CRJ 311: Forensic Science

Lecture 6 - Arson and Explosion Investigations

1. What is Fire and Arson?
a. Fire:

b. Arson:

i. To start a fire:

2. Arsonist Typologies
a. 82% white and 92% male
b. Over 50% were 27 or younger
c. How many fires set on average?
d. 87% prior felony arrests
e. 2/3rds average or above intelligence however, 90% had high school or less
f. 25% history of suicide attempt and 50% history of psychological problems
g. Do they have unloving relationships?
h. Most report watching the blaze

3. Serial Arsonist
a. Thomas A. Sweatt was arrested and charged with 11 federal offenses stemming from four
fires and an attempted arson in Maryland and DC.
b. How was he tied to the crimes?

4. Searching the Fire Scene

a. Arson investigator:

i. Does a search warrant need to be obtained?

ii. What are most fires started with?
b. The search:

5. Searching the Fire Scene

a. Telltale signs of arson:

b. Direction of fire: tendency to move in an upward direction and origin will likely be the
lowest point showing the most intense characteristics of burning.

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 6. Collection of Fire Evidence
a. Items to be collected:
b. Storage:

7. Analysis of Fire Evidence

a. Gas chromatography:

i. Majority are initiated by what?

ii. What does it produce?

8. TWA Flight 800

a. After departing from JFK airport, TWA Flight 800 exploded mid-air 12 minutes into the
flight.
b. How many people were killed?
c. What speculation centered around the crash?
d. In 2000, they concluded that the probable cause of the accident was “an explosion of the
center wing fuel tank”.

9. What is an Explosion?
a. Explosion:

i. What causes an explosion?

ii. What constitutes a high or low explosive?

10. Types of Explosives?

a. Low explosives:
i. Black powder:
ii. Smokeless powder:

11. Homemade Explosives: The Anarchist Cookbook

a. Published in 1971 by William Powell during his high school and college years in protest of
the Vietnam War
b. Where did his research come from?
c. What was the central theme?
d. What is in the cookbook?
e. After second thoughts, the publisher refused Powell’s request to remove the book from
print.

12. Types of Explosives

a. High explosives
i. Primary explosives:

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ii. Secondary explosives:

iii. Examples: commercial and military blasting (dynamite, TNT, PETN, RDX)

13. The Explosive Market

a. U.S.:

b. Outside U.S.:

i. RDX is the most popular and powerful of the military explosives, often encountered in the
form of pliable plastic known as C-4

14. Searching for Explosive Evidence

a. The bomb site must be systematically searched to recover any trace of a detonating
mechanism or any other foreign items.
i. Where are the objects collected?
ii. What needs to be preserved in the crater?

15. Collection of Explosive Evidence

a. Materials collected must be placed in sealed airtight containers and labeled.
b. Are items packaged in separate containers?
c. Why airtight containers?

16. Collection of Explosive Evidence “Robots”

a. Law enforcement commonly use specially equipped robots to search and collect explosives
and evidence.
b. Why are robots an important safety tool?

17. Forensics Nightmare

a. The FBI Futures Working Group is a collaboration between who?

b. What do they provide?

c. What is their prediction?
d. When that occurs, the challenges to forensic scientists will be unprecedented.

18. Analysis or Explosive Evidence

a. Ion mobility spectrometer (IMS):

i. What is it used for?

b. In the laboratory:
c. What is the recovered debris rinsed with?
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 19. Explosives Photo Lineup: “Bomb Taggants”
a. Two types:
i. Detection:

ii. Identification:

b. Identification Taggants:
i. Most commonly used are microscopic polymer particles that can be identified after the
explosion.
ii. What information do they provide?
iii. Records can lead where?

20. Oklahoma City

a. The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist attack on April 19, 1995.
b. What was it aimed at?
c. How many lives did the attack claim?