Hello! Hello!
Welcome back to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer, the mental breakdown edition.
I always find myself not knowing what to say right after we introduced it, and then I was thinking the other day, I was like,
well yeah, we've done it like almost a hundred freaking times, so it makes sense that we would run out of things to say at some point.
Did you realize that Bundy was our 50th episode?
50th case.
Yeah, 50th case, because-
Not even mental breakdown.
Yeah, and we've done, you know, two potas and everything too, but I think we're like right at 100 episodes total.
That's amazing.
Let me check actually, because I'm curious.
You know we're coming up on our two-year anniversary soon?
Yes, we are.
August 31st, I think, right?
August 31st, 2021 is when we first started, so yes.
So that weekend that we'll be out of town in Austin will be like our two-year anniversary celebration.
Oh my god!
And we get to celebrate with you guys, that's so exciting!
So excited.
So this one will actually be our 97th episode total, which is crazy.
Well that's not including the Patreon bonus episodes, so we're technically at 100.
We're technically at 100.
Gosh, it's been a-
Right at almost.
Darmelwind.
Darmelwind will be 100.
Yeah, so if you don't know, this is your first time listening, my name is Kenna.
I don't even think I said that yet.
I'm Ka'well.
And we do what we call the mental breakdown Mondays, which is happening today.
And that is something that we break down, whether it's a mental disorder or a specific
interesting event or a specific theory or anything.
We just think this is super interesting.
We kind of break that down for you guys.
And then on Thursdays, we do True Crime Thursdays, where we bring you a case.
This week it is going to be part two of Ted Bundy, and it's been a doozy and a half to research.
But we also do have an additional bonus episode for our tier two and three Patreons.
That is going to be Jeffrey Dahmer, and Ka'well is going to be bringing it this month.
They come out on the 29th of each month, again for just tier two and three Patreons.
If you'd like to support us that way, that is awesome.
Our tier one Patreons also get ad-free episodes as well.
Yes.
And that two tier two and tier three bonus episodes don't have any ads or any content
warning.
You know what you're getting into, hopefully by that point when you hear names like Dahmer
or Albert Fish.
So no content warning, we just get right to the nitty gritty.
I am beyond comprehension of the shit that I'm reading about Dahmer.
Yeah, it's wild.
They have, I mean, I have the FBI reports.
No, I love it.
It is, ugh, it's a lot.
It's going to be a great episode, and that's going to be the same day that Ted two comes out.
Ted Bundy to part two comes out.
So be looking forward to those.
But like we said, today is a mental breakdown Monday, but before I do get into my mental
breakdown, do you want to share our handles with everyone?
Sure.
You can hit us up at diagnosingatkiller.com.
There you will find links to merch and resources and much, much more.
Our merch goes through Redbubble, so you can also catch us on Redbubble theoretically.
Any of our social media handles are going to be at diagnosingatkiller other than Twitter,
which is at killerdiagnosis.
You can email us at diagnosingatkilleratgmail.com.
Yes.
Patreons, patrons, Patreon, all that good stuff.
Yeah.
And Live Left Lurk by some merch.
And give us a review and a rating.
That'd be awesome.
We'd love to hear from you guys.
Please send us an email.
I would love to hear from you guys, especially if you're in like Australia or New Zealand.
I say that all the time.
She really wants a voice message.
I want a voice memo for sure.
But yeah, thank you guys for joining us for yet another mental breakdown.
Are you ready to get into it?
Yes, let's do it.
Okay.
So excited.
So today we are going to be talking about
Low Cards Exchange Principle.
Oh, ooh.
Or probably pronounced differently because he's French.
It's Low Cards.
Okay, Low Cards Exchange Principle.
I feel like we've kind of peppered this in, this here and there,
but I didn't really know exactly what it entailed,
so I was really excited to start researching it and super interesting.
This is going to be cool.
So in Forensic Science, which listeners, as you know,
Koel and I are both very interested in studying,
Low Cards Principle states that the perpetrator of a crime
will bring something into the crime and leave with something from it,
and that both can be used as forensic evidence.
Yes.
So again, Low Cards Exchange Principle is the full name.
I just kind of cut out the exchange part there.
So Dr. Edmund Lowcard was born on December 13th, 1877,
in Saint-Chimonde, France.
And again, I'm probably going to butcher all of these French pronunciations,
so I apologize to our French listeners.
Some records actually indicate that he was born in 1872,
but he was definitely in France.
So I don't know exactly which one.
He would go on to study medicine and law at Lyon, France,
and eventually would become the assistant of Alexander LaSage.
