By Linda Shepard
C & G Staff Writer

PONTIAC — Today’s computer-generated data files take records to a new level. 

“We are now searching palm prints,” said Kurt Robinson, a laboratory specialist with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office. “Palm prints are dozens of times larger than fingerprints, are very distinctive and are at most crime scenes.” In addition, a new cyanoacrylate fuming chamber allows latent prints to develop on objects, prints that otherwise would not be available.

Robinson was one of several Sheriff’s Office officials leading tours of the department’s newly refurbished facilities in Pontiac April 20. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard opened the doors of the county’s forensic science laboratories to guests.

Forensic artist Barbara Martin Bailey demonstrated three-dimensional facial reconstruction techniques done by utilizing postmortem photographs and X-rays. “I’ll go to the crime scene and do drawings,” she said. Often, she is asked to render age progressions to update missing person reports and update wanted fugitive photographs.

Bailey has been with the Sheriff’s Office for 39 years. “I started in 1968, combining art and science when no one thought it could be done,” she said.

Nearby, Crash Reconstruction Unit Deputy Robert Batzloff explained how his department determines the causes of traffic accidents. “We can download everything and make it 3-D,” he said, demonstrating through photographs a sequence of events surrounding a crash.

Automobile crashes are an all-too-common occurrence. “At Rochester Road and Auburn Road, it seems like there is an accident every day,” Batzloff said. 

In the “shooting room,” forensic lab specialist John Jacobs tests ammunition matches. Double microscopes examine minute ridges to find cartridges that held the same type of bullets.

“The only thing we don’t do here is DNA testing,” Jacobs said. “I wish we had it.” A new DNA lab has a price tag of several million dollars, Jacobs said. Currently, the Sheriff’s Office sends its DNA samples to the Michigan State Police laboratory in Northville, which usually has a lengthy backlog of cases to process.

Testing of illegal and controlled drugs is done in the Sheriff’s Office laboratory. “We test visible powder residue,” forensic chemist Rachel Topacio said. “Over 90 percent of our currency has drug traces on it.” Cocaine users use paper money, rolled up, and dealers also fold money into envelopes to hold drugs, she said.

The laboratory also sees many controlled drugs come through — mainly Vicodin, Oxycontin, Xanex and Tylenol 3. “But the main thing we see is marijuana,” Topacio said.

A narcotics enforcement team display was also exhibited during the tour. In 2006, Oakland County Sheriff’s Office narcotics enforcement team members seized more than $10 million in cocaine, crack cocaine, marijuana, heroin, ecstasy and other dangerous drugs.

The county also boasts of a mobile crime laboratory that responds to any crime scene, civil disorder, drowning or death investigation. The mobile laboratory can collect and tag evidence, photograph and videotape the crime scene, and remove evidence collected for analysis. Crime scene response analysts evaluate, collect and process evidence, interpret bloodstain patterns and reconstruct crime scenes.

“The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office is one of the largest full-service law enforcement organizations in the nation,” Bouchard said. “Providing services to all residents within our borders of over 910 miles, the Sheriff’s Office is the sole provider of patrol and law enforcement services for over 275,000 of those residents through law enforcement contracts in 15 different communities.”

Rochester Hills and Oakland Township currently contract with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office and have substations within their communities.

A crowd of county officials and media traveled through the laboratories and displays in the Sheriff’s Office building near the Oakland County Circuit Court, off of Telegraph Road.

Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson joined the group of impressed visitors. “I don’t think the bad guys have much of a chance with all this technology,” Johnson said.

You can reach Linda Shepard at lshepard@candgnews.com or at  (586) 498-1065.