Connecticut Investigative Services

07/01/2025

10 Surprising Home Burglary Facts and Stats
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1. On average, a burglary happens once every 30 seconds.
According to the FBI statistics, a burglar strikes close to every 30 seconds in the US (30.48 seconds to be exact).1 That adds up to two burglaries every minute and over 3,000 burglaries per day.

2. Burglaries have increased since 2021.
Unfortunately, the number of burglaries has recently gone up. The number of reported burglary offenses increased from 671,648 in 2021 to 847,522 in 2022 before dipping slightly to 813,353 in 2023.
However, this property crime has declined considerably over the past two decades. FBI data from 1994 indicates that American households experienced 2,362,539 burglaries, though other sources say burglaries that year topped 6 million.

3. People worry about burglary more than any other property crime. Home break-ins are the most feared property crime, according to our latest State of Safety survey. People between the ages of 18 and 34 were slightly more concerned about break-ins than people 35 and older.
People living in rural areas were half as likely to worry about burglary as people living in urban and suburban areas.
That concern beat out other property crime worries, such as having your property stolen (in real life or online) or someone stealing your car.
Despite a high level of concern, only 38% of Americans told us they have a home security system to protect their property from burglary.

4. You're most likely to be burgled in your 30s.
Younger people have every right to worry about burglary since they're more likely to experience it. Every year for the last ten years, FBI data has shown that about 20% of all burglary victims were in their 30s. People in their 20s and 40s report the second and/or third highest burglary rates, depending on the year. (Usually 20-somethings come in second.)
But by the time someone turns 50, their chance of experiencing a burglary gradually decreases with age:
• Ages 50–59: 1.3 times less likely to be burgled than people in their 30s.
• Ages 60–69: 1.67 times less likely to be burgled than people in their 30s.
• Ages 70–79: 3.3 times less likely to be burgled than people in their 30s.
• Ages 80–89: 9.7 times less likely to be burgled than people in their 30s.
Why this trend occurs is anyone's guess. It could be that burglars have fewer opportunities to strike because older adults tend to be home during the day. Maybe burglars think younger people have more stuff worth stealing. Or perhaps people are more willing to invest in security systems as they get older. More data is needed to draw definitive conclusions.

5. The average loss from a burglary is skyrocketing.
You could be looking at an average loss of more than $13,000 if your home is burgled—and those may be conservative estimates. That's triple what we've reported in recent years.
The FBI's 2023 data shows that the average residence lost $22,675 in stolen property during a daytime burglary. Nighttime burglaries were less lucrative but still packed a punch with an average loss of $10,185. When the time of the burglary wasn't recorded, the average loss was $8,169. That's an astonishing amount of money. In 2000, people lost an average of $1,382 from residential burglaries. By 2010, the typical loss jumped to $3,242, and in 2018, it topped $4,000. Burglaries today cost the average victim 10 times more than in 2000.

One-third of all burgled property consists of bank notes or coins, and the FBI reports that 30% of it is recovered. Miscellaneous property is the second most-expensive category of stolen goods, followed by clothing and fur. In addition to the monetary cost, burglaries also take a big emotional toll. You may need to recover from a financial setback at the same time that you’re mourning the loss of things with sentimental value and the feeling of safety you had before the break-in.

We surveyed nearly 700 people who’ve experienced a burglary, and 50% of them told us that the burglar stole or damaged items that were irreplaceable or had sentimental value.
When we asked how their life was impacted by the burglary, 67% said their emotional and mental health took a hit, along with 63% who had trouble sleeping afterward. The cost of a home security system starts to look pretty reasonable when you consider what's at stake.

6. About half of all burglaries cause property damage.
According to the FBI, about 47% of people charged with burglary also end up charged with property destruction, damage, or vandalism. This percentage has barely changed over the last forty years. It makes sense, though. Burglars may break a window or kick in a door to gain entry into your home. And if someone's in a hurry to steal your TV, they may simply rip it off the wall.
But let's pause for a second and think about the other 53% of burglaries that don't cause damage. How are people gaining entry into these homes without causing a scratch? Sometimes they're taking advantage of the fact that people leave their doors and windows unlocked, or that they hide spare keys in obvious places.

