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CORPUS DELICTI

A Corpus of Forensic Linguistics Cases

A Corpus of Forensic Linguistics Cases – Compiled by TFG STUDENTS AT THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT UGR

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FoLD: Forensic Linguistic Databank at Aston Institute

20 December, 2021 por Corpus Delicti Leave a Comment

The Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics (AIFL) has made publicly available its “Forensic Linguistic Databank” (F0LD),  a permanent, controlled access online repository for forensic linguistic data, including malicious communication data, investigative interview data, and forensic evidence validation data for both speech and text.

FoLD comprises a wide range of datasets with relevance to forensic linguistics and language and law, including commercial extortion letters, investigative interviews in police and other contexts, legal documents, forum posts from far-right online groups, and comment threads from political blogs.

The intention for the databank is to not only further academic research into forensic linguistics by developing new methods and approaches but also to directly contribute to impact in assisting the delivery of justice. Therefore, research projects using this data will validate methods for forensic analysis, further the effectiveness of interviewing techniques used by British police, and help tackle internet crime and abuse on behalf of law enforcement beneficiaries, such as the National Crime Agency.

Some recent additions to FoLD are:

  • The Shipman Inquiry ( the collection of all documents pertaining to the Shipman Inquiry, the trial for dr. Harold Fredrick Shipman, who was convicted at Preston Crown Court on 31 January 2000 of the murder of 15 of his patients and of one count of forging a will.
  • Pledges to Harm: 8 non-realized pledges to harm, where no real-world violence was attempted, totaling 1,552 words. 6 realized pledges to harm, where real-world violence was attempted, totaling 2,638 words. 10 of the 14 were authored between 2014-2016. The earliest text is from 1998. All are written in some variety of American English.
  • Threat letters transcribed data from the FBI: Vault (2021): Fifty threatening texts were obtained and transcribed from FBI vault.
  • Michelle Carter/Conrad Roy text messages: The series of text messages between Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy as submitted in evidence in the 2015-2017 trial ‘Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter’. Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The dataset includes references to suicide. The messages total 184 pages over 112 days (1st June 2014 to 21st September 2014).
  • Etc, Etc.

An invaluable resource to discover and document forensic linguistic cases: an absolute must for new TFGers.

Filed Under: News, Resources Tagged With: Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, Forensic Linguistics Databank

New podcast and documents released on the Unabomber case by James R. Fitzgerald

1 May, 2021 por BeatrizBN Leave a Comment

Hello everyone!

We have good news!

Through the “Forensic Linguistics” mailing list, we have been notified that James R. Fitzgerald (the forensic linguist and FBI agent who caught the Unabomber by analyzing his writings) has recently published a new podcast where he talks about the series/documentary on Netflix: “Manhunt: Unabomber”. Moreover, he has also released two of the official documents that were used to prove that Ted Kaczynski was the Unabomber, the person who wrote the “Unabomber Manifesto”. All this on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Ted’s arrest.

Thus, in that series the events that occurred between 1978 and 1998 are recounted. However, in the podcast, titled ” The Fitz Files – Manhunt: Unabomber”, Fitzgerald talks about the differences between reality and fiction, and he does so in eight episodes, as well as a prologue and a epilogue.

Here’s the link to his personal page with the links for the podcast episodes: https://www.jamesrfitzgerald.com/the-fitz-files-manhunt-unabomber/

In addition to the podcast, Fitzgerald also announced that he was going to publish two documents that were used for the arrest of the suspect. Thus, one was one of the documents written by Ted in 1971 (a 23-page document) and the other was the 47-page document/report/affidavit with the FBI Comparative Analysis between Ted’s writings and the Unabomber Manifesto, which was decisive to obtain the warrant for being able to search Kaczynski’s cabin.

Here is the link to episode seven of the podcast, where you will also find the two documents already mentioned: https://www.jamesrfitzgerald.com/the-fitz-files-manhunt-unabomber-episode-7-lincoln/

In addition to all this, Fitzgerald has also announced that he will donate all the Unabomber-related documents in his possession (about 6000 pages) to the California University of Pennsylvania. There, the documents will be digitized and made public for researchers.

This is great news for everyone interested in this famous and high-repercussion case. I also want to mention that I (Beatriz) am personally especially excited since it is a very good opportunity to expand and deepen more in this case. I leave you the link to the information that I have already published about it, so that you can take a look if you want, and it will soon be updated with this new information:

https://blogs.ugr.es/corpusdelicti/category/cases/unabomber/

 

Have a nice day!

Filed Under: Anonymous messages, Authorship attribution, Cases, News, Unabomber Tagged With: James D. Fitzgerald

RIP Ronald Butters, one important figure in Forensic Linguistics

24 April, 2021 por BeatrizBN Leave a Comment

Ronald Richard Butters (81) passed away in his home on April 6, 2021 after a long battle with cancer. 

