EASONS

FEATURE
If a suspect in a criminal investigation secretes
enough DNA through fingerprints, he or she
can be identified even without a full print.
“A fair amount of work has been done on
cigarette butts and DNA,” as well, O’Brien
says. “For us, we’ll test a cigarette butt if it
was found at a crime scene, and we’ll run
it through the criminal database [to catch a
suspect],” he explains.
O’Brien’s efforts with Forward Looking
Infrared Radar (FLIR) have proven valuable to
police. “Heat from decomposing remains can
be visible in the first 12 to 24 hours before a
body gets cold,” he says. “We’re also working
on attaching FLIR to drones.” According
to O’Brien, this aerial radar technology will
hopefully be available soon to local police if
they request assistance.
When O’Brien assisted Canadian police
investigating a group of Hells Angels, he
learned the limits of all this technology. It
didn’t work out the way he planned.
“We were using ground-penetrating radar
at these Hells Angels’ houses, but all we kept
finding were hundreds of rocks,” he recalls.
“While they were waiting for us, the cops got
bored and decided to start digging. Of course,
as soon as they put a shovel in the ground, the
police found a quarter-million dollars in cash.
Then they found a cache of drugs and guns.”
O’Brien recalls: “One of the officers just
turned around to us and said, ‘I guess you guys
can go home.’”
What’s new in archaeology? Well, plenty.
Whether chasing the legend of the lost
city of Atlantis or mapping historic stone
walls right here in Connecticut, archeologists
have never been more equipped to make
discoveries.
RESEARCHING ANCIENT GREECE: Risser sorts through pottery at Isthmia.
Photo by E. R. Gebhard.
Mike Briotta is a freelance writer living in
Springfield, Massachusetts. He would love to find
buried treasure someday, but his archaeological
experience is limited to locating old toys buried in
his backyard and bringing a metal detector to the
beach every summer.
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Seasons of West Hartford • SPRING 2017