During the dark hours of August 23, 2015—while many New Yorkers were fast asleep—Asha Stringfield was fighting for her life against a man intent on brutalizing her. The man, a former boyfriend, had a history of abuse and had previously been ordered to stay away from the young woman. According to court records and media reports, while Asha lay on her bed in Brooklyn, the man beat her in the head and face with his fists and tried to strangle her. In what could have been his final act, he pulled her from the bed by her hair, pointed a firearm at her head and said to give him “two reasons not to shoot” her. It was then—amid this terrifying chaos—that Honey, the woman’s one-year-old brown-and-white pit bull mix, wedged herself between Asha and her assailant. After refusing to let go of her dog, the terrified woman watched as the man put the loaded gun in Honey’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The shot woke tenants, someone called 911 and the attacker fled. Officers from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) responded. They transported Asha to a local hospital and brought Honey—still alive but bleeding from the mouth—to an emergency veterinary hospital. There x-rays revealed that the bullet had passed through the back of the dog’s mouth and lodged at the base of her skull. Once Honey was stabilized, veterinarians transported her to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) Hospital in New York City. Alison Liu, a veterinarian specially trained in collecting evidence that might help prosecutors pursue a criminal case, thoroughly examined Honey for injuries and drew blood to test for issues such as tissue inflammation or muscle damage. She took multiple x-rays of the skull and body and scrutinized the entrance wound inside Honey’s mouth while the dog was sedated. Liu also took photographs to document the canine’s condition. Meanwhile the NYPD investigated the crime scene. Later, Liu was able to accurately identify and pinpoint the location of the bullet for city prosecutors. This evidence, coupled with her expertise in animal medicine, played a critical role in indicting the defendant on felony and misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty. He was also indicted on multiple counts related to the assault. The assailant pled guilty in 2016 and was sentenced to five years in prison and a 20-year order of protection. Honey eventually returned home to Asha, but she will carry around a metal slug as a reminder of that violent night forever because surgery to remove the bullet would likely have killed her. Over the past decade police departments and prosecutors have sharpened their focus on investigating and prosecuting animal cruelty. Prominent cases, such as the 2007 bust of National Football League quarterback Michael Vick’s “Bad Newz Kennels,” which resulted in illegal dog-fighting charges against Vick and several associates, have helped shine a light on animal-related crimes. In January 2014 the NYPD launched a unique partnership with the ASPCA that made enforcement of animal crimes a top priority, and it announced a new unit specifically aimed at handling these cases, the Animal Cruelty Investigation Squad. In October 2014 the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that in 2016 it would start tracking animal cruelty as a Group A felony—joining other major crimes, such as homicide, arson and assault. Of course, animal abuse is terrible. But pursuit of these cases is becoming even more frequent because, put bluntly, individuals who abuse animals often abuse people. Violence against animals is a common precursor to violence against humans. Catching animal cruelty can help prevent future abuse against people and many times can bring to light abuse against children and the elderly. Prosecution is expanding. That is in large part because more veterinarians are becoming involved in crime scene investigation (CSI), and the supporting science is improving. More animal law courses are being offered in the U.S., too. “The trained veterinary forensic science team has helped me win all my important animal cases,” says Michelle Welch, a senior assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia. In January 2015 Welch was chosen to lead a state Animal Law Unit, the first to be organized by a state attorney general. Over 15 years Welch has worked on more than 100 cases of animal cruelty and has become skilled at using field experts to seek justice. In a recent cockfighting case, for example, she relied on expert testimony to inform a judge that roosters feel pain from injuries sustained when they have been stabbed by a gaff, a metal spur affixed to fighting birds’ feet. The court placed great weight on the expert testimony and ruled for significant jail time. Yet collecting convincing evidence of animal abuse is difficult. For one thing, the techniques used to analyze a human crime scene and determine how a person was killed do not always apply to animals. After all, the anatomy and physiology of animal victims are quite distinct from humans and can vary enormously among different kinds of animals. Fur coats complicate the assessment of blunt trauma, for instance, and tails can throw off confusing blood-spatter patterns. Animal victims obviously cannot talk to investigators, so it is up to forensic veterinarians to understand animals’ body language and unspoken signs of pain or suffering. “Some key areas simply don’t align between a human and an animal victim,” says Rachel Touroo, the ASPCA’s director of veterinary forensic sciences, who testified in Welch’s cockfighting case and many others. The work is also very different from that done by state and federal wildlife laboratories, which primarily focuses on poaching or illegal hunting and fishing. And getting convictions remains challenging. In addition to describing the crime scene and the suspect, experts may need to explain breed information, animal behavior and illness, malnutrition, and time of injury or death, as well as interactions between animals. But techniques used in several recent high-profile cases show that despite imperfections, improving crime scene science and training is leading to more effective prosecution. CSI Georgia A startling case from Georgia shows just how different an animal crime scene investigation can be from a human CSI and exemplifies the kinds of techniques that can now be brought to bear. On a freezing February morning in 2010, personnel from the United Animal Nations, the Sumter Disaster Animal Response Team and the ASPCA met officers from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office at a rural road lined with pine trees outside of Sandersville, approximately 130 miles southeast of Atlanta. A short walk down a one-lane dirt path crowded with dense vegetation gave way to an open field and wooded hill that was a setting for despair. Pit bulls scattered across the field stared at the officials. Some seemed eager to greet the human visitors despite the heavy chains that tethered them to the ground. The dogs’ living quarters—plastic 55-gallon drums turned on their sides—were conspicuously lacking food, and whatever water could be seen was either frozen solid or extremely dirty. Many of the dogs were puppies.