7. Renters are burglarized more often than homeowners.
According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, burglars hit renters more frequently than homeowners—and that’s been the trend for decades. But the gap is closing. In 1994, there were 68 burglaries per 1,000 rented households, compared to 44 per 1,000 for owned homes (gap of 24). In 2011, those rates decreased to 33 burglaries per 1,000 for renters and 18 for homeowners (gap of 15).
The FBI hasn't released data comparing burglaries in rentals versus owned homes for several years, so we're not sure how those rates have changed recently. In the meantime, our annual surveys show that renters are still getting burgled more often than homeowners, but not by much. In our 2024 survey, 28% of renters experienced a property crime compared to 27% of homeowners. Those are the exact percentages we saw in our 2021 survey.
Our 2024 survey also revealed that 51% of renters feel concerned about safety and security compared to 45% of homeowners, and yet homeowners are more than twice as likely to protect themselves with a security system.
Gone are the days when security systems would damage walls and void your security deposit (the irony of that isn't lost on us). Our team has tested tons of wireless security equipment over the last 12 years. Let us help you find the right system for your apartment, house, duplex, etc.

8. Burglaries usually happen in the middle of the day.
It seems counterintuitive, but most home burglaries occur in the bright light of day instead of under the cover of darkness. More specifically, if you’re wondering when most break-ins happen, it’s after lunch.
A 2016 burglary victimization survey revealed that the most common time for burglaries was between noon and 4 p.m.3 The FBI's latest data suggests 3 to 7 p.m. are the most active hours for burglaries, but activity peaks around 8 to 9 a.m., noon to 1 p.m., 5 to 6 p.m., and midnight to 1 a.m. The two-hour period between 5 and 7 a.m. sees the fewest number of burglaries.
FBI burglary data from 2023 shows that 254,575 of all reported residential burglaries occurred in the daytime compared to 198,659 at night.8 But out of those evening burglaries, what time do most robberies occur at night? Studies have found varied hours throughout the night until dawn.
Interestingly, the opposite trend holds true for non-residential burglaries: commercial buildings are more likely to be burgled at night than during the day. Specifically, midnight seems to be the hottest time to burgle a non-residential area.
Daytime home burglaries are also more expensive. People lose an average of $10,000 more in stolen property when their home is burgled during the day versus at night. The average home loses $24,840 in stolen property when the burglary happens during the day and $14,694 when the burglary happens at night.

What's the difference between home invasion and burglary?
All home invasions are a type of burglary, but not all burglaries are home invasions.
Burglary is defined as the unlawful entry into a structure with the intent to commit a crime. Home invasion requires forcible entry into the structure. Forcible entry includes both physical force and threats of force.
People also often wonder about the physical threat of a home invasion vs. a burglary, asking questions like, “Do burglars kill?" and "Are home break-ins always violent?” Home break-ins are more likely to occur while you’re away, so burglaries are less likely to end up in violence and death than other crimes.

9. Burglaries are more frequent during the summer months.
Warmer temperatures are tied to an increase in burglaries. On average, burglaries rise about 10% between June and August.5
More people were burglarized in June (regardless of the year) than in any other month, according to our burglary survey. June accounted for 11.3% of the burglaries experienced by respondents.
March and April had the next-highest numbers of burglaries with 10.3% and 10.9%, respectively. February sees the fewest burglaries, according to FBI data.

10. Rural states see more burglaries than those with big metropolitan hubs. You’d expect New York and California to have more burglaries per capita, but they’re actually near the bottom of the list.
In fact, New Mexico is the most burglarized state in the US, along with other rural states including Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
In New Mexico's most recent FBI-reported stats, burglaries comprised 23% of the state's property crimes, compared to the national average of 16%.
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How to protect your home from a burglary

Even though burglaries have declined compared to the 1990s, the $267 billion of stolen property in 2023 can’t be ignored.
We found that only 38% of Americans use a security system to protect their property and loved ones, and 24% don’t do anything at all to deter burglars.
But studies show security systems do work. A 2017 study published in Crime Science points to increased security system use as the cause of decreasing burglary rates in England and Wales. And a 2018 survey of people convicted of burglary found that over 60% would skip a home obviously protected by security equipment.

