Mortal Evidence

October 1, 2003
In this review of nine of his cases, pathologist Wecht gives readers a glimpse into the dark secrets that only the police, lawyers and criminals know about some of America's most intriguing murder cases in recent memory. The prose is crisp, and Wecht, writing with crime reporter Saitz and legal writer Curriden, does an admirable job of explaining technical procedures and scientific evidence in layman's terms. While Wecht's forensic expertise helps shed some light on what really happened in this collection of solved and unsolved cases, the book as a whole points out that forensics is not an infallible method for determining who committed a certain crime. For instance, Wecht's review of the Grossberg and Peterson case (two college freshmen accused of murdering their baby in 1996), on which he consulted for Grossberg's defense, demonstrates the different conclusions that doctors can reach from studying the same autopsies. Furthermore, in two of the high-profile stories mentioned in the book, the O.J. Simpson and JonBenet Ramsey cases, the limitations of forensic science are exposed. Having viewed autopsy records in both cases, Wecht does have compelling theories about who committed these headline-making crimes, but his educated guesses are not proof enough to put anyone behind bars. Still, while some of the cases in this volume are still unsolved, the inherent life-and-death dramatics in each of Wecht's reviews will certainly catch the eye of those who like a good murder mystery or fancy themselves armchair detectives.