Is This the Most Important Criminal Investigation Development Since DNA?

The methods used to investigate crime have evolved considerably over time… fingerprint analysis dates back to the 1880s, and the roots of forensic toxicology go all the way back to the first century, but most think of DNA evidence as the most effective tool in the investigator’s tool chest. The use of DNA evidence is […]

So Many Secrets, part 4: A Midnight Run

In the summer of 1957, a just-founded independent film company shot their first feature film in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the small communities of Downingtown, Phoenixville, and several others. The movie was intended to be a low-budget scream feature to satisfy teenage drive-in audiences, and the title changed at various points in its development — […]

So Many Secrets, part 3: Murder in Michigan

I was just a kid, maybe 7 years old, when my mom first told me about my uncle Jimmy. Apparently we met once when I was just a baby, but I was too young to remember. He was my mom’s older brother — half-brother in truth, because he had a different father — and had […]

So Many Secrets

It was Christmas of 2016 when my wife, Rebecca, bought me an Ancestry DNA kit. She’s a genealogy nut and knew I was interested in tracing my family tree one day. In all honesty, I didn’t think I would come up with much because my family background is rough.

My Grandpa Killed Himself on This Day

The last time my mother saw her father was the day the police came to take him to jail. It was two weeks before Christmas, December 11, 1956, and a warmer than average day in Chester, Pennsylvania, a city on the northwest bank of the Delaware River, about midway between Philadelphia and Wilmington. The mercury […]