid's prints on the gun, that only proves that he has handled it, which means nothing as he was instructed and allowed to use it. I still have trouble believing an 8 year old who had no indications of mental issues or other telling symptoms planned a double murder like this and carried it out with a single-shot rifle. It smells very fishy to me. I'm with stroo in my suspicions that he's a scapegoat, and there's more to this story.

Getting usable prints from a crime scene is very difficult, and there's a lot of luck involved. Very smooth nonporous surfaces are best, but prints are easily smudged enough to make them useless as items are handled normally.

Prints can be developed on the surfaces of non ideal materials through a technique called cyanoacrylate fuming. It basically involves heating superglue in a closed take. The fumes will develop prints that can't be recovered by other methods. This is pretty time consuming, and is usually done only in major cases.

Like in Beverly Hills Cop II!

I don't remember that part of the movie, but the detectives in my burglary squad used cyanoacrylate fuming routinely and were really good at it, using a processing chamber we built ourselves from a fish tank, hot plate, fan, and a few other scavenged parts.

We recovered usable prints from items the older CSI guys said were impossible.

We also cast footprints in snow that were good enough to sustain convictions - but that's another story.