The case seemed open and shut -- someone was lying. Or was it that simple?

It doesn't seem like a long time ago, but it's been more than 30 years since Saba's death, and in that time, technology has advanced at a rate far faster than most developments.

So we have to ask ourselves -- could this case, as it was, have been solved with the tools of the trade at the time?

This is the second episode of our special edition podcast series, Silicon Valley Beat: Major Crimes.

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[[Disclaimer: The Silicon Valley Beat, Major Crimes, is a podcast that deep-dives into major cases investigated by the Mountain View Police Department. Because this podcast covers investigations including critical incidents and homicides, what we discuss here may contain material that is not suitable for all listeners. Names and other sensitive information may be changed to protect the identity of the innocent.]]

Saul Jaeger: On last week’s episode -- a young woman, newly transplanted to the Bay Area, found dead in a dumpster. A 20-something immigrant, in the prime of her life, taken too soon. Her death puzzles investigators -- who killed Saba Girmai? The one lead detectives had -- a lie detector test that indicated Saba’s apparent boyfriend wasn’t being so truthful about his relationship with her. But was that enough to pursue him as a potential suspect in her murder?

This is The Silicon Valley Beat: Major Crimes. 

[[Opening bumper]]

Episode 2: Then and Now

Katie Nelson: It would have appeared that police had a major lead. 

‘Deception indicated’ reeks of foul play, or at the very least, that something was wrong. Or, does it? 

The investigation into finding Saba’s killer seemingly comes to a stop in April, 1985. There are no notes beyond that the polygraph exam showed something was perhaps amiss between Saba and her alleged boyfriend. There was no glaring error, no hesitation in his responses, no obvious sign of a tell that he was lying. 

In short, it simply wasn’t enough. In California, for lie detector test results to be admissible in court as evidence, both the prosecution and the defense have to agree on their use. 

Saul Jaeger: John Larson, a medical student working for the Berkeley Police Department, invented the first polygraph in 1921. This first polygraph simultaneously traced a subject’s blood pressure and respiration. Under Larson’s assumptions, irregularities in blood pressure and breathing patterns would indicate lies. 

Katie Nelson: But that’s for the modern technology, when in fact for centuries, humans have looked for reliable means to detect lies. In ancient Hindu and Chinese civilizations for example, authorities would look for lies by asking a suspect to chew a grain of rice and then try and spit it out. In China, a dry grain of rice would be indicative that the person was lying. In India, rice was believed to stick to the mouth of those who were guilty. 

So, by April 1985, the investigation had stalled mainly because the evidence trail went cold. And truthfully, that is something that many departments grapple with on a daily basis. 

In some cases, this reality haunts us. Because who knows what could have been, what steps could have been the turning point if we had just had one more piece of evidence, or one more lead? But talk to anyone who later worked on this case and you will hear a unanimous agreement that in Saba’s case, at the time detectives did everything they could to try and pinpoint her murderer. But with no DNA evidence, no cameras, no witnesses, it certainly made the investigation that much more difficult. 

Saul Jaeger: What is fascinating here is just how much work the detectives actually did at the time that ended up being game-changers when advances in investigative techniques – chiefly, DNA – became available over 25 years later. 

DNA was brand new to investigative work back in the 1980s. Remember how we mentioned that fingernail clippings were taken during the autopsy on Saba? That the medical examiner automatically knew to do that at the time was extraordinary. 

Why?

Because it wasn’t until later that DNA was first used to solve a major crime. 

In 1986, a revolutionary -- and new -- DNA testing process helped police solve two cases in which two teenagers were raped and murdered in and near the village of Narborough in England. 

Katie Nelson: Here is a clip from a 2017 documentary that highlights the use of DNA evidence in its early iterations to capture and convict murderer and rapist Colin Pitchfork back in the late 1980s. 

[[Clip from documentary]]

Saul Jaeger: In that investigation, DNA blood samples were obtained voluntarily from roughly 5,000 men working or living near where the crimes occurred. The testing ultimately led to the conviction of a local bakery employee in January 1988. 

This begs the question – what did detectives have at their disposal in 1985 to help further the investigation of this case, and what would this investigation look like if it were to take place today?

Katie Nelson: We sat down with Lt. Mike Canfield, who most recently headed our Investigative Services Division, which is where all major crimes – including cold cases – are investigated. Mike also played a role in investigating Saba’s case in 2012 and 2013.  

On this episode you’ll hear from Mike how the bones of investigative work haven’t changed much, but what has been phenomenal is how tools have helped elevate the idea of what is “good old fashioned police work.” 

Here’s Lt. Canfield.

Mike Canfield: The main tenets of investigations in law enforcement have not changed, we’ve just added new tools. But in regards to how detectives would talk to people then, I think now we would use technology to narrow down that field and start looking at ‘Ok, based on this person’s cell phone patterns or their social media patterns, we’ve narrowed down their main, most important connections to six people.’ 