Victim of a dog-fighting operation in Sandersville is examined by forensics experts for emaciation, dehydration and parasites. Copyright © 2017, ASPCA. All Rights Reserved
What awaited the team up the hill behind the field was more gruesome. Investigators found remains of six dogs that had been there longer than a month. They also found more than a dozen grave sites, and the vegetation over them indicated they had been used for a number of years. Although this place, to a layperson’s eye, seemed to be a clear site of animal cruelty, experts had to provide detailed evidence for Georgia authorities to adequately make their case. First and foremost, the veterinarians had to provide emergency care for each animal but administer it in a way that would not compromise the scientific and legal value of evidence of cruelty or neglect. Once triage was done, the dogs were stabilized. Experts examined the animals for physical signs of neglect—emaciation, parasites, dehydration. They also looked for evidence that the dogs were engaged in organized fighting, such as scars and new wounds caused by bites from other dogs. According to Robert Reisman, supervisor of forensic sciences at the ASPCA in New York City, who was on the scene at Sandersville, telltale injury patterns appear around the head, neck and front legs of fighting dogs. Studies have shown that the patterns in which bites appear are distinct in fighting dogs compared with two dogs that may engage in a spontaneous brawl. Subsequently, the animals were removed to a temporary shelter set up miles away, where veterinarians would photograph them and complete physical exams. Investigators continued to photograph the crime site, map the area, take notes and video, and package evidence—all with the same meticulous care that would be used at a human crime scene. Later, veterinarians would conduct necropsies on the deceased animals to try to determine how the dogs died. At the shelter, Reisman examined 26 dogs from the property over several days. Nearly all were emaciated, he recalls. “Even though we were in the South, it was very cold, and most of the dogs were shivering due to lack of adequate body weight and shelter.” But to support a legal charge of animal cruelty, he had to prove that low weight was because of food being withheld rather than an underlying illness such as cancer. Veterinarians fed the animals very gradually, over days, because immediately eating huge amounts of food could shock their system. Each animal’s weight was tracked; if the dogs gained weight, that would reveal that the emaciation resulted from withholding of food, not from an underlying disease that causes wasting. Other evidence of dogfighting could have been easily overlooked by police officers without proper training, says Renee Arlt, a crime scene investigator for the Lakeland Police Department in Florida. A wood stick, rolled-up carpet and a padlock found around the Sandersville site, which might appear to be everyday items, had a whole new meaning. A trained technician would recognize that wood stick as a break stick, used to break the grip of one dog on another, and the padlock as a weight for a fighting dog’s training collar. Patterns of bloodstains on animals, and spatter around them, were also revealing. Blood samples taken on swabs from many fighting pits were sent to a geneticist for DNA analysis to ensure they were indeed from a dog and even to identify which dog. Like humans, dogs have unique DNA that can connect specific dogs to specific places. Specialists can also genetically track bloodlines from other known fighting dogs. Because many ring leaders purchase their stock from prominent breeders of fighting dogs, tracing the origins of animals can help uncover connections in a pattern of criminal activity, including conspiracy and animal abuse. DNA from fighting dogs is collected in databases, such as the Canine Combined DNA Index System at the University of California, Davis, Veterinary Genetics Laboratory. Bloodstain analysis of an animal crime scene can differ from that of a human crime scene in various ways. A victim’s stature and position at the time of injury can reveal much about what happened. For example, blood-spatter patterns on walls, floors and other surfaces can help determine how tall the assailant was and what kind of weapon was used if one takes into account that animals have some unique characteristics that challenge traditional human blood-spatter characteristics. Although animals generally stand on four legs, they may rise up on two legs to defend themselves, altering the trajectory of oozing or spraying blood in a way that an experienced investigator can interpret. And animals frequently have tails that can become saturated with blood, creating cast-off patterns of drops around a site, something not encountered for human victims. For Nancy Bradley-Siemens, a forensic veterinarian at the Midwestern University College of Veterinary Medicine, one blood-spatter case has stood out in her 20 years of practice—a dog that suffered such severe blunt force trauma that it had to be euthanized. The suspect claimed the dog had attacked him and that he had therefore acted in self-defense by beating it. But careful examination of the scene made it clear that the animal was actually chained to a stake in the ground near a brick fence. The suspect beat the restrained dog savagely with