#WHATSHAPPENING / #TrueCrimeTuesday

#WHATSHAPPENING / #TCT – AI Proves Fingerprints are not unique, upending the legal system.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to kf
I AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I mean I did never ever watch the show. But
was that Game of Thrones Elmer?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Okay, yes, no, yes, well of course we were just
talking about the dire Wolves.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
No, I know, I.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
So mad.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
I'm sorry. What's going on with you? Do I really? Yeah?
Is it the open toad shoes thing that I'm the
comment that I made? No?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Sure, yeah, No, everything's fine. Sure sounds like it did.
Is it just the thing about your clothes?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Is that my thing? Hey?

Speaker 5 (00:40):
Gary, this is Tim from Orange. I take care of
a wealthy family live on a ranch in Texas, and
they travel all over the world and I handle all
their fun and their toys.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
No, that's cool.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
I get paid one thousand dollars a day.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
All year long. Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:00):
I handle their surcinge trips and their equipment for Baja,
the handle their skis when they're in Montana, etc.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Thing that sounds awful. Oh you think it sounds good
for a thousand bucks a day. I just want to
feel their skis for their trip to Montana. That'd be Okay, yeah,
I guess I just wouldn't feel great about it. It's
not like something you feel good about at the end
of the day. Would you would you.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Allow your husband to pack for you for a trip,
Yeah you would, Yeah, you'd feel comfortable that he'd probably
do a much better job.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Really, why my wife would never She.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Would never allow you to pack for her.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Huh, No, that would not happen. What would you pack?

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Well, I would pack the normal things, pants and tops
and bottoms. But you're well, difference, there's another there's like
the external bag, the bathroom bag. Well, but your wife's fashionable.
All my husband would have to do is pack me
a couple pairs of jeans and a couple of black
tank tops and call it a day. She has like outfits.

(02:15):
I do not, so it's much easier. He also would
take me to places like tent cabins at Yosemite. You
know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
She's trying. It's really really not that hard to pack
for our trips. What else is going on? Time for
what's happening?

Speaker 1 (02:35):
The Department of Justice is getting involved, going to form
a task for us to investigate fraud, waste, abuse, and
corruption involving homeless dollars here in southern California. This, guys,
this is gonna get crazy. We saw this coming. We've
talked to Michael Monks about it before. When that federal
judge a week or so ago had Karen Bass and

(02:57):
the board of supervisors his chambers and said, y'all are
doing this wrong, and I'm going to get to the
bottom of it. We knew that this would all unravel,
that the fraud and the waste and all the money
that we've pointed to the homeless problem as taxpayers, that
this was gonna come to some sort of big deal,
big snowball rolling down the mountain.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
And the new US Attorney Bill A Sale says California
spent more than twenty four billion dollars over the last
five years to address homelessness, but officials have been unable
to account for all of the expenditures and outcomes, and
the homeless crisis has only gotten worse.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
So good, I'm glad people are looking into this. I
don't care if they're doing it for their own political advancement.
Just find out where this money is going and who
and who it's going to.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Leno's Law is moving its way through Sacramento. Jay Leno,
of course, famous auto enthusiast and longtime talk show host
and comedian, he wants to see some smog checks eliminated
for classic cars right now. Collect cars that are at
least thirty five years old are currently exempt from portions

(04:03):
of smog test, but this new bill introduced by Senator
Shannon Grove would do away with the acquirement requirement for
vehicles to be tested biennially or when transferred to a
new owner. This would be a collector motor vehicle owned
by a collector that is used primarily in shows, parades,
charitable functions, and historical historical exhibitions for display, maintenance and preservation,

