ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Mar. 30
Correction
Forensic scientist Henry C. Lee's name was incorrect in a story
Friday about a speech at Virginia Tech. Also, his brother is John C.
Lee, associate dean at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary
Medicine. His name and position were incorrectly reported.
DURING THE O.J. SIMPSON TRIAL, Harry C. Lee provided testimony that helped both sides. Thursday, he awed an audience of 200 at Tech. Tireless viewers of the O.J. Simpson trial will know Henry C. Lee as an expert witness for the defense who testified for four days about blood samples and blood splatter evidence.
About 200 people, including students, professors, lawyers and law enforcement officials, got a glimpse Thursday into the vast field of forensics where Lee's expertise is known worldwide. He is director of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Laboratory and professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven.
In a speech at Virginia Tech's Donaldson Brown Hotel and Conference Center, Lee used humor and slides from real cases to show the leaps forensic science has taken in three decades.
Tech had an inside source to land the high-profile speaker: His brother, T.K. Lee, is a professor in the university's physics department.
One of the more dramatic cases Lee referred to concerned "dusting" - a deadly game some truckers played in which they tried to drive past police officers close enough to raise a dust cloud and blow off their hats. Thirty-eight officers died as a result of the truckers' vindictive driving.
After one Connecticut trooper was hit and killed, police set up roadblocks and stopped
tractor-trailers to search for evidence of blood, tissue or hair.
None of that was found on one trailer on which road dust had been wiped away on the front right corner. Lee was called in to help.
The audience gasped at what Lee's application of a new forensic chemical revealed - the mirror image of the trooper's shoulder patch.
He asked, ``Is there any question this truck hit an officer? Is any more evidence needed?''
Scientific evidence is not biased, Lee said. For instance, some of his testimony at the Simpson trial helped the defense and some helped the prosecution.
``We are not judging the guilt or innocence,'' he said of the scientist's role in a criminal investigation.
The role forensic science plays in criminal investigations is expanding, Lee said, partly because of decreasing participation by witnesses.
In the 1960s when a homicide occurred, police would filter through 2,000 to 3,000 tips from the community, Lee said. Today, 14 people can watch a murder in a city street and none will testify or come forward to help police.
Lee described technological advancements such as the use of lasers to lift fingerprints from skin and to define a smudged print on a solid surface. Computers shaved years off print comparison work; comparing a print with 4 million others on file would have taken 53 years before; now it takes 17 minutes.
He said dealing with scientific evidence is easier for him than being a police captain - a job he did for several years in Taiwan. As an officer, he said, he was soft-hearted.
``I felt sorry for the people I arrested,'' he said. ``I gave them money and checked on their families.''
Now his work takes him around the country and, most recently, to Bosnia, where he helped investigators identify human remains scattered by the fighting.
``The most difficult thing is to explain to someone that [a body part] is their loved one,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. When Harry C. Lee was a policeby CNBcaptain in Taiwan, he pitied those he arrested and ``gave them money
and checked on their families.'' color.