a shovel, then altered the scene by removing the chain and hiding the shovel. Blood spatter was found on the fence and stake, and the patterns were consistent with a blunt force beating at the level of the dog’s head. Pooling of blood under the dog and on the ground further proved that the dog had been restrained, which contradicted the suspect’s testimony. Faced with this evidence, the suspect finally confessed. According to Bradley-Siemens, blood analysis is not done as frequently as it could be, but to ensure that blood-spatter interpretation is accurate, more research is needed into clotting times for various species. Time of Death Determining when animals at a crime scene died is also important, for example, in revealing whether a suspect could have been present at the time of the abuse. In some circumstances, pinpointing time of death can be done with altered human CSI techniques, but in other cases new methods are being applied. Here, too, techniques devised by veterinary CSI research have helped attain convictions. Some of the best clues can be derived from insects crawling around a dead body. As entomologists do with human remains, in animal cases they examine the various stages of insect development. But the time it takes certain insects to set up residence in a corpse may differ among species and is distinct from humans. And larvae that pupate on animals with long, thick coats may stay there after feeding on them instead of wandering away, as they often do with humans. At the Sandersville dogfighting scene, one burial pit contained multiple animals. Decomposition happens faster at the ground’s surface, so remains on the top of the pit were largely skeletal, with limited or no insect infestation. Bodies farther down had multiple insects at different stages of colonization, which helped entomologists determine approximate times of death. Various stages of maggot development, for example, provided evidence on how long dogs had been buried.
Dog collars can become so tight that skin grows around it. Laura Niestat holds photographs of one case, in front of a canine skeleton being inspected for trauma. Credit: Bebeto Matthews AP Photo
The analysis of remains at Sandersville, along with physical evidence from the live dogs, indicated injuries consistent with organized dogfighting, along with severe neglect, including starvation. Even at various stages of decomposition, it was possible to see scar patterns that are consistent with organized fighting. The forensics work formed the basis for animal cruelty charges brought by the office of Hayward Altman, district attorney at the Middle Judicial Circuit of Georgia. Several ASPCA experts provided critical testimony about conditions they witnessed at the scene. At the end of a three-day trial, Derrick Montez Daniels of DeKalb County, Georgia, and Billy Taylor, Jr., of Sandersville were convicted on 26 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty. Daniels was sentenced to five years in state prison and five years of probation, and Taylor was sentenced to one year in county jail and nine years of probation. Unique Challenges Another challenge that forensic veterinarians are meeting is the inability to ask animals what happened to them. Body language can be revealing. Trained veterinarians can assess if an animal is in pain by observing its behavior, appearance, mobility, and response to handling and analgesics. A rooster, Touroo notes, may be “extremely quiet and unresponsive, hang its head low and may breathe more deeply if it’s in pain. A judge and jury can look at a video of a rooster that is clearly suffering and may not pick up on these signs” without guidance from an expert. Investigators may also have to cope when victims inadvertently destroy evidence, as they do routinely. Touroo worked on a dog-shooting case in which the animal hid for days, licking its wounds. “This made it extremely difficult to determine which was the entry wound and which was the exit wound,” she says. Touroo and a local medical examiner used radiographs to assess bone and flesh under the damaged layers of skin and determined the direction the bullet took, which told them the dog was facing away from its shooter, countering the shooter’s claim that the dog was attacking him when he fired. More hurdles arise during necropsy. For example, very few studies have been done on trauma and human hair, let alone animal hair, coats or fur. One recent study of human hair noted, however, that strands appear microscopically different when cut by a knife or scissors. In 2012 an Alabamian pug named Bama was found in horrific condition—apparently skinned alive by what many assumed was a human assailant. But hair and wound analysis by Touroo validated that Bama was attacked by another animal. Researchers also think they can get more information as they figure out how to better use necropsies to reveal the impacts of different weapons, as well as injuries associated with specific kinds of abuse. For example, in Reisman’s experience, skull, rib and femur fractures are common in intentional physical abuse cases and not in motor vehicle accidents. Continuing to build this body of research will make it easier for forensic veterinarians to definitively assess the cause of injuries. Deciphering DNA As useful as evidence found at a crime scene can be, sometimes more is needed to clinch a case—namely, genetic