I think that's what you say.
LaCasseige.
Something way different than I said.
He was a criminologist and professor,
so he would become this man's assistant.
Edmund would hold this title until 1910,
when he began the foundation of his own criminal laboratory.
His lab in Lyon was actually the first forensic lab in Europe.
I know, super interesting.
I want to go.
I know, same.
In 1910, Edmund would also persuade the police department of Lyon
to give him two attic rooms and two assistants
in order to start the first police forensic laboratory.
So he's like really big deal of the forensic science community.
So cool.
He would actually become known as the Sherlock Holmes of Lyon, France,
and he would come up with this principle of exchange in 1920.
Wow.
Literally 100 years ago.
Right? 100 years ago? Yeah.
He formulated the basic principle of forensic science as quote,
every contact leaves a trace, end quote,
and this is usually understood as quote,
with contact between two items, there will be an exchange.
Think of it as like a paint transfer when you get in like a car accident.
Kind of the same thing.
So Paul L. Kirk, a biochemist and chemist.
A biochemist and chemist.
He was both.
Not just a chemist.
He specialized in microscopy.
Microscopy?
Microscopy.
Sorry.
He would later describe, just reminded me of,
better keep my fingers crossed, Freddie.
Cameron needs to love Freddie Got Fingered.
Oh, funny.
I haven't seen that movie in a very long time.
So again, this biochemist and chemist that studied in microscopy,
I can't even say it, Paul Kirk would later describe the exchange principle as follows, quote,
wherever he steps, wherever he touches, wherever he leaves,
even unconsciously will serve as a silent witness against him.
Not only his fingerprints or footprints, but his hair,
the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks,
the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches,
the blood or semen he deposits or collects.
All of these and more bear mute witness against him.
This is evidence that does not forget.
It is not confused by the excitement of the moment.
It is not absent because human witnesses are.
It is factual evidence.
Physical evidence cannot be wrong.
It cannot perjure itself.
It cannot be wholly absent.
Only human failure to find it, study it and understand it,
can diminish its value.
End quote.
Sorry.
Can I get that tattooed?
That's so bot.
That's so cool, right?
That's fucking bot.
And it's so true.
He's essentially saying, anybody that commits a crime,
I'm going to fucking figure it out.
You're fucked.
It's not impossible.
If anything, it's possible.
It's human error.
That's the reason.
The evidence does not lie.
That's fucking awesome.
I know.
It's just like, you can't argue with that.
Everything he said is completely true.
So cool.
So just to break it down a little bit and just to get into more detail
what we're talking about, when a crime is committed,
fragmentary or trace evidence needs to be collected from the scene.
This is any type of material left or taken from a crime scene,
or the result of contact between two surfaces,
such as shoes and the floor or fibers exchanged from one garment touching another.
A team of technicians will approach a crime scene and seal it off
in order to avoid cross-contamination,
excuse me.
They will then record video and photos of the scene, victims if there are any present,
and items of evidence.
If necessary, they will also record ballistics examinations, like gunshot residue.
They check for foot, shoe, and tire mark impressions,
plus hair and fingerprints that may have been left over.
Due to all of these tedious things being taken from the ideas of one man in the past,
Dr. Edmund Loughard,
he's considered to be the father of modern forensic science.
That's so cool.
He probably felt like such a badass.
He is a badass.
He does it all.
His exchange principle is the basis of all forensic work today.
In November of 2012, he was actually nominated to the French Forensic Science Hall of Fame,
even though he would ultimately pass away in 1966.
He was almost a hundred, though.
He was like ninety.
That's amazing.
Before the 19th century, most of the time in court and during an investigation,
witness testimonies were favored as opposed to evidence.
Most investigators would actually refuse to perform invasive procedures on the deceased,
to either emotional respect, squeamishness, and sometimes even superstitions.
This resulted in little to no evidence to collect and poor solverate of crimes.
With the addition of science into criminal investigations, things began to change.
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The first known use of science and logic for a crime investigation
was done by Alfonso Bertilin in the late 1800s.
He would develop what would become known as Bertilinage,
which is a procedure in which body measurements and other physical characteristics were recorded after a crime.
This information was then placed on a single ID card and put into the filing system,
whichever kind of filing system they had by the 1800s.
I actually, probably like one of those, I imagine it's one of those like library checkouts.
Yeah, exactly.
So prior to the use of fingerprint recognition, this was actually the most used system
when it came to tracking and identifying criminals.
