SERIAL KILLERS & BRAIN FINGERPRINTING TESTING

Think of this as a 21st century lie detector test.

Brain Fingerprinting is an exciting and strange tool for law enforcement. It has been tested for some 20 years can be/has been admitted as scientific evidence in court.

When you've done something, the memory of that thing is in your brain. It's there and it's one aspect of a larger brain-wave response that was named and patented, called MERMER, memory and encoding related multifaceted electroencephalographic response – and there is a way for law enforcement to 'see' it. Dr. Lawrence Farwell is the inventor of Brain Fingerprinting technology.

So you might wonder what if someone read about a crime in the paper or saw a newscast, if they were questioned what would happen. It turns out that general knowledge wouldn't interfere with the test because investigators would ask questions that only someone at the crime scene would actually know. This test will determine if specific information is in the brain, but it can't tell how that information got there, like fingerprints at a scene.

If a tested person knows about the crime because they were a witness then the police still have work to do in finding out why the person was there. It wouldn't necessarily prove that the person did the deed, but it would say that they were at least a witness (suspect).

The closer in time from the crime to the testing is best, because then there is less time to hear the news and read the papers.

There is a headband with a strip going down the front with sensors, flashing words on a computer screen and that's it. Brain fingerprinting records how your brain reacts to words and images related to a crime, ones only the killer would recognize. If the person being tested was there, the brain tells, it can't help but tell, it can't lie.

Here is a test you can try. When people look at someone they know their eyebrows jump up slightly. Try it, it really works. We have reactions, and that is what the brain is doing when it sees the pictures, it's an, 'ah ha, I remember that!' It is an involuntary response that happens very quickly, you cannot control it.

Dr. Farwell conducted a Brain Fingerprinting test on Terry Harrington, who was serving a life sentence in Iowa for a 1977 murder. The test showed that the record stored in Harrington's brain did not match the crime scene and did match the alibi. Harrington filed a petition for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, including the Brain Fingerprinting test. On February 26, 2003 the Iowa Supreme Court reversed his murder conviction and ordered a new trial. In October 2003, the State of Iowa elected not to re-try Mr. Harrington.

Brain Fingerprinting testing also helped to bring serial killer J. B. Grinder to justice fifteen years after the commission of the crime. The Brain Fingerprinting test administered to Grinder found that the specific details of the crime were recorded in his brain as “information present,” with a statistical confidence level of 99.9%. This means that the record stored in Grinder’s brain matched the details of the crime scene of the murder of Julie Helton.

Following the test results, Grinder faced an almost certain conviction and probable death sentence. Grinder pled guilty to the rape and murder of Julie Helton in exchange for a life sentence without parole. He is currently serving that sentence. In addition, Grinder then confessed to the unsolved murders of several other young women.

On March 5, 2002 Pottawattamie County District Court Judge Tim O'Grady ruled that Brain Fingerprinting testing is admissible in court. Brain Fingerprinting testing is a technological breakthrough that will have a profound impact on the criminal justice system. The Iowa Supreme Court left undisturbed the law of the case establishing the admissibility of the Brain Fingerprinting evidence.

Dr. Farwell told Mike Wallace in an interview on CBS 60 Minutes, “Brain Fingerprinting is a scientific technique for determining whether certain information is stored in the brain or not by measuring brain waves, electrical brain activity. The fundamental difference between an innocent person and a guilty person is that a guilty person, having committed the crime, has the record stored in his brain. Now we have a way to measure that scientifically.”

In over 100 actual real-life situations, Brain Fingerprint technology was effective. And to date they have never gotten a wrong answer.

It's still controversial, but then everything that's in place now for law enforcement was at one time controversial. In time we will probably get used to having this technology around and it quite possibly will save innocent people from being executed or spending their lives in prison.

Dr. Farwell has even offered $100,000 to anyone who can fool the system, and so far nobody has.