analysis and other lab tests. Some valuable tools in human crimes—such as DNA analysis—are still fairly rare for animal crimes, but progress has been made. Reisman was the forensic veterinarian on two cases in the late 2000s that for the first time in New York City used DNA to win a cruelty conviction. In one instance, a four-year-old cat named Madea in Brooklyn had been savagely beaten to the point that she had to be euthanized. While searching the scene, a detective found an umbrella in a hard plastic case. When Reisman examined it, he found punctures and scratches consistent with cat bites, along with DNA. He matched the cat saliva on the umbrella to DNA from Madea’s tissue sample, tying that weapon to the victim. That finding, combined with testimony, led to a guilty verdict for aggravated cruelty and criminal mischief. Use of RNA to help determine an animal’s time of death is emerging as well. RNA is relatively stable over time, and it degrades at a predictable pace. By knowing the extent of RNA degradation, one can extrapolate backward and develop a reasonably accurate time of death. Nanny Wenzlow, who recently completed a forensic veterinary pathology fellowship at the University of Florida, is pioneering this work with horse tissue. She developed algorithms for RNA breakdown in the brain, muscle and liver after death—which occurs at different rates—to help establish a time of death. That could confirm or refute a suspect’s alibi, Wenzlow notes. Stop the Violence Although veterinary forensic science has had many successes, much more research is needed. “This is such a novel area, and we are still far behind human clinical and pathological forensic medicine,” the ASPCA’s Touroo says. More investigators trained in animal crime scene investigation are needed, too. When Reisman started working for the ASPCA in 1988, forensic veterinary medicine was not even a recognized discipline. Many of the materials used today arose through trial and error in Reisman’s work. He eventually helped form the International Veterinary Forensic Sciences Association, which now boasts nearly 130 members from 16 countries. The only university program in the U.S. that offers a comprehensive curriculum and dedicated research is the ASPCA Veterinary Forensic Sciences Program at the University of Florida, where one of us (Byrd) is director of education and where Touroo and others teach. Its master of science degree trains veterinarians to correctly gather evidence and prepares them for appearing in court as an expert witness. Students and faculty in the program are conducting research to advance the field. For example, they are establishing how to better estimate the sex of a dog from its skull, something that is done with fairly good reliability in humans. They are also working on specifying common scar and wound patterns on fighting dogs. And by partnering with Tufts University, they have shown, as noted earlier, that dogs and cats sustain different types of injuries when hit by a car than when attacked intentionally with blunt force by a person. That study could help forensic veterinarians prove intentional cruelty masked as an accident. Reisman, for his part, is helping the NYPD and the ASPCA to build a database of cases in New York, listing such information as whether abuse took the form of neglect or aggression, the nature of injuries and the time period over which they occurred, whether domestic violence or child abuse had also been found, and the species, breed, age and gender of animals affected. He hopes that over time, this database will help the agencies gain more insight into animal victims and their attackers by unearthing patterns. For example, do injuries look different when the perpetrator is a man, woman or child? Or, in cases of domestic violence, how often is the animal killed? Experts also hope that raising the skill level of police, animal-control officers and other professionals will lead to more effective trials and convictions, stricter sentencing requirements and therefore an overall decrease in animal cruelty. Regular workshops are held through the University of Florida, and experts such as Reisman, Touroo and others hold trainings across the country. Improvements in veterinary crime science could help human victims, too. A 1998 study in the Journal of Emotional Abuse found that 71 percent of women in domestic violence shelters reported their batterer abused or killed their animals or threatened to do so. In 2007 research in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence showed that “batterers who also abuse their pets are both more controlling and use more dangerous forms of violence than batterers who do not.” Attorney Diane Balkin of the Animal Legal Defense Fund adds, “Violence is violence, regardless of whether the victim has two or four legs. Early intervention with a child or teenager who abuses an animal may prevent that individual from harming another animal or from harming a human and may provide that individual with much needed evaluation and treatment.” Randall Lockwood, senior vice president for forensic sciences and anticruelty projects at the ASPCA, concurs: “I know there are animals, women, children and elders that are alive today that likely would not have been” if prosecutors had not brought violent individuals to justice. Veterinary forensic science, he says, “gives the victims a voice.”