Apart from body measurement, Bertilin was also responsible for the development of photos
for criminal IDs.
It would be Bertilin's contribution to their forensic sciences that influenced Dr. Loeckard,
who would also go on to work as a medical examiner during World War I.
Ooh.
Okay, this is where it's going to be a French quote.
Okay.
So I'm going to try my damnedest to say this directly.
I'll also say it in English.
Good luck.
So similarly to Alfonso Bertilin, or Alfonso Bertilin,
Edmund advocated for the use of science in criminal investigations.
According to him, quote, he can do it.
It is impossible to mal-fielter the agraravik.
What?
He's so German.
I can't do it.
Quote, intensity, which is supposed to be action, criminal, sounds, last year,
the strassi, the sound passage.
That's like Spanish next to the German next to French.
That's how you said it.
End quote.
No, it was an end quote before.
End quote.
So this loosely translates to in English, quote,
it is impossible for a criminal to act, especially considering the intensity of a crime,
without leaving traces of his presence.
So I thought I'd, you know, make y'all laugh a little bit.
I like that.
You should do that more often.
Oh, God.
He would go on to test this principle of exchange during many of his investigations.
Again, Edmund.
In 1930, he would publish three papers in the American Journal of Police Science,
which are now collectively known as Locard's Theory of Exchange.
Another significant contribution by Edmund involved, I think it's Dachtylography,
which is an area of studying involving fingerprints.
He developed poroscopy, which is the study of fingerprint pores and impressions produced by them.
So we're going to talk about a couple of cases where the exchange theory, like, was that work?
Okay.
So one of the most infamous cases demonstrating how his theory is applied came in 1912,
when police were investigating the death of a French woman named Marie Latel.
They were questioning her boyfriend, Emile Gorbin,
and he claimed that he was playing cards with his friends at the time of her death.
When police questioned the friends, they affirmed his claim.
Further investigation into the body determined that Marie had been strangled,
and police would actually get fingernail scrapings underneath Emile's fingernails to look for his skin cell samples.
Upon a closer look under the microscope, a pink dust was found in the cell samples collected from Edmund,
from the boyfriend.
By Edmund, excuse me.
He figured that it must have been makeup, and although popular at the time,
makeup was not very widely manufactured, so he was able to kind of narrow down where it came from.
So after searching further, he actually found the same chemist that had made a custom powder for Marie,
and the match was made.
Whoa.
In 1912.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
So with all evidence against him, Emile would ultimately confess to murder,
and he actually tricked his friends into believing his alibi.
So he was like, I don't know how he kind of said, like, maybe he's a lie for me, or maybe he like,
he's like, yeah, I wasn't there at six, or did I?
I was there at six.
Exactly.
That kind of thing.
Maybe it was six, I didn't look, but yeah.
So this is one of the many cases in which Le Carrot's exchange principle had changed the outcome of a case,
of course, with the finding of the makeup.
Yeah, and apparently, you know, there was witnesses or whatever to him having an alibi.
Exactly.
So that's interesting that it just completely.
It's like, no, the science doesn't lie.
He bumped it.
Yeah.
He had the makeup under his nails.
Yeah.
Wow.
So another case is the case of the Weimar children.
So Carola and Melanie Weimar, age five and seven, were living with their parents, Reinhardt
and Monika in Germany, when they were reported missing on August 4th, 1986.
Their bodies would ultimately be found three days later on August 7th, when the police had also
realized that they had been victims of murder.
Monika stated that the children had eaten breakfast that morning and then went to a playground.
She would later change her statement and say that the kids were already deceased when she returned home the previous night,
stating that Reinhardt, her husband, was sitting on the edge of Carola's bed, crying and confused,
and then he disposed of the bodies.
So differing statements, of course.
Totally different statement.
Both of the parents were suspected at first, but Monika was also known to have been having an affair,
and she was also seen with this gentleman, where Melanie's body was later found.
So again, I witnessed testimonies.
She was actually convicted of the murder, and after serving her sentence, she was released in 2006.
Investigators were able to determine what clothes Monika was wearing on the day her daughters went missing,
but not her husband.
Fibers from multiple different sources were able to later be used and compared in order to convict the father as well.
Whoa.
Again, that's that exchange, like his fibers on their clothes or vice versa.
I think there was also some linens from the bed that had been exchanged as well.
I didn't really go into super detail with these cases, obviously, because there's a couple, but yeah, that's that case.
Interesting.
And lastly, the case of Danielle Van Dam, seven years old.
She lived with her parents and brother in San Diego, California, when she was reported missing on February 2nd, 2002.