(04:26):
not primarily for transportation. According to Shannon Grove's office, Jay
Leno's going to participate in the event today.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
A Venarian in Vegas is missing following a viral video
that shows this guy kicking a horse's head. I saw
that doctor Sean Frainer was paid to administer anesthesic anesthesi
anesthesic anesthetic.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Anesthetic that was painful.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'm sorry you needed anesthetic to get through it. Shots
for some horses at a a property in Pahrump.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Is that where the all the hookers are. I think
there are some there, let's see.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Shaana gonzalez Is, the property owner, said she used this
vet services since August twenty twenty four, but was shocked
at what she heard as she walked back from the
chicken coop. She said she heard, I heard my mother yell,
oh my god, he just kicked him. Runs to her
mother's window, looks out, but doesn't see anything but the
young colt struggling to breathe. Oh my god, mom, he's choking.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
She said.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
He wrapped the horse around his neck three times and
he kicked him in the head.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Explain what the guy was doing. The video was shared online.
It's not this spurt to post from him, he said.
I did not blatantly haul off and kick this horse
as it appears in the video.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
That was not my intention.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
It was done simply to get the horse in a
better position so that he could breathe and get up
and move, so I could so I could again try
who a nestetize.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Anyway, he's nowhere to be found, because well, you can't
just go kicking horses in the head.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
People are going to come after you. That's right. We
got this story about the woman found alive in the
in the woods.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Oh, the Michigan woman who like lived off the land
for a few days.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
I could do that.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
I love those stories.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
You could, I think. So, you know, your outfit's great, right,
stop it?

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Okay, it's only because it's totally fine that it's funny
that I made a joke about it, is it?

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Because like if if it's out of the Gary will continue.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
It's like such a bro's bro Oh yeah, you know,
high fives.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
All.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, we're talking about love on the spectrum. And I
was telling Gary that the more I watch it, the
more it feeds into my spectrum tendencies.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
It'll get in there, it does, it'll worm around that head.
Trump and his tariffs have taking a bull stock market.
They said that they are now on the precipice of
turning into a bear market faster than any president has
overseen in modern history.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
We will see how that goes.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about four hundred
and eleven points right now.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Nasdaq has slipped a little more.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
It's down about two percent, as is the NASDAC and gold,
sorry oil prices. Oil prices have now slipped below sixty
dollars below fifty nine dollars a barrel for the first
time in a long time.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
The IRS is agreeing to help ICE find illegal immigrants
by sharing information with the agency. Court documents show the
IRS will provide the Department of Homeland Security with information
for migrants who are either under federal investigation or are
already facing deportation. But what a slippery slope the IRS

(08:03):
had worn the Trump administration. The plan to use it
for information could be illegal, certainly if it's information where
and I'm no immigration attorney, but certainly or an attorney
at all, But certainly if it's somebody who's not under
federal investigation or not already facing deportation. And even then

(08:24):
that's that's a dicey line to dance. Yeah, I'm surprised
that's not getting more attention. Would you like your jeopardy question?
We could do that, Okay, what kind of animals do
you like? And what kind of animals are your least favorite?

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Just kidding, I'll tell you which was. I don't like
I don't like porcupines, I don't like fevers, I don't
go on what don't you like? I don't like spiders.
You don't like spiders. I don't like spiders. And I
don't like an animal that I.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Don't like some spiders and a steaks. And I don't
like rats, but I used to not like rats more
and I like them now because I think there's one
that lives in my house.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
I don't like to be surprised by animals.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
I don't either animals I don't like, I like all
the other I don't like to be surprised by animals either.
Sometimes I think about if there was a bear in
the backyard, how i'd like it, but that if it
surprised me, I wouldn't like it.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Got that far off. It's pretty close.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Women right on wrig Ver six hundred dollars right answer.
Things were hopping for this author after she published The
Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Who is Beatrix Potter? Good job? Your mother would be proud.
Nancy Bloomquist was missing. Yes.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Nancy Bloomquist was last seen at the Little River Casino,
about ninety five miles north of Norton Shores in Michigan
Thursday night. Few hours for nightfall, she decided she was
gonna drive home.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Wait, she had a couple of cocks. I don't know,
I don't know. In my story, she has gone.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Nancy said, oh my gosh, it's time to go home.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
She's from the South. Oh gosh, got her. Oh boy,
it's time dog go home.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
She's having like Val Kilmer a little bit in the
first go.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
She's so, she jumps in her twenty twenty four gmc
terrain not to brag, and drives home. However, she gets
lost on a private road and her almost brand new
vehicle becomes disabled.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Oh yeah, what am I gonna do now? Oh boy?