Be proactive, not reactive

We hate to see people suffer the emotional and financial losses that come with a burglary. That’s why we stick to our motto that safety is a lifestyle, not an afterthought or a reaction to something bad that already happened.
It’s not possible to guarantee that you won’t fall victim to a burglary, but there’s a lot you can do now to make it far less likely.
• Stay off social media—at least when it comes to your home. Sixty percent of the burglary victims we talked to said they were active on social media daily or several times a week. Posting plans about going out on the town or flaunting beach shots from your vacation is a neon sign to burglars that no one’s at home. Don’t tag your posts with your location or share vacation glamour shots while you’re still out of town.
• Get insurance. One of the best ways to mitigate the fallout from a home break-in is to get your valuables covered by renters or homeowners insurance. If you have irreplaceable items, consider a home safe that’s bolted down or too heavy for a thief to run off with.
• Tend to your yard. Believe it or not, landscaping can play a role in keeping out the riff-raff. Keep shrubs and trees trimmed so they don’t become hiding spots. If you go on vacation, make sure someone mows the lawn while you’re gone so it doesn’t look like your house is vacant.
• Install a home security system. You can get an alarm system with 24/7 professional monitoring for far less than the cost of average home break-ins. Some DIY systems start out around $200 for equipment and have monitoring plans for as little as $10 a month. Plus, most burglars admit they’d skip a house with a security system to seek out an easier target.
• Upgrade your locks. The locks that come standard on house and apartment doors aren’t usually the most secure. It’s easy to trade out a basic lock for one that meets high security standards and has a reputation for keeping criminals out.
• Shore up weaknesses. Look for security vulnerabilities around your home. It could be anything from a sliding glass door to an unlit path from the car to the front door. Adding an extra lock or an outdoor light with motion detection provides extra security and helps you sleep better at night.
• Talk to the landlord. If you’re a renter, you’re at high risk for a home break-in. Read your lease and talk to your landlord about any security concerns you have. Ask if you can upgrade the lock in your apartment, or add a compact all-in-one security system like the Abode Iota or Canary.
• Add a security camera. Sometimes, all you need is an outdoor security camera to scare off a would-be intruder. Video doorbell cameras are another good way to keep tabs on your property and let the burglars know you’re watching.
• Don’t wait. Too many people put off home security until after they’ve already been burgled. It’s easy to think that burglary is something that happens to “other people,” but the truth is it could happen to any of us. Take action now to make sure your home, valuables, pets, and people are all protected.

By Rebecca Edwards and Cathy Habas

02/28/2025

Forensic Fi****ms Facts for Investigators

The topic of fi****ms, particularly as it relates to criminal casework, is one private investigators are likely to encounter frequently. In this article, we’ll discuss relevant fi****ms-related terminology and testing to help you better comprehend discovery and other information you review for your cases.

For starters, did you know that the term “ballistics” is often inaccurately used to describe the practices encompassing fi****ms evidence testing? As defined by the Association of Firearm and Toolmark Examiners, ballistics is the science of projectiles in motion. Interior ballistics refers to the projectile’s motion within the firearm, while exterior ballistics studies the projectile’s motion between exiting the firearm and its target. Terminal ballistics encompasses the projectile’s impact at the target, while trajectory refers to the path the projectile takes between the muzzle of the firearm and its target.

The terms “ballistics” and “trajectory” are relevant to crime scene reconstruction but have nothing to do with determining whether evidence at a scene, such as a bullet or a cartridge case, was fired by a specific weapon. Forensic fi****ms identification is the correct terminology that answers important questions, such as whether two bullets recovered from separate crime scenes were fired by the same weapon or whether the bullet recovered from a victim was fired by the suspect’s firearm.

Foundational Terms
Let’s take a step back and review some basic terminology related to fi****ms and ammunition that will lay a foundation for understanding forensic fi****ms identification. First, there are the components of the ammunition. The main components of a cartridge, or a round of ammunition, are the cartridge case, the primer, the gunpowder, and bullet.

The bullet refers to the projectile only. Using the word “bullet” to refer to a cartridge is technically incorrect, but quite common. The cartridge case holds the bullet (or projectile), gunpowder and the primer. The primer is a small cap that, when struck by the firing pin, sets off a spark that ignites the gunpowder inside the cartridge case. Ignition of the gunpowder causes a rapid expansion of gases inside the confines of the cartridge case, which propels the bullet out of the cartridge case and down the barrel of the firearm.