Her body would be discovered on February 27th, the victim of a homicide.
Her neighbor, David Westerfield, was almost immediately suspected, and he would later be convicted of her kidnapping
after hair fibers from her dogs were actually found in his RV, resulting in his guilt being evident.
Yeah.
So just a few examples of the exchange principle at work.
Obviously, her fibers were exchanged from her clothing to his RV because she had played with her dogs in the past.
Yeah.
So I don't know. I just think it's kind of interesting.
It is really interesting.
Especially the fingernail one.
Some of those cases, though, it can just be circumstantial.
I mean, that's where we later come to the word circumstantial evidence.
Yeah, exactly.
Because he could have just given her a ride, didn't necessarily mean that he harmed her.
Or same thing with the parents, right?
The fibers were found, well, if they live in the same house, that might not be unusual.
Exactly.
And again, there's way more detail about these cases than the pepper that made it.
But speaking specifically on the exchange, not necessarily about somebody's guilt, right?
Yeah, exactly.
But talking specifically about the exchange.
That's really interesting.
So, Locard's principle also holds up in computer forensics where committing cybercrime will result in a digital trace being left behind.
So, like every theory, there are some drawbacks of the Locard exchange principle.
One of the biggest lies in dynamics.
So this refers to the alteration of physical evidence before it's been examined by investigators.
So there's many factors that can lead to the tampering and destruction of evidence, such as staging by the perpetrator,
secondary transfer of evidence, actions of the victim before the crime, witness actions,
natural factors such as like animal activity or weather, and actions of police.
If they didn't get there in time or if they walked through the crime scene, that's why they secure the crime scene, of course.
These factors can lead to the removal or destruction of the evidence, and they can often mislead investigators,
causing problems with crime reconstruction.
Locard's exchange principle is used in forensic science every single day, and that's literally all I have.
I know it's going to be a short one, but I wanted to talk about it.
It's really interesting stuff, and you know, we might, I think, only talked about it maybe once or twice or mentioned it,
but never went into detail about what it is.
I don't think a lot of people know that term, and I think it's really interesting to know that term,
especially if you're true crime junkies like we are.
Yeah, for sure.
So, yeah, Locard's exchange principle.
I think maybe from here on out, we can maybe kind of pinpoint if and when that's used in a future case,
and we can bring it back up, and then people will know exactly what we're talking about because of this episode.
I love that. That's a great idea.
I think that was an interesting thing to kind of get more in detail about.
There's plenty of other examples of when it was used, but I thought that was kind of cool, those specific instances,
especially the boyfriend with the nails, it was like that was what cracked the case.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Like OJ's glove.
Yeah, exactly.
He left one at the scene, and then left one in his backyard or something.
Yeah, exactly.
I remember like, what was it?
BTK left like a knife by their, like where he used to cut their telephone line or something.
Didn't he leave his own cellphone or something?
Yeah.
It's like, that was the first thing you did when you got there and you left your knife.
Yeah, I saw it.
Cut the phone cord and left the fucking pliers.
Yeah, seriously.
It was funny.
Anyway, that's really interesting.
I like it.
I do enjoy that, and I like your suggestion of using that going forward.
I think that'll be really fun.
Yeah, that would be really fun.
Yeah.
You guys definitely get your tickets for the True Crime and Paranormal Podcast Festival.
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Yeah, so we can get to all those platforms for you guys for sure.
Exactly.
So we definitely appreciate that, and a big thank you to all of our current patrons as
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Do you have a merch?
Yeah, I get some merch.
I got my Yikes and my Yikes shirt, and I love it.
It's really good.
I love your Yikes and my Yikes.
It's really good.
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Yeah, if you guys have any other merch suggestions, I think we have a couple more in the works,
but if you have anything that you want to see on a shirt, if you want a picture of our
lovely logo on a shirt, I think there's already one, but maybe a different type.
Let us know.
Yeah.
And especially knowing, you know, after John said what he said about the direct to garment,
that's really cool.
Yeah.
Because I have been saying the wrong word this whole time, and it's very much pressed
into the shirt, so it's high quality stuff.
Yeah, for sure.
We'll come.
Keep writing us, keep reviewing us.
We love all of the positive stuff that we're getting from you guys, and we love hearing
from you guys.
Yeah.
And look forward to Ted Bundy part two, and Duffry Dahmer for the Patreon, two and three
tiers this Thursday.
Yeah, it's so exciting.
All right.
We'll see you guys next time.
Love you.
Bye.
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