Conference speaker tells how crimes can be solved

That wasn’t what Palenik did. He developed a laboratory in the basement of his parents’ home and has been trying to solve mysteries ever since. He’s spent a large amount of his life peering through a microscope, albeit much more powerful that his first one.

“I’m 59 now, so I’ve been doing this for 51 years,” Palenik told a large audience at the Regional Law Enforcement Conference at Chadron State College last week. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do.”

Palenik, who lives at Elgin, Ill., said the book that came with the microscope was more compelling than the instrument. It contained stories about how crimes had been solved. One of them was about a train robbery in the Pacific Northwest that turned nasty with the entire crew gunned down and the mail car blown up. Left behind was a pair of greasy overalls.

A garage mechanic became the prime suspect, but a scientist at Berkeley, Calif., determined that the person who wore the overalls was a left-handed lumberjack who was about 5-feet, 10-inches tall. The material on the overalls was pitch from Douglas fir trees. He could tell by the pitch pattern on the overalls that the owner swung the axe from the left side and determined his height by how the shoulder straps were adjusted. The sleuth even learned the name of owner when he dug through the pockets and found a registered mail order receipt with a name on it.

However, no arrests were made immediately because the robber took off for Philippines. But five or six years later someone who had been stationed in the military there returned to the United States, spotted the suspect’s picture on a wanted poster in the San Francisco post office and notified the authorities. The arrest was made soon afterwards and the ex-lumberjack was found guilty of the crime, Palenik said.

“I was hooked when I read that story,” he said.

The book also contained a chapter called “The Vacuum Cleaner Detective,” which explained how a person could take apart your mother’s vacuum cleaner, sift through the particles and detect what they are. He learned to identify spices from the kitchen, talcum powder from the bathroom and hairs that belonged to his parents and other family members.

Palenik, who was a chemistry major in college, has spent much of his time analyzing such substances as he’s become one of the world’s leading microscopists. When the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or Scotland Yard can’t solve a crime, they often turn to him. Industry also frequently asks him to help solve a problem with its products. He does much of his work for the government, he said.

He was even on the Oprah Winfrey show after he was asked to analyze a cream that was supposed to be a sexual stimulant for women. He found it to be nothing more than salad dressing with a hint of wintergreen oil mixed in to give a tingling sensation.

But it’s definitely true that he’s been involved in many of the world’s high profile crime cases, including the assassination of Martin Luther King in which he determined just one gunman was involved and Oklahoma City bombing where he matched fibres found on Timothy McVeigh with those in the bomb-filled truck McVeigh had rented and driven to the scene.

“We continually pick up and leave behind tiny bits of material as we move about,” he told the conference at Chadron State. “It becomes a roadmap of places we have been. It helps to be able to recognize a lot of substances.”

He added that he isn’t in the business of solving crimes, but “interrogates the evidence” so the crime can be solved. The evidence can be anything, including soils, paints, pollens, fibres and chemical compounds. He said that on a number of occasions he has determined that art work or so-called personal belongings of famous people were frauds because the paper he examined wasn’t being made until after the purported dates. The same determinations can be made with cellulous, he said.

“I’m in the business of answering questions,” he told the CSC audience.

Palenik added that he doesn’t take an interest or choose up sides in the cases he works with, but tries to produce answers so the investigators have the proper information.

He told of an incident in North Carolina in which a woman was abducted and murdered. His examination of her shoes determined that she had been at a nearby horse farm because by looking through his microscopes he had found minute pieces of straw, leather from bridles, a tiny horse hair and fibres that he determined were from a horse blanket because they were heavier than fibres from a sweater. The son of a prominent state official was implicated after all the evidence was collected.

One of the major crimes Palenik helped with was the “Green River” murder spree near Seattle that began in the 1980s but wasn’t solved until 20 years later after Palenik became involved. Because of the evidence Palenik found in 2001 and 2002, Gary Ridgway finally pleaded guilty to the murder of 48 women in order to avoid the death penalty. Palenik told the conference at CSC it was finally determined that Ridgway killed at least 70 women.

After investigators turned to him, Palenik used a vacuum with special filters to collect microscopic particles of paint from clothing that had been worn of several of the victims. It was determined that the particular paint was used in small amounts on Kenworth trucks at the place where Ridgway worked. Palenik even contacted DuPont to confirm the identity of the specks.

The conference was the first of its kind at Chadron State this decade. The coordinator, Dr. George Watson, professor of justice studies at CSC, said it was part of the college’s mission to provide additional services for the region’s population.

“There aren’t many places for law enforcement personnel around here to go to improve their training,” said Watson. “We were able to bring together several experts with a wealth of experience in solving crimes in various ways. It was a relevant program that attracted a lot of interest. The feedback we received was very positive.”

At least 175 attended the conference, about evenly divided between those who are active in law enforcement and college students who are studying criminal justice. Twenty-four students from six colleges in Nebraska and Wyoming attended the conference along with at least 65 from Chadron State.