It was then—amid this terrifying chaos—that Honey, the woman’s one-year-old brown-and-white pit bull mix, wedged herself between Asha and her assailant. After refusing to let go of her dog, the terrified woman watched as the man put the loaded gun in Honey’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The shot woke tenants, someone called 911 and the attacker fled.
Officers from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) responded. They transported Asha to a local hospital and brought Honey—still alive but bleeding from the mouth—to an emergency veterinary hospital. There x-rays revealed that the bullet had passed through the back of the dog’s mouth and lodged at the base of her skull.
Once Honey was stabilized, veterinarians transported her to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) Hospital in New York City. Alison Liu, a veterinarian specially trained in collecting evidence that might help prosecutors pursue a criminal case, thoroughly examined Honey for injuries and drew blood to test for issues such as tissue inflammation or muscle damage. She took multiple x-rays of the skull and body and scrutinized the entrance wound inside Honey’s mouth while the dog was sedated. Liu also took photographs to document the canine’s condition. Meanwhile the NYPD investigated the crime scene.
Later, Liu was able to accurately identify and pinpoint the location of the bullet for city prosecutors. This evidence, coupled with her expertise in animal medicine, played a critical role in indicting the defendant on felony and misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty. He was also indicted on multiple counts related to the assault.
The assailant pled guilty in 2016 and was sentenced to five years in prison and a 20-year order of protection. Honey eventually returned home to Asha, but she will carry around a metal slug as a reminder of that violent night forever because surgery to remove the bullet would likely have killed her.
Over the past decade police departments and prosecutors have sharpened their focus on investigating and prosecuting animal cruelty. Prominent cases, such as the 2007 bust of National Football League quarterback Michael Vick’s “Bad Newz Kennels,” which resulted in illegal dog-fighting charges against Vick and several associates, have helped shine a light on animal-related crimes. In January 2014 the NYPD launched a unique partnership with the ASPCA that made enforcement of animal crimes a top priority, and it announced a new unit specifically aimed at handling these cases, the Animal Cruelty Investigation Squad. In October 2014 the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that in 2016 it would start tracking animal cruelty as a Group A felony—joining other major crimes, such as homicide, arson and assault.
Of course, animal abuse is terrible. But pursuit of these cases is becoming even more frequent because, put bluntly, individuals who abuse animals often abuse people. Violence against animals is a common precursor to violence against humans. Catching animal cruelty can help prevent future abuse against people and many times can bring to light abuse against children and the elderly.
Prosecution is expanding. That is in large part because more veterinarians are becoming involved in crime scene investigation (CSI), and the supporting science is improving. More animal law courses are being offered in the U.S., too. “The trained veterinary forensic science team has helped me win all my important animal cases,” says Michelle Welch, a senior assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia. In January 2015 Welch was chosen to lead a state Animal Law Unit, the first to be organized by a state attorney general. Over 15 years Welch has worked on more than 100 cases of animal cruelty and has become skilled at using field experts to seek justice. In a recent cockfighting case, for example, she relied on expert testimony to inform a judge that roosters feel pain from injuries sustained when they have been stabbed by a gaff, a metal spur affixed to fighting birds’ feet. The court placed great weight on the expert testimony and ruled for significant jail time.
Yet collecting convincing evidence of animal abuse is difficult. For one thing, the techniques used to analyze a human crime scene and determine how a person was killed do not always apply to animals. After all, the anatomy and physiology of animal victims are quite distinct from humans and can vary enormously among different kinds of animals. Fur coats complicate the assessment of blunt trauma, for instance, and tails can throw off confusing blood-spatter patterns. Animal victims obviously cannot talk to investigators, so it is up to forensic veterinarians to understand animals’ body language and unspoken signs of pain or suffering. “Some key areas simply don’t align between a human and an animal victim,” says Rachel Touroo, the ASPCA’s director of veterinary forensic sciences, who testified in Welch’s cockfighting case and many others. The work is also very different from that done by state and federal wildlife laboratories, which primarily focuses on poaching or illegal hunting and fishing.
