Forensic Investigations

Dr. Edmond Locard’s Exchange Principle states, “Any action of an individual, and obviously the violent action constituting a crime, cannot occur without leaving a trace.” It is hard to say Locard’s Exchange Principle was not disregarded. After three months of expert investigation it was found that the DNA evidence that was discovered at the scene did not belong to Jennifer or Noura. Also Noura’s own DNA was not found at all at the scene of the crime. It is very hard to understand how Noura could have made extreme violent contact with her mother and not left any fingerprints, footprints, hair, skin cells, blood, bodily fluids, pieces of clothing or fibers behind. This lack of traces evidence sets off two different paths in my mind. One way leads you down a road of pure hatred for a parent. Everyone was felt this way one time or another in their life, where a disagreement or argument over something that is usually aimed at protecting the youth, leads to a massive outburst or feeling of rage, that is always immediately followed by guilt or remorse by a normal human being. But what happens when this rage affects a “not so normal” child. One with malice aforethought, that is just so tired of being controlled that they premeditate a murder and thoroughly clean any trace of evidence. The other path is the road Noura’s defense took. She is irrefutably innocent and Jennifer’s killer/killers are still on the loose.
It is easy to look back and ask yourself how the jury could overlook such a lack of physical trace evidence and convict a daughter of committing matricide. But the act of killing one’s mother is not a very common crime. In fact, it only makes up about 2% of the convicted murders in the United States, and is even more rare for that act to be committed by the daughter. So the jurors had to weigh these questions of right and wrong, and fact or fiction, off the feelings they had when they heard the stories of the defense and the prosecution. The incriminating