While there are a lot of components and terminology related to fi****ms, I am going to limit this discussion to items related to forensic fi****ms identification. Thus, what follows are some of the components from handguns (many of which are also present in rifles and shotguns) that leave marks on bullets and cartridge cases that are commonly used in forensic fi****ms identification: chamber, breech face, firing pin, ejector, extractor and barrel.

The chamber holds the cartridge prior to being discharged in the firearm. The breech face is part of an assembly that locks into place at the rear of the chamber prior to firing the gun, and it is seated against the base of the cartridge. A firing pin is the part that strikes the primer of the cartridge causing the spark that ignites the gunpowder. The projectile detaches from the cartridge case and travels down the barrel of the firearm prior to exiting. Extractors and ejectors are components found in semi-automatic handguns. The extractor pulls the recently fired cartridge case out of the chamber, and the ejector pushes the cartridge case out of the firearm.

Function Test
A common type of firearm examination in the laboratory is a function test. This includes examination and documentation of the firearm in question. The fi****ms examiner will note the type of firearm, including the manufacturer, model, serial number, the type or size of cartridge the firearm is chambered for, the action of the firearm, rifling characteristics like the number of lands and grooves and direction of twist, and other relevant information. The condition of the firearm is also documented, paying particular attention to anything that may alter the functionality of the gun.

After documentation, the firearm will be fired to ensure that it operates appropriately. If functionality is the sole purpose of the examination, the firearm can be fired into a berm or backstop from which the bullets cannot be recovered. If fi****ms identification will be required, the firearm will be discharged most commonly into a water tank, so that bullets can be recovered for further examination. Cartridge cases are usually collected, even if they aren’t needed for firearm identification purposes.

NIBIN Hits
Depending on the circumstances of a case, photographs of a fired cartridge case will be entered into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), a database maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, To***co, Fi****ms and Explosives. NIBIN automates the comparison of some features of fired cartridge cases. A NIBIN “hit” can give an investigative lead, indicating whether cartridge cases from different crime scenes may have been fired from the same weapon or whether cartridge cases from a crime scene were fired from a firearm recovered in a case.

It must be stressed that a NIBIN hit gives an investigative lead only, not an identification. NIBIN can give results showing multiple possible “hits” among fired cartridge cases with similar markings, but not all of the possible hits will be true identifications. In addition, sometimes none of the cartridge cases selected by NIBIN will lead to identifications.

Only a qualified forensic fi****ms examiner is capable of determining if a true identification exists. Private investigators should be cautious when reviewing discovery that mentions NIBIN hits and make sure that evidence listed as a NIBIN hit is further examined by the lab.

Keep in mind, there are law enforcement and prosecution agencies that report a NIBIN hit as an identification. This may be due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to mislead the defense.

‘No-Gun’ Cases
Another type of forensic fi****ms examination is known as a “no-gun” case. In this instance, expended bullets recovered from a crime scene or victim are examined to determine rifling characteristics. These characteristics include the number of lands and grooves, the direction of twist, and the width of the land and groove impressions.

The characteristics can be entered into another platform known as the General Rifling Characteristics database, which is maintained by the FBI. The database provides a list of fi****ms, including manufacturer and model, that possess the same general rifling characteristics. This information can be shared with law enforcement so they know what type of gun was used in a crime, even when the gun is not recovered immediately.

Lab Work
Forensic fi****ms identification examination in the laboratory encompasses the examination and documentation of the evidence firearm, function test, test-firing the gun and collecting the expended bullets and cartridge cases, as well as subsequent microscopic examination of the toolmarks made on the expended bullets and cartridge cases. Generally, there are three to four test-fires created from a firearm. The test-fires are considered to be the “known” standard because it is known that they were fired in the evidence firearm.

The toolmarks on the test-fires are intra-compared to ensure that the marks are reproducible. A representative test-fire, or known, is then compared to each expended evidence bullet or cartridge case (the unknown).

The primary toolmarks that forensic fi****ms examiners analyze and compare on expended bullets are striated markings on the land impressions. The primary toolmarks that examiners analyze and compare on expended cartridge cases are those made by the firing pin/firing-pin aperture and breech face marks. Fi****ms examiners also analyze extractor and ejector marks on expended cartridge cases, but these marks are not often used for identification purposes. Toolmarks can also be made by other parts of the firearm that were previously discussed.