Speaker 2 (10:47):
So overnight Thursday into Friday again Michigan rain and freezing temperatures.
In fact, in the stretch between Thursday and Sunday, a
front produced rain and light snow. Overnight lows dipped into
the twenty degree area.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Twenty two was the low.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
You see Nancy's driver license picture. No, I'm a sturdy woman.
She looks exactly like she sounds in your story. So
the Mason County Sheriff's office is I think a linebacker,
but short blonde bob.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Okay, all right, that is not what I was expecting.
But linebacker.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
But Nancy is a lady Nancy fled the vehicle after
it erupted in flames, but tried to return because she
had apparently left her phone inside. Oh crap and a half,
I forgot my phone. So the Mason County sheriff said
the SUV may have ignited after its engine was exhausted

(11:50):
in an effort to get traction off road in the
weather that the sheriff described as life threatening. Nancy got
lost as she was trying to return to her car,
and because of the rain and the debilitating cold, her
body locked up.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Maybe it was because she was.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
A backup tight end for the University of Michigan for
three and a half years. But she sought shelter next
to a tree that she pushed over. Sorry the tree
had already fallen, But I.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Don't think backups are that big.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
She found college level maybe not, but it's Division one.
I mean, Michigan's got a good program. She sought shelter
next to a downtree. She apparently stayed there for three
days until she was discovered by a search team on
Sunday after a drone spotter. Sheriff said that Nancy was conscious.
She spoke to arriving deputies where the hell have you
guys been?

Speaker 1 (12:45):
She said she had eaten three of the town's children.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
She was taken to hospital and treated for exposure.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
I love stories where people just survive, Like whether it's
a car crash and they're just in like a ravine
for the year five or seven days, or on a
heke and they get lost in drink water. It's just
it's amazing. Remember that woman who was in that crash
and she like used her sweatshirt to like soak up
the water and then drink from it. I just get

(13:15):
I mean, I give up sometimes inside my home, next
to the refrigerator.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Sometimes on the two ten when traffic slows down, just whatever,
take me.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Come on, Lord, where's the asteroid? Bring on?

Speaker 1 (13:27):
My dinosaur wears my t rex?

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Hey, crap and a half. I like that.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Saving that's saying, oh, crap and a half.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Well, that was Nancy's. Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
I would never think of something like that. Nancy, She's oh, yeah,
she did. Oh crap and a half. That is a
dude wearing a wig, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
I don't know what Nancy's journey is back all right,
but I did do an extensive Google search with that
question in mind came out with nothing because you know what,
Nancy Bloomquist, she's the kind of person who doesn't like
to make a big deal out of it. If Nancy,
if Nancy was born George, we would never know because

(14:15):
she doesn't like to make a big deal out of it.
She's like, give me my wig and let me get
lost in the woods.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
The True Crime Tuesday story that we have is an
interesting look at how technology has changed criminal investigations.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
We'll talk about how.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
AI is making Oh sorry here, No, No, that's fine,
everything's fine.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
I don't hear it. I didn't hear that at all.
Were you clicking your pen the whole time?

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Does that bother you all the time? Is that one
of your triggers? No?

Speaker 3 (14:41):
In fact, I don't think I ever hear I do
it too.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Unfortunately, I know that I put my headphones back on.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Some foreign leaders have been frustrated, although administration if A
have now said that there phones have arguably been ringing
off the hook. Where other countries have come in and
asked to negotiate so that we can avoid a worldwide
trade war. That could erupt, but as of right now,
China is still the biggest player in all of this.

(15:21):
Trump administration is also touting a Supreme Court ruling that
will allow it to resume deportations under the Alien Enemies
Act as a major victory, but pretty far from over.
The divided court found that Trump can use the eighteenth
century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants accused of being
gang members to this prison at El Salvator El Salvador.

(15:42):
That is, the justice has also decided people accused of
being members of the trendy Aragua gang do have to
get a chance to challenge their removals, finding that their
lawyers said was an important victory. In all of this.
We've talked about true crime stories a lot. We talk
about we talk about different ways that cases can be

(16:03):
built against people. One of those main ways for the
last one hundred years or so the cases have been
built against criminals is fingerprints.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
That's where we start True Crime Tuesday.

Speaker 5 (16:17):
The story is true, sounds true?