And so instead of doing canvassing, where you’re talking to everybody at a bar or everybody who might possibly know this person, we’re able to use better analysis and narrow down the number of people we have to talk to. 

Katie Nelson: Keith Wright, a former detective in England, agrees. In an article he wrote for Police One, in July 2019, Wright talks about how just roughly 30 years ago, CCTV was still a new thing, and only a handful of private companies had it. Today, it’s one of the first things we consider in an investigation, he said, but in the 1980s, it was probably one of the last. 

Saul Jaeger: Keith Wright continues -- in the 1980s, in the absence of DNA, CCTV, location devices, social media, cellphones, and high-tech covert equipment, investigation in those days relied heavily on interviewing, particularly in investigative divisions. 

“The art of the interview was king. If you could find what buttons to press, catch them in a lie and sell them your product -- prison -- you might just prove the case. Nothing to it.”

“When you look at the changes in technology in society during and since the 1980s, this incredible change has made a huge impact on our lives, both as people and as law enforcement officers.”

And he’s right. What will the next 30 years bring?

And this brings us back to today. 

Katie Nelson: So, that’s how our investigative work today has been helped in terms of how traditional police work has been elevated by new technologies. But what is the one thing that has changed the way in which we have improved investigations now?

It’s a cell phone.

Mike Canfield: Virtually every victim of a violent crime then, if they were in our current time, would have a cell phone. And that would create a volume of information to pour through and look through so their connections in cell phone, their location based on the cell phone, their last actions before the homicide, maybe even where the cell phone went after the homicide -- we’ve certainly seen those. I think the biggest change is everyone, well virtually everyone, has a computer on them virtually all the time. And that opens up so much more information and a whole other field of investigation for these cases. 

Saul Jaeger: This then took us to the science of crime scene investigation in 1985; how it was completed, how it differs -- or not -- from today, and what they were looking for at that time. 

Mike Canfield: You know, one of the main tools would be crime scene analysis, predominantly probably looking much more for fingerprints than for DNA obviously at the time. But they would also be looking for trace evidence, perhaps fibers that were transferred from a vehicle onto a person that they could later match. 

So, there was definitely an emphasis and a skill placed on crime scene analysis and photography of the scene, for sure. 

And then, in fact I bet, a lot of detectives were probably more skilled in this in the past and ... with so much more riding on interviews and information from people versus machines and computers, you have to be able to speak to people very well and figure out who has information for your case and while I don’t think it’s a lost art -- we do have some people who do a fantastic job -- it was practiced more then and probably in some ways they were better at it than we are a profession now. 

Saul Jaeger: Another major difference is the prevalence of video cameras in our society. This wasn’t the case in 1985, but today, cameras are everywhere. 

Mike Canfield: Video surveillance today is dramatically better obviously now than it ever was before. And, it’s not just video surveillance at a store, but they’re everywhere. Front doors have cameras, people’s personal homes have cameras, bridge tolls have cameras. There are opportunities, and it’s not always recorded, but there are opportunities to gather visual data, video data, everywhere. 

It’s kind of like the old method -- they may have had to go interview dozens of people to get information when they really only needed to find the two. Now, we have to pour through tons of video data to find something that may or may not be relevant. So, we are out there scouring. And, I’m looking forward to technology that improves that.

Saul Jaeger: CODIS is an acronym for the Combined DNA Index System. It is a national database created in 1989 by the FBI. But that was just when it was created. It wasn’t until 1990 that the FBI actually began testing the system with a pilot program involving 14 state and local labs. But even then, the system wasn’t launched nationwide. It would require an act of Congress in 1994 to authorize the FBI to officially create a national DNA database of convicted offenders. It also allowed the FBI to create separate databases for missing persons and any forensic samples collected from crime scenes. So, nearly a decade later, the information needed to even remotely begin to narrow down who might have killed Saba was launched. 

Katie Nelson: But that would have only gotten investigators potential leads in California. It wasn’t until 1998 that the National DNA Index System was launched, which allowed investigators from different states to compare DNA information with one another – meaning if Saba’s killer was from somewhere other than California, the earliest the DNA could be tested and checked against other databases was nearly 15 years after she was killed. 

To add to that, quality assurance documents from the FBI were first issued 1998, four years after the program began testing, meaning that at least initially, the science and accuracy may not have been up to the standards we know today. It also means that over time, the system had to grow.

Saul Jaeger: Now, back to Sgt. Don McKay, to talk about DNA and its use in investigations around that time. 

Don McKay: We figured that we could use DNA in rape cases for you know pubic hairs and stuff like that, but that was what a rape kit was for. We didn’t have any really way to, if we had a suspect, tie him to the scene. We didn’t have any database. We couldn’t just plug something in and find out who the suspect was. That was nonexistent at that time. DNA was obviously in its infant stages, basically, in 85. 

