National forensic expert worries how public views criminal evidence

COVINGTON, Ky. - The man who helped evaluate forensic evidence in both the O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony trials visited the Tri-State Tuesday night.

Dr. Henry Lee was in town to talk to over 150 attorneys at the Metropolitan Club in Covington. He specializes in helping solve cold cases around the nation at the University of New Haven Forensic Research Training Center. He now runs a national forensic research center in Connecticut.

Lee says crime labs like the one at the Hamilton County Coroner's Office in Corryville will become an increasingly important tool in crime fighting. He says what it finds will also be open to interpretation in court, but fears that interpretation that he fears the public may not fully understand.

Last year, he spent months evaluating evidence in the Casey Anthony trial, where the young Florida mother was charged with killing her toddler daughter, Caylee.

"I cannot tell... if she intentionally murdered her daughter or she did not do it. Scientific evidence not always black and white," said Lee.

He says the problem was he couldn't tell what caused the acrid smell coming out of the car Anthony drove.

"It could be garbage. I can't say it was human decomposition odor. But the prosecution found some professor willing to say it...that it was human decomposition odor. Now you are going beyond the limit of science."

Dr. Lee says that the Hamilton County Crime Lab is like others nationwide finding Its funding being cut back as its criminal caseloads increase. He added, "A lot of the state and local laboratories in the United States also face the same problem. First thing is the backlog because a lot of detectives feel, they're afraid that they did not collect everything. So they collect everything."

So what did he end up telling lawyers? He says, "We have to let the evidence speak for itself. To restore the public confidence in the justice system."

Dr. Lee says his other responsibilities back in Connecticut kept him from taking a closer look at the continuing Ryan Widmer case, to evaluate how forensic evidence was used by both sides.