Speaker 3 (16:21):
No, it sounds made up. I don't know. Garry and
Shannon present True Crime.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
The science of fingerprinting. The pattern matching of fingerprinting started
back in the eighteen seventies, a guy named Henry Folds,
a Scottish medical missionary who was serving in Japan, started
thinking about fingerprints, and while he was on an archaeological
expedition with a friend, he noticed that there was a
print on a clay relic and he reminded him of

(16:53):
some stories he'd heard about merchants, Chinese merchants who were
using fingerprints to sign contracts, And he said, our fingerprints
really as unique as we think they are.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
So he started recording fingerprints using a method called nature printings.
Botanists use this to document plant leaves. You may have
seen this. So he smeared thin coats of printer's ink
over a tin plate and carefully pressed the finger print
of a fingertip of a volunteer onto the blotch, then

(17:26):
transfer their ink finger onto a piece of paper. Now,
not much has changed since good old Henry's experience in
the nineteen seventies or eighteen seventies. Excuse me, that sounds
exactly like they do it, at least in the shows
that the police departments.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Sure, I mean, now, if you need to get fingerprinted,
they can do. You know, you throw your thumb print
down on a glass and they can scan the fingerprint
that way. That's that's probably the most advanced that they've
gotten when it comes to fingerprints. But over the next
decade or so, again we're talking about the eighteen seventies
eighteen eighties, he made thousands of these prints. He even

(18:02):
enlisted the staff of a hospital in Tokyo. Each fingerprint
that he captured appeared to be unique, and this is
probably just as important. It maintained its distinct pattern over time,
so as a kid got older, that pattern of loops
and whirls in that individual fingerprint never changed.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
So his extensive and detailed collection of these fingerprints would
become a key piece of evidence. Tokyo police was investigating
a break in at the same hospital where he worked,
and authorities identified one of Henry's own employees as a suspect,
and had even discovered sooty fingerprints that the intruder had

(18:48):
left on a wall. So that employee, it turned out,
had provided his fingerprints for Henri's study earlier. And when
the police compared the ones from the wall to the
suspects and so they have the wrong person.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
The Prince not a match.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Well now, and this was exciting for the doctor. His
collection could be used to help solve crimes. Bloody finger
marks or impressions on clay or glass, whatever, they may
lead to the scientific identification of criminals. This is a
letter that he wrote published in the journal Nature way
back when on the skin furrows of the hand. If
you're interested, you can go back and look it up.

(19:25):
But he said, there can be no doubt as to
the advantage of having besides their photographs, a Nature copy
of the forever unchanging finger furrows of important criminals. So
he asked other scientists. He thought that this was going
to be a major breakthrough and asked other scientists to
help publicize his findings. Sent observations and classification system for

(19:48):
fingerprints too, you know a guy named Charles Darwin. Charles
Darwin then shared it with his cousin, the mathematics mathematician
Francis Galton, and he saw their potential of fingerprints to
help solve crimes. He decided to help develop a system
to classify and to analyze them.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Birds of a feather, kids, this is why you should
have friends that are smart, because then you too will
be smart. He was the only person Henry studying fingerprints
around the same time, there was William Herschel. He was
a German born British astronomer. Astronomerscuse me, working in India
had long kept fingerprints, records of them, began using them

(20:25):
to seal contracts. And then Galton the mathematician collected the
findings of fields in Herschel and in eighteen ninety two
published his own classification system. So anyway, that was a hit,
and then it became widely publicized that this was a thing.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
There are some problems with fingerprinting, However, the loops and
the whirls and the arches can shrink the pool of
possible matches to somebody, but they're not nearly enough for
an identification for some people. The second level of analysis
includes the ridges of a print.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
For every partial fingerprint found at a crime scene, you
can find an expert witness that will take the sand
and tell you that that fingerprint is not reliable. Well, now,
not only will you have the advice of whatever expert
witness was handsomely paid by the defense to take the
stand and tell you that fingerprint evidence was not reliable.