Drawing Conclusions
Forensic fi****ms examiners have five main conclusions they can reach after examination. The conclusions are based on class and individual characteristics. Class characteristics are features that indicate a restricted group size. Barreling with five lands and grooves with a right twist is an example of a class characteristic. Not all guns have these rifling characteristics, thus the group of fi****ms is narrowed into one that’s more restrictive. Individual characteristics are random and unique marks that can be caused by wear, corrosion and damage of fi****ms surfaces.

An identification means that the expended bullet or cartridge case was fired by the firearm that was test-fired. To reach the conclusion of identification, all class characteristics must be the same between the known test-fire and the evidence, or unknown, item, and there must be sufficient corresponding unique, individual marks. An elimination means that the expended evidence bullet or cartridge case was not fired by the firearm that was test-fired. Disagreement of class characteristics is an instant elimination, and disagreement of individualizing marks would also lead to an elimination.

The other possible conclusion is inconclusive, in which the class characteristics are the same but there isn’t a sufficient amount of individual marks to reach either an identification or an elimination. There can be an inconclusive result leaning toward an identification in which there are some corresponding individual marks but not quite enough to reach an identification. There can also be an inconclusive result leaning toward an elimination where there are some observed differences in individual marks but not enough for an elimination.

Bringing Value
Forensic fi****ms identification can help solve crimes by associating fi****ms evidence between multiple crime scenes or between a specific firearm and evidence from one or more crime scenes. Ballistics and trajectory can help solve crimes by providing information to help reconstruct the events surrounding a crime. Forensic fi****ms identification can also provide exculpatory evidence.

P*s who understand fi****ms-related evidence provide a better ability to assist their attorneys and clients, and ultimately the justice system.

by Deborah Stonebarger, Analytic Investigations

06/14/2024

Many investigators overlook the true value of discovering someone’s email address. It’s not merely a point of contact; rather, it serves as a gateway to a wealth of publicly available and free information. In this article, I hope to shed light on the resources and methodologies for leveraging Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) associated with email addresses, particularly on the “Deep Web,” a shadowy online underworld that search engines can’t reach.

Let’s delve into the methods:

Prospect-Seeking Websites
Data brokers like apollo.io, aihitdata.com, contactout.com, and rocketreach.co help recruiters and sales reps search for potential employees and prospective customers. They also house a trove of data on professional people, including their employment backgrounds and contact information. Using these sites, you can either directly search for an email address or cross-reference it with other known information about the person.

People Search Websites
Inputting an email address into free people search engines such as thatsthem.com, searchpeoplefree.com, and truepeoplesearch.com can help you find contact details like phone numbers and addresses, and can even identify additional leads such as familial relationships and previous addresses. By exploring cohabitants and their associations, you can glean valuable context about the email owner.

Data Breach Websites (DBWs)
Data-breach databases like haveibeenpwned.com, leaklookup.com, and dehashed.com notify you whether an email address has been compromised in any data breaches, potentially revealing sensitive information tied to online accounts. This can range from innocuous breaches to more sensitive data thefts, providing crucial insights into a person’s online activities.

Email Verification Sites
Email validation services such as verifalia.com and zerobounce.net allow you to verify the existence of an email address and identify other associated addresses with similar usernames but different domains. This can help you uncover additional accounts linked to the same person.

Email Profilers
Research tools like emailrep.io and synapsint.com provide comprehensive insights into an email address’s history, including its duration of use and associations with social media platforms like LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter). These profilers also conduct Mail Exchange (MX) Lookups, which determine whether an email server at any given domain is sending and receiving emails properly—essential information for investigative purposes.

IntelTechniques Tool
This versatile tool, available at inteltechniques.com/tools/Email.html, aggregates data from various OSINT websites, offering a comprehensive approach to email address investigation.

Epieos
This powerful reverse lookup tool, accessible at epieos.com, offers a range of services, including checking if an email address is registered to Google or Skype accounts and compiling a list of websites where the email has been used to register accounts.

By harnessing these resources and methodologies, investigators can unlock a trove of information associated with email addresses, offering valuable insights into individuals’ backgrounds, activities, and online presence.

In the digital realm, email addresses serve as windows into people’s lives. Understanding the true value of an email address empowers us to navigate the digital landscape with precision and responsibility. Let us continue to unlock its potential ethically, one email address at a time.