And getting convictions remains challenging. In addition to describing the crime scene and the suspect, experts may need to explain breed information, animal behavior and illness, malnutrition, and time of injury or death, as well as interactions between animals. But techniques used in several recent high-profile cases show that despite imperfections, improving crime scene science and training is leading to more effective prosecution.
CSI Georgia
A startling case from Georgia shows just how different an animal crime scene investigation can be from a human CSI and exemplifies the kinds of techniques that can now be brought to bear. On a freezing February morning in 2010, personnel from the United Animal Nations, the Sumter Disaster Animal Response Team and the ASPCA met officers from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office at a rural road lined with pine trees outside of Sandersville, approximately 130 miles southeast of Atlanta.
A short walk down a one-lane dirt path crowded with dense vegetation gave way to an open field and wooded hill that was a setting for despair. Pit bulls scattered across the field stared at the officials. Some seemed eager to greet the human visitors despite the heavy chains that tethered them to the ground. The dogs’ living quarters—plastic 55-gallon drums turned on their sides—were conspicuously lacking food, and whatever water could be seen was either frozen solid or extremely dirty. Many of the dogs were puppies.
What awaited the team up the hill behind the field was more gruesome. Investigators found remains of six dogs that had been there longer than a month. They also found more than a dozen grave sites, and the vegetation over them indicated they had been used for a number of years. Although this place, to a layperson’s eye, seemed to be a clear site of animal cruelty, experts had to provide detailed evidence for Georgia authorities to adequately make their case.
First and foremost, the veterinarians had to provide emergency care for each animal but administer it in a way that would not compromise the scientific and legal value of evidence of cruelty or neglect. Once triage was done, the dogs were stabilized. Experts examined the animals for physical signs of neglect—emaciation, parasites, dehydration. They also looked for evidence that the dogs were engaged in organized fighting, such as scars and new wounds caused by bites from other dogs. According to Robert Reisman, supervisor of forensic sciences at the ASPCA in New York City, who was on the scene at Sandersville, telltale injury patterns appear around the head, neck and front legs of fighting dogs. Studies have shown that the patterns in which bites appear are distinct in fighting dogs compared with two dogs that may engage in a spontaneous brawl.
Subsequently, the animals were removed to a temporary shelter set up miles away, where veterinarians would photograph them and complete physical exams. Investigators continued to photograph the crime site, map the area, take notes and video, and package evidence—all with the same meticulous care that would be used at a human crime scene. Later, veterinarians would conduct necropsies on the deceased animals to try to determine how the dogs died.
At the shelter, Reisman examined 26 dogs from the property over several days. Nearly all were emaciated, he recalls. “Even though we were in the South, it was very cold, and most of the dogs were shivering due to lack of adequate body weight and shelter.” But to support a legal charge of animal cruelty, he had to prove that low weight was because of food being withheld rather than an underlying illness such as cancer. Veterinarians fed the animals very gradually, over days, because immediately eating huge amounts of food could shock their system. Each animal’s weight was tracked; if the dogs gained weight, that would reveal that the emaciation resulted from withholding of food, not from an underlying disease that causes wasting.
Other evidence of dogfighting could have been easily overlooked by police officers without proper training, says Renee Arlt, a crime scene investigator for the Lakeland Police Department in Florida. A wood stick, rolled-up carpet and a padlock found around the Sandersville site, which might appear to be everyday items, had a whole new meaning. A trained technician would recognize that wood stick as a break stick, used to break the grip of one dog on another, and the padlock as a weight for a fighting dog’s training collar.
Patterns of bloodstains on animals, and spatter around them, were also revealing. Blood samples taken on swabs from many fighting pits were sent to a geneticist for DNA analysis to ensure they were indeed from a dog and even to identify which dog. Like humans, dogs have unique DNA that can connect specific dogs to specific places. Specialists can also genetically track bloodlines from other known fighting dogs. Because many ring leaders purchase their stock from prominent breeders of fighting dogs, tracing the origins of animals can help uncover connections in a pattern of criminal activity, including conspiracy and animal abuse. DNA from fighting dogs is collected in databases, such as the Canine Combined DNA Index System at the University of California, Davis, Veterinary Genetics Laboratory.
Bloodstain analysis of an animal crime scene can differ from that of a human crime scene in various ways. A victim’s stature and position at the time of injury can reveal much about what happened. For example, blood-spatter patterns on walls, floors and other surfaces can help determine how tall the assailant was and what kind of weapon was used if one takes into account that animals have some unique characteristics that challenge traditional human blood-spatter characteristics. Although animals generally stand on four legs, they may rise up on two legs to defend themselves, altering the trajectory of oozing or spraying blood in a way that an experienced investigator can interpret. And animals frequently have tails that can become saturated with blood, creating cast-off patterns of drops around a site, something not encountered for human victims.