Saul Jaeger: In a 2008 interview with the CBS news show, Eye to Eye, correspondents spoke with the FBI’s Bob Orr, about the bureau’s national DNA database. In this interview, he speaks about the importance of the collection of DNA, and why it is significant in investigations then and now. 

[[Eye to Eye interview plays]]

Saul Jaeger: And once again, Lt. Mike Canfield.

Mike Canfield: If there was, if things had maybe at the time had given more information as to who the suspect was, that vehicle I imagine would have been a very pivotal part of this investigation. 

And I would suspect that there was probably fiber evidence on our victim from that car, and probably even, I would bet, some DNA of her’s inside the vehicle as well. We believe she was assaulted inside of the vehicle. 

I would expect to see it in an atypical manner, you know in different locations than you would find in a normal car. 

Katie Nelson: Lt. Canfield mentioned a car. That means that Saba could have potentially been in more than one place between the time that she was assaulted and killed. How would officers in different jurisdictions communicate back in the 1980s? 

Mike Canfield: I imagine that detectives then were like the detectives now and they knew their peers and communicated regularly perhaps even moreso, because it was more difficult to share information.

Katie Nelson: In 1985, to share information, more often than not, detectives from surrounding jurisdictions would need to meet in person in order to share vital information regarding cases that they were investigating. Or, it was possible that they would share information by sending it through the mail, or by having carriers bring it from one department to another. 

But, this certainly added time to investigative loads, delaying expediency and possibly solving crimes. 

Today, however, things like emails, bulletins, and video conferencing and cell phone calls exponentially speed up the process. 

But, even in the midst of all this technology, tried and true practices like solid communication and information sharing is still vital to the success of any investigation. 

Mike Canfield: But now, our ability to share information has never been matched in history. It’s so easy to push out information, and request information, and share information, with our neighbors, with our neighboring law enforcement, and global law enforcement, that if somebody has information and they see that request, it’s a phenomenally great tool. 

And, it’s very easy for them to then share that information that they have with us. So not only can we ask, but we don’t have to worry about how we get a VHS tape from Florida to us. They can email it, they can Dropbox it, they can do a number of things for us to get this information while we log into their same portal they use to record it.

Saul Jaeger: Knowing all of this, comparing and contrasting investigative work in 1985 to that of the 21stcentury, was it possible that this case had a real shot at being solved? 

Before the 90s? Most likely? No. There were too many variables that had no hard foundation. By the time the investigation stalled four months after Saba was found, investigators had learned definitively she wasn’t from Mountain View, that she didn’t live in Mountain View at any point, and that she more than likely spent little, if any, time in the city. 

Also, we didn’t nearly have the reach and resources available that we do today, even in today’s high-tech investigative world, cases still take time, can be hard to track, and suspects can still evade capture. 

Katie Nelson: Speculative, for sure, but highly probable that we’re right about just how difficult this case was on investigators, given what they had to work with in the 1980s. 

But one thing we do know for certain – in 2008, a fortuitous decision to re-test DNA would change the course of this case forever. 

[[End episode]]

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Silicon Valley Beat: Major Crimes. For more details about our source material and where we found it, and for credit for the music in this episode, please visit the episode’s website at pippa.io.

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Source material utilized in this podcast

Research sourcing:

1. https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/spring-2010-searchlight-gray-areas/truth-machine
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Augustus_Larson
3. https://illumin.usc.edu/lie-detection-the-science-and-development-of-the-polygraph/
4. https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-lawyer/articles/the-ultimate-lie-detector/
5. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/detecting-lies-147115783/
6. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/07/killer-dna-evidence-genetic-profiling-criminal-investigation
7. https://books.google.com/?id=1eoyK2Ycj30C&lpg=PT103&dq=colin%20pitchfork%20wife%20%22social%20worker%22&pg=PT103#v=onepage&q=colin%20pitchfork%20wife%20%22social%20worker%22&f=false
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Pitchfork
9. https://www.policeone.com/crime-scene-investigation/articles/policing-30-years-ago-a-detective-visits-the-1980s-6xBl1uyjnr5Kczt5/
10. https://www.fbi.gov/services/laboratory/biometric-analysis/codis#CODIS-Overview
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_DNA_Index_System
12. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/qas-audit-for-forensic-dna-testing-laboratories.pdf/view

Music sourcing:

Interlude/interview background music: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAyFXPDUoPQ – MorningLightMusic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjoqx7wYbVw – MorningLightMusic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OnJidcj2CU – FesliyanStudios Background Music

Theme Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVl9frUzHsE – Over Time by Audionautix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjh0OGDt58I – AshamaluevMusic

Additional resourcing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRFlxRl_4_0&list=PL6loC0p5oW2EXXFiPnnj9rLl4DqFa-t4g&index=18 – Eye to Eye FBI and DNA Robots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwpTPAzgWjE – Science behind Polygraphs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhEAWPXqWn8 – True Crime Stories, the Story of Colin Pitchfork

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