Val - Man found guilty by science and then science proven wrong

[fabsroman]

I was wondering if you had heard about this case I watched on TV tonight. It happened in Florida and I believe the defendant's name Sybers. He was accused of poisoning his wife to death, but they couldn't find any poison in the body for 8 1/2 years. Supposedly, the motive was that he had a mistress, which he admitted to, and that he had 6 million in assets.

After 8 1/2 years, the prosecution was finally able to find a lab that found succinyl monocholine, a poison, in the tissues from the body. The FBI lab concurred that the poison was in the tissue. Most of the evidence was circumstantial and the jury pretty much hung its hat on the results from the lab. The man spent two years in prison as a result.

After that, prosecutors were sending tissue to the lab left and right on cold cases to see if poisoning, with this almost undetectable poison, was the issue. Turned out that it was in almost all of them. The FBI lab analyst got a little suspicious at this point, and asked for some tissue samples from some cadavers that had died of known natural causes. When tests were done on this tissue, where poisoning wasn't a factor, they were all found to contain succinyl monocholine. Hence, the test wasn't valid, yet a man had spent two years in prison as a result.

While I wasn't there for the entire trial, from what I saw on the show tonight, there really wasn't much evidence to convict this guy in the first place and that was why the prosecutor waited over 8 years to try him. After he was released, the prosecutor debated trying him again, but they worked out a plea bargain where he plead to manslaughter, but didn't admit guilt, and his sentence was time already served.

Yep, the justice system has problems, but that is because of a scientist that didn't know what he was talking about. So, does science have a problem or is it the justice system. The appeals court did throw out the test results and let the guy out of jail before the FBI analyst found out that they were really faulty, so maybe the justice system does work. Then again, this guy was a doctor that was able to afford some pretty good attorney. I would imagine that the appeal was quite costly. If it was some poor person, he would have been sitting in jail a little while longer.

[denton]

Fabs, one of the several things we do at my company is test measurement systems used in industrial processes.

A false positive from a lab is no surprise. We see that all the time.

Before any lab's results can be accepted, you really do have to do just what they eventually did--have the lab test various samples, and see if they relate to reality. There are accepted tests for doing this.

You'd think he'd be filing a huge suit against the lab. They put themselves forward as competent, and were not.

Similarly, if I'm ever in a serious car accident, and there is any question about my responsibility, my first stop is a hospital emergency room, for a blood alcohol and drugs test.

[fabsroman]

If you are ever in a serious car accident, your first stop should be a hospital emergency room regardless of whether or not you think you are at fault. If you are not at fault, you should have the doctors check you out to help your personal injury claim. I have also found that a lot of people don't go to the emergency room because their symptoms are masked by adrenaline. A day or two later they are extremely sore and I have even had a client have herniated disks that were not diagnosed by the chiro for several months. He went to an ortho and got an MRI done that showed 3 herniated disks. He thought he was okay even though his car had been totalled. He didn't start feeling the pain until much later.

[Valigator]

Fabs thanks for that post.......my understanding and I could be wrong is that is one substance the body can produce on its own...remember the woman whose two children died from it...and they thought it was anti-freeze..........we have an execution scheduled this evening at 6:00 in Florida.......there were no mistaken chemicals here.....he tortured and hung the woman in his apartment.....lets see if the state has the Kahunas to follow thru...shall we?