For Nancy Bradley-Siemens, a forensic veterinarian at the Midwestern University College of Veterinary Medicine, one blood-spatter case has stood out in her 20 years of practice—a dog that suffered such severe blunt force trauma that it had to be euthanized. The suspect claimed the dog had attacked him and that he had therefore acted in self-defense by beating it. But careful examination of the scene made it clear that the animal was actually chained to a stake in the ground near a brick fence. The suspect beat the restrained dog savagely with a shovel, then altered the scene by removing the chain and hiding the shovel. Blood spatter was found on the fence and stake, and the patterns were consistent with a blunt force beating at the level of the dog’s head. Pooling of blood under the dog and on the ground further proved that the dog had been restrained, which contradicted the suspect’s testimony. Faced with this evidence, the suspect finally confessed. According to Bradley-Siemens, blood analysis is not done as frequently as it could be, but to ensure that blood-spatter interpretation is accurate, more research is needed into clotting times for various species.
Time of Death
Determining when animals at a crime scene died is also important, for example, in revealing whether a suspect could have been present at the time of the abuse. In some circumstances, pinpointing time of death can be done with altered human CSI techniques, but in other cases new methods are being applied. Here, too, techniques devised by veterinary CSI research have helped attain convictions.
Some of the best clues can be derived from insects crawling around a dead body. As entomologists do with human remains, in animal cases they examine the various stages of insect development. But the time it takes certain insects to set up residence in a corpse may differ among species and is distinct from humans. And larvae that pupate on animals with long, thick coats may stay there after feeding on them instead of wandering away, as they often do with humans.
At the Sandersville dogfighting scene, one burial pit contained multiple animals. Decomposition happens faster at the ground’s surface, so remains on the top of the pit were largely skeletal, with limited or no insect infestation. Bodies farther down had multiple insects at different stages of colonization, which helped entomologists determine approximate times of death. Various stages of maggot development, for example, provided evidence on how long dogs had been buried.
The analysis of remains at Sandersville, along with physical evidence from the live dogs, indicated injuries consistent with organized dogfighting, along with severe neglect, including starvation. Even at various stages of decomposition, it was possible to see scar patterns that are consistent with organized fighting. The forensics work formed the basis for animal cruelty charges brought by the office of Hayward Altman, district attorney at the Middle Judicial Circuit of Georgia. Several ASPCA experts provided critical testimony about conditions they witnessed at the scene. At the end of a three-day trial, Derrick Montez Daniels of DeKalb County, Georgia, and Billy Taylor, Jr., of Sandersville were convicted on 26 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty. Daniels was sentenced to five years in state prison and five years of probation, and Taylor was sentenced to one year in county jail and nine years of probation.
Unique Challenges
Another challenge that forensic veterinarians are meeting is the inability to ask animals what happened to them. Body language can be revealing. Trained veterinarians can assess if an animal is in pain by observing its behavior, appearance, mobility, and response to handling and analgesics. A rooster, Touroo notes, may be “extremely quiet and unresponsive, hang its head low and may breathe more deeply if it’s in pain. A judge and jury can look at a video of a rooster that is clearly suffering and may not pick up on these signs” without guidance from an expert.
Investigators may also have to cope when victims inadvertently destroy evidence, as they do routinely. Touroo worked on a dog-shooting case in which the animal hid for days, licking its wounds. “This made it extremely difficult to determine which was the entry wound and which was the exit wound,” she says. Touroo and a local medical examiner used radiographs to assess bone and flesh under the damaged layers of skin and determined the direction the bullet took, which told them the dog was facing away from its shooter, countering the shooter’s claim that the dog was attacking him when he fired.
More hurdles arise during necropsy. For example, very few studies have been done on trauma and human hair, let alone animal hair, coats or fur. One recent study of human hair noted, however, that strands appear microscopically different when cut by a knife or scissors. In 2012 an Alabamian pug named Bama was found in horrific condition—apparently skinned alive by what many assumed was a human assailant. But hair and wound analysis by Touroo validated that Bama was attacked by another animal. Researchers also think they can get more information as they figure out how to better use necropsies to reveal the impacts of different weapons, as well as injuries associated with specific kinds of abuse. For example, in Reisman’s experience, skull, rib and femur fractures are common in intentional physical abuse cases and not in motor vehicle accidents. Continuing to build this body of research will make it easier for forensic veterinarians to definitively assess the cause of injuries.