TOM CALIENDO·

INVESTIGATIONTHE BUSINESS

We know what's in a name and a Social Security number. But what discoverable secrets does an email contain? Many investigators overlook the true value of

02/14/2024

How a Nuclear Weapons Lab Helped Crack a Serial-Killer Case

A prominent forensic science center played a crucial role in helping to solve a notorious 1990s murder case.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS laboratories don’t often help solve serial-killer cases. But in the investigation of Efren Saldivar, data from such a lab provided the clinching evidence that led to his conviction on six counts of murder.
As a respiratory therapist at Glendale Adventist Medical Center in California, where he started working in 1989, Saldivar was at times tasked with caring for terminally ill patients. One day in 1998, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times, the hospital got a tip that someone had “helped a patient die fast.”
Hospital officials had previously investigated Saldivar because of an internal tip about alleged misconduct — he had a reputation for having a “magic syringe,” as one coworker reported. Police soon became involved, calling Saldivar in for questioning.
During that session, Saldivar confessed to dozens of murders after his employment began, and continuing up to 1997, stating that he poisoned patients with overdoses of the paralyzing chemicals pancuronium bromide, also known as Pavulon, and succinylcholine chloride. He was arrested immediately.

But there was little physical evidence to back up his self-incriminating claims. And without that outside corroboration, authorities had to set Saldivar free — a freedom during which he publicly retracted his confession, citing his own depression and pressure from a detective as reasons for the alleged lies.
Now left without Saldivar’s word, investigators scrambled for actual evidence. They thought the chemical part of the confession might hold the key: Perhaps prosecutors could prove Pavulon and succinylcholine chloride were in his victims’ systems when they died.

Police procedurals like “CSI” often make such tasks look simple — but identifying volatile toxic substances in the bodies of long-dead patients is anything but. So the task force investigating Saldivar sought help from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, which pointed them in an unexpected direction: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, some 300 miles up the California coast in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Livermore, run by the National Nuclear Security Administration, was founded after the end of the Manhattan Project to help develop the hydrogen bomb. More recently, Livermore scientists’ main task is to maintain and modernize nuclear weapons. But within its gates, the lab also hosts the Forensic Science Center, which conducts forensic research, mainly for national-security cases, into chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive materials — and any combination of those that might appear in, say, a terrorist attack, or an accident at a hazardous waste site. (Scientists refer to such hypothetical amalgamations as “multihazard.”)

Given those specialties, the center sometimes gets called on to help with tricky law-enforcement situations. Those include both general requests, like an analysis of different kinds of pepper spray, and specific local and federal inquiries, like Efren’s or that of a super-sophisticated pipe-bomber from the same period — cases in which few others are quite as qualified to identify and trace the origins of slippery substances.

That’s the reason the Forensic Science Center is sometimes called “the lab of last resort.” In Saldivar’s case, Livermore scientists created new methods to identify degraded chemicals, and helped convict the man who became known as the “Angel of Death.”

At the Forensic Science Center, “we like the problem children,” said current director Audrey Williams. “We want the weird samples.”
The center’s scientists analyze scary samples, help develop countermeasures — better antidotes for toxins like nerve agents — and also perform basic research on materials in the lab so that knowledge can be used in the field. “We do this R&D and develop great methods,” Williams said. “You hit the pause button on your R&D to analyze the sample.” During the course of that analysis, if the scientists hit challenges or see gaps, they can take them back to the R&D realm and figure out how to handle them.
That mix of basic and applied research is a key tenet of the center, which was founded in 1991, as the Cold War was coming to a close. “The director saw science that could be useful,” said Williams.
When a sample arrives at the Forensic Science Center, the substances of interest may be part of a tissue sample, suspended in water, holed up in plants, or mixed into soil. Or they might just be a trace on a wipe, swiped across a suspected weaponized material.
Most samples aren’t pure but contain lots of ingredients that may overpower the signature of the suspicious substance, which may also have degraded or decayed. To analyze the sample, the Livermore scientists can’t just find the substance of interest: They have to pinpoint and measure all the material’s constituent parts, using tools like chromatography and electrophoresis to separate chemical and biological components, and spectrometry to identify those components.

Williams refers to the center’s analytic process as holistic. Maybe unsurprisingly, the center employs “mostly chemists and biologists that we’re turning into chemists,” she said.