(21:24):
AI has stepped into the conversation and says that fingerprints
are not unique. How will this affect cases in the
future and retroactively, Perhaps that will be up next.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty stories.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
We're following for you today, of course, Keeping and I
on the stock market. US stocks dove today after a
second day reversals. Good morning, and then fear at the
close because we still don't or Wall Street still doesn't
have any idea what to make of what's going on
with tariffs. Yesterday we kind of saw a turnaround after

(22:11):
their rumor came out that the administration was thinking about a.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Pause in the tariffs.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
China came back hard hitting yesterday into this morning. Now
we know about the fight between Peter Navarro, the trade
advisor to Trump, and Elon Musk. So there's a lot
of uncertainty, and we know one thing for sure, the
stock market does not enjoy uncertainty.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Sports wise, Angels are in Tampa to take on the Rays.
Four or five first pitch today. Dodgers lost to the
Nationals last night, six to four, but they will play
again tonight three forty five.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
First pitch.

Speaker 5 (22:48):
So hey, Gary and Shannon is Karen, Yes, the clicking
of the pen super annoying.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
And that's all I heard.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
I have annoyed.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
It was Gary was saying.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
And then also, Gary, can you talk like you're drunk
all the time.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
It kills me and just makes my day better. Okay, okay,
they that is.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
My wife says that she can never tell, she can
never tell when I've had too much a drink ever,
vocally like that.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
I don't. I don't slur my words.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Or part of it is that you don't speak.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
That's part of it, because I'm super self conscious of that.
If I ever start to feel like, you know what,
that was probably one too many and I'm going to
start slurring my words here, I'll use words with hard consonants,
and that's it. You don't start with a year or
a You got to start with a or a.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Or just knowing that alone is you're already a head
of the game.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
The game fingerprint. I was just going to give you that. Oh,
thank you. I knew a lot about fingerprints that you
just educated me. Thank you so much, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Buckle up, Buttercup, because it's gonna to get a little
bit more interesting. So we're talking about fingerprint analysis for
true crime Tuesday right. Long been one of the benchmarks
of a crime scene investigation is looking for fingerprints, and
there has been a belief since fingerprinting began basically one

(24:18):
hundred and fifty years ago, that individuals you and I,
on our individual fingers have different fingerprints. For example, if
I leave my thumb print on a glass and they
are searching for my index finger print, that those things
will not match.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
So that would be.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
You could not pin me at the crime scene because
my thumb print wouldn't match my index fingerprint. So an
undergraduate senior at Columbia Engineering named Gabe gwo put together
a study where he fed into this thing about sixty
into a database about sixty thousand fingerprints, and there were

(25:05):
certain pairs of fingerprints that did belong to the same
person from different fingers, but that they belonged to the
same person. The AI system was able to tell at
a surprisingly high rate when prints that looked different actually
came from the same person, so that you would be

(25:25):
able to tell from a thumb print what the index
print looked like or which of those was the match
from the same person. And that's just with sixty thousand fingerprints.
They're saying now imagine how specific and how accurate it

(25:47):
would be if it had access to millions of fingerprints
and not just tens of thousands.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
This is a problem when it comes to the peer
review process. This was rejected this project by a well
established forensics journal did not accept the suggestion that different
fingers might produce prints with shared characteristics. The paper was

(26:14):
turned away again when it went to get a second opinion.
So to speak, this is more than one hundred years
of accepted practice that you're trying to disrupt and overturn.
But it was finally recognized. The study was and published
and the peer reviewed journal Science Advances. So reticent to

(26:36):
change the scientific community is, but nevertheless open to the possibility.
It's funny that the scientific community would push back on
something like this.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
They don't like to be proven wrong.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
But that's the whole point of science is to then
ask the questions of is this right? Does this work?
Can we make it better? All of those things right?
And if I die is going to help us do that,
then that's that's probably a good use of it.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
I wonder what you would say about this if you
were drunk.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
I would say I would say that the if you
if you get your stop looking at my fingers.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
I don't know what I would say.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Drunk, Well, you're your fake drunk person? Is not you drunk,
it's a different person. No, I like him. He's fun
I'm smarter, you're smarter?

Speaker 4 (27:30):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Or is that the drunk guy saying he's smarter, I'm smarter?
Why is that so funny?

Speaker 4 (27:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
John Cobelt always coming up next. We'll see you tomorrow.
Stay drive everybody, blessings. You've been listening to The Gary
and Shannon Show, you can always hear us live on
KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every
Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio
ap