Deciphering DNA
As useful as evidence found at a crime scene can be, sometimes more is needed to clinch a case—namely, genetic analysis and other lab tests. Some valuable tools in human crimes—such as DNA analysis—are still fairly rare for animal crimes, but progress has been made.
Reisman was the forensic veterinarian on two cases in the late 2000s that for the first time in New York City used DNA to win a cruelty conviction. In one instance, a four-year-old cat named Madea in Brooklyn had been savagely beaten to the point that she had to be euthanized. While searching the scene, a detective found an umbrella in a hard plastic case. When Reisman examined it, he found punctures and scratches consistent with cat bites, along with DNA. He matched the cat saliva on the umbrella to DNA from Madea’s tissue sample, tying that weapon to the victim. That finding, combined with testimony, led to a guilty verdict for aggravated cruelty and criminal mischief.
Use of RNA to help determine an animal’s time of death is emerging as well. RNA is relatively stable over time, and it degrades at a predictable pace. By knowing the extent of RNA degradation, one can extrapolate backward and develop a reasonably accurate time of death. Nanny Wenzlow, who recently completed a forensic veterinary pathology fellowship at the University of Florida, is pioneering this work with horse tissue. She developed algorithms for RNA breakdown in the brain, muscle and liver after death—which occurs at different rates—to help establish a time of death. That could confirm or refute a suspect’s alibi, Wenzlow notes.
Stop the Violence
Although veterinary forensic science has had many successes, much more research is needed. “This is such a novel area, and we are still far behind human clinical and pathological forensic medicine,” the ASPCA’s Touroo says. More investigators trained in animal crime scene investigation are needed, too. When Reisman started working for the ASPCA in 1988, forensic veterinary medicine was not even a recognized discipline. Many of the materials used today arose through trial and error in Reisman’s work. He eventually helped form the International Veterinary Forensic Sciences Association, which now boasts nearly 130 members from 16 countries.
The only university program in the U.S. that offers a comprehensive curriculum and dedicated research is the ASPCA Veterinary Forensic Sciences Program at the University of Florida, where one of us (Byrd) is director of education and where Touroo and others teach. Its master of science degree trains veterinarians to correctly gather evidence and prepares them for appearing in court as an expert witness.
Students and faculty in the program are conducting research to advance the field. For example, they are establishing how to better estimate the sex of a dog from its skull, something that is done with fairly good reliability in humans. They are also working on specifying common scar and wound patterns on fighting dogs. And by partnering with Tufts University, they have shown, as noted earlier, that dogs and cats sustain different types of injuries when hit by a car than when attacked intentionally with blunt force by a person. That study could help forensic veterinarians prove intentional cruelty masked as an accident.
Reisman, for his part, is helping the NYPD and the ASPCA to build a database of cases in New York, listing such information as whether abuse took the form of neglect or aggression, the nature of injuries and the time period over which they occurred, whether domestic violence or child abuse had also been found, and the species, breed, age and gender of animals affected. He hopes that over time, this database will help the agencies gain more insight into animal victims and their attackers by unearthing patterns. For example, do injuries look different when the perpetrator is a man, woman or child? Or, in cases of domestic violence, how often is the animal killed? Experts also hope that raising the skill level of police, animal-control officers and other professionals will lead to more effective trials and convictions, stricter sentencing requirements and therefore an overall decrease in animal cruelty. Regular workshops are held through the University of Florida, and experts such as Reisman, Touroo and others hold trainings across the country.
Improvements in veterinary crime science could help human victims, too. A 1998 study in the Journal of Emotional Abuse found that 71 percent of women in domestic violence shelters reported their batterer abused or killed their animals or threatened to do so. In 2007 research in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence showed that “batterers who also abuse their pets are both more controlling and use more dangerous forms of violence than batterers who do not.” Attorney Diane Balkin of the Animal Legal Defense Fund adds, “Violence is violence, regardless of whether the victim has two or four legs. Early intervention with a child or teenager who abuses an animal may prevent that individual from harming another animal or from harming a human and may provide that individual with much needed evaluation and treatment.”
Randall Lockwood, senior vice president for forensic sciences and anticruelty projects at the ASPCA, concurs: “I know there are animals, women, children and elders that are alive today that likely would not have been” if prosecutors had not brought violent individuals to justice. Veterinary forensic science, he says, “gives the victims a voice.”