In one 1999 case, the center processed a sample that Bulgarian customs officials had found in the back of a car crossing the border. Hidden in an air compressor was a lead cylinder, inside of which, like a nesting doll, was a glass vial containing a black powder.
Identifying the powder as highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium was straightforward; trying to suss out its origin was more complicated, involving analysis of the glass to learn more about its origin and maker, and the paper on the vial, to find out what species of tree it came from. Authorities concluded this smuggled material was likely processed into its weapons-relevant form in the 1990s, and may have been stolen when the kinds of facilities that produced such substances had lax security after the end of the Cold War.

Livermore is the only place in the country certified to conduct forensics on this whole host of dangerous substances: chemical, biological, radiological, and explosive materials. Perhaps the hardest certification to get is the one with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international body tasked with enforcing the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. The center got its first certification in 2003, and has mostly kept up good grades, except for one C that resulted in a suspension.

The certification isn’t just a checkbox: It’s an all-hands-on-deck test. The organization sends a number of samples to the center and gives the researchers two weeks to look for suspected chemical weapons compounds. A team of around 22 scientists meets twice a day for such a test, said Williams, and works 10 to 14 hours a day. And it can get tricky: In the 2020 test, for instance, the exam was especially difficult, not just because the chemicals were at low concentrations, but because some were at very high levels, shielding others from analytical view. In the end, the center’s scientists identified all the chemicals they were supposed to find.

IN THE CASE of Saldivar, though, the center’s scientific results became very public. Given how often lab analysis for criminal investigations becomes part of the public court record, that’s not unusual, although this was a particularly high-profile case.

The center’s study began when the Los Angeles County coroner’s office unearthed the bodies of 20 suspected victims. (To this day, no one knows for sure how many deaths Saldivar contributed toward, although in one confession he estimated between 100 and 200, including patients he simply neglected.) The Forensic Science Center’s then-director, Brian Andresen, assisted with the first few autopsies, to show the coroner how to get samples the lab could use.

One of the chemicals Saldivar had allegedly wielded as poison, succinylcholine chloride, creates short-term paralysis, but converts itself quickly into compounds that normally appear in the human body. Given that, Andresen thought it was unlikely he’d find any evidence of the substance years after their deaths.

So he turned instead to Pavulon, a muscle relaxant. It was also likely, they thought at the time, to have become invisible, dissipating in the body, but the Livermore team — Armando Alcaraz and Patrick Grant, in addition to Andresen — gave detection a shot anyway.

They developed a new method for pulling Pavulon from tissue. The team’s research, later published in two papers in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, involved first homogenizing the tissue samples by mixing them with a buffer until they were stirred uniformly into the solution.

The team, in a process called solid-phase extraction, then sent the solution through a polymer — a material made of large molecules that are made of smaller molecules stuck together in a repeating pattern. This material essentially acts like a net, catching the compounds of interest and letting the rest pass through. Then they pulled the compounds from their net, using solvents to dissolve them individually, kind of like pouring water over a salt lick, which would give you salty water.

To get control samples, they injected pig livers — both new and artificially aged — with Pavulon to see how a positive result would look if run through the same polymer tests.

It was a sensory process, in addition to an analytical one. “Even working in hoods the odor got into everything, even your clothes,” Alcaraz told Chemical and Engineering News in an article published in 2008.

Once they had their sample compounds from the exhumed bodies and the pig livers, the scientists put them through a bevy of chromatographic and spectrometric tests, searching for the signatures of Pavulon.

Six of the 20 human samples came up positive, a result that outside sources verified. “I was very surprised at first that I found anything,” Andresen said in a Livermore publication from the time.

On January 5, 2001, the results were reviewed by the Glendale Task Force and the deputy district attorney at the Los Angeles Coroner’s office. Four days later, Saldivar was arrested. He later pleaded guilty to six counts of murder, based in large part on the six positive samples the center found. He was sentenced to life without parole. The prosecution did not seek the death penalty in part because of the uncertainties of using a new scientific protocol, and the possibility of a long and expensive case as a result.

Looking back today, Williams sees the painstaking lab work that put Saldivar away as very much part of the center’s broader mission: “You follow the threat,” she said, “and follow the need.”
BY SARAH SCOLES
02.09.2024