A prime forensic scientist who testified in OJ Simpson, JonBenét Ramsey and Phil Spector’s circumstances made a surprising deathbed confession in a bid to clear his title.
Dr. Henry C Lee was one of the vital well-known physicians in America within the 90s, though lately he confronted allegations of fabricating proof and testing.
Lee, who died on Friday at age 87, was famend for work involving blood spatter evaluation and crime scene reconstruction, and supplied key proof in quite a few trials by means of the 80s.
Connecticut-based Lee rose to wider prominence throughout the 1994 trial of Simpson, the place, taking the stand for the protection, he claimed he had discovered beforehand undiscovered bloody footprints on the crime scene and Simpson was being framed for the double homicide of his spouse Nicole Brown Simpson and her good friend Ron Goldman on her doorstep.
An FBI analyst contended they had been imprints of shoes and instruments from the workmen who initially poured the concrete. Simpson was later sensationally acquitted.
Lee, who died on Friday at age 87, was known as to the scene after the homicide of Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado, on Christmas day 1996. He was one of many first to say the ransom observe discovered on the property was staged. Varied investigators and analysts have since agreed with that assertion, however the case has by no means been solved.
“He obtained well-known for getting outcomes that nobody else might,” Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist and criminologist who studied below Lee, instructed The Submit.
“The issue is the strain and celeb of doing a fantastic job and residing as much as the parable of the forensics of Henry Lee.”
In a single weird incident, whereas wig-loving “Wall of Sound” producer Spector was on trial over the demise of Lana Clarkson in his house in 2003, Lee was accused of taking a fingernail from the crime scene, a cost he denied. Spector was finally convicted of second-degree homicide.
Extra just lately, a evaluation of proof in opposition to two Connecticut males, Shawn Henning and Ricky Birch, discovered that they had been wrongfully convicted in 1989 for the 1985 homicide of one other man.
A lot of that conviction rested on Lee’s forensic testimony relating to a towel with a purple smear which he stated examined constructive for blood. Additional testing proved there was no blood on the towel and that the towel itself had by no means beforehand been examined.
The lads had been launched in 2025 after nearly 30 years, however that end result threw many years of Lee’s different work into query.
“[The Pressure] clearly obtained to him and he obtained to the purpose the place he couldn’t stay as much as that picture. So, he simply stored giving solutions with out doing examinations,” claimed Turvey, who had performed a job in proving Henning and Birch’s innocence.
On the time of the choice, Lee insisted to reporters, “In my 57-year profession, I’ve investigated over 8,000 circumstances and by no means, ever was accused of any wrongdoing. That is the primary case that I’ve to defend myself.”
Nevertheless, an investigative staff declare they’ve uncovered no less than six cases of Lee contributing to harmless individuals shedding their freedom.
The Submit has additionally realized that Lee gave one closing interview to the documentary firm behind that revelation, the place Lee made a blockbuster confession concerning the proof he gave.
The candid interview passed off shortly earlier than his demise, the place Lee, in line with an insider, tried to place out his facet of the story and justify his actions.
At one level, sources say he claimed: “Logic is the underside line for legislation enforcement. However I solely did one factor in my life. It’s to make the unattainable be potential.”
Turvey additionally remembers one quote the person as soon as known as “America’s most celebrated forensic scientist” gave throughout a graduation speech at College of New Haven, which has a brand new poignance now.
“He stated, ‘Simply bear in mind, it takes 25 years to construct an excellent title and 25 seconds to destroy it.’ He was all the time talking out in opposition to fraud, all the time talking out in opposition to negligence and incompetence,” claimed Turvey.
“However, as we now know, that was a confession of guilt to what he did in observe.”