– About the deceased: 

Ron was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in February 1940. After achieving his PhD at the University of Iowa, he moved to Durhan, NC, to begin his 40 years career at Duke University and held a joint appointment in the Cultural Anthropology Department at Duke. Following his retirement from Duke University in 2007, he developed a consulting firm called Trademark Linguistics and continued working in the field with many distinguished law firms.

– In his own words: 

“I concluded forty years of professional service in teaching and research at Duke University in September, 2007. For over twenty-five years I have consulted with law firms and served as an expert witness in matters concerning linguistics and the law, and I continue to offer my services as linguistic expert specializing in trademark issues (strenght of mark, likelihood of confusion, word history, dilution, putatively scandalous marks), interpretation of the language of contracts and statutes, allegations of defamation, verifiability of confessions and interrogations and the interpretation of linguistic evidence — spoken, written and electronic”.

At the invitation of the editors of the two Forensic Linguistics journals, Language and Law and IJSLL, Ed Finegan has written an affectionate and very informative obituary entitled ‘Remembering Ron Butters’.  This will be published in the next issue of both journals and will appear before that as a pre-print on the journals’ websites. You can access it here:   http://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/issue/view/694

– Some books and articles Butters wrote or contributed to: 

  • The Death of Black English: Divergence and Convergence in Black and White Vernaculars 
  • Displacing Homophobia 
  • “Forensic Linguistics“
  • Language Variety in the South Revisited

– Link to the video: “Ronald Butters on Forensic Linguistics”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLcBFSQvGnw&t=1s

– You can also access Ron’s entertaining piece ‘How I got started in forensic linguistics’, at:   http://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/issue/view/680

– Ohter links of interest: 

http://trademarklinguistics.com/Home.html

http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/English/faculty/amspeech 

http://www.forensiclinguistics.net/interviews-butters.html 

http://trademarklinguistics.com/Publications_and_Links_files/Butters_credentials.pdf 

http://trademarklinguistics.com/Publications_and_Links_files/LINGUISTIC%20LOOK%20AT%20TRADEMARK%20DILUTION.pdf 

http://trademarklinguistics.com/Publications_and_Links_files/Butters%20Imaginative%20Leaps%20COMPLETE.pdf 

http://trademarklinguistics.com/Publications_and_Links_files/Butters%20Plenary%20COMPLETE.pdf 

https://duke.academia.edu/RonaldButters

 

 

– Where we found this information:

– http://trademarklinguistics.com/Home.html

– https://www.clementsfuneralservice.com/obituaries/Dr-Ronald-Richard-Butters?obId=20872474

– Forensic Linguistics List

– The pictures are from “TrademarkLinguistics.com”, as well as the video link.

 

He will be missed. From the team of this blog, we send a message of support to his family, friends and faithful followers.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Ronald Butters

Was Montse Careta the real author of the anonymous letters? Watch this video to discover it!

22 April, 2021 por corpusdelicti Leave a Comment

Hello!

I am going to attach a short interwiew video about Helena Jubany’s case, in which two Spanish forensic linguists, Sheila Queralt and Rosé Ximénez, explain some of the linguistic features which have lead them to find out that Montse Careta, the teacher who was accused of the authorship of the anonymous letters she received, were not in reality written by her.

En el punto de mira: Nuevas pruebas del caso Helena Jubany – Cuatro

This is my first post, I hope you enjoy it and find it entartainig -it’s only 3 minutes!

Filed Under: Anonymous messages, Authorship attribution, Helena Jubany, News Tagged With: Rosé Ximénez, Sheila Queralt

New members of the Corpus Delicti Team

20 April, 2021 por Corpus Delicti Leave a Comment

Two new members have recently joined the Corpus Delicti Team of researchers.

Zayneb Dahhaoui (a.k.a. Yini) will be examining the case of Jonbénet Ramsey, an American child beauty queen who was killed at the age of six in her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado, where  a long handwritten ransom note was found, making this a perfect case for forensic linguists interested in authorship attibution.

 

Marta Gallardo Mora will be studying the case of Helena Jubany, a 7-year-old librarian who was found dead in Sabadell on 2 December 2001 after being thrown into an interior courtyard, naked and with several burns on her body; Helena had received mysterious “presents” which included hand-written notes. Marta will also address the “Prinzivalli case”, an airline employee, 39, who was arrested Feb. 16, 1984, while on duty at Pan Am’s cargo warehouse at Los Angeles International Airport, and charged by the Los Angeles County district attorney with making a series of false bomb threats to Pan Am flights.  Both cases involve authorship attribution but the triggering “documents” are of a different nature: hand-written notes vs telephone calls.

We can’t wait to see the promising results of our two new member’s investigations!!

Filed Under: Helena Jubany, Jonbénet Ramsey, News, Paul Prinzivalli, The Team Tagged With: Marta Gallardo Mora, Zayneb Dahhaoui

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