Henry Lee (forensic scientist)

For other people named Henry Lee, see Henry Lee (disambiguation).
Dr. Henry C. Lee
Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Safety
In office
1998–2000
Personal details
Born (1938-11-22) November 22, 1938
Rugao, Republic of China
Nationality American
Alma mater Central Police College (Police Science)
John Jay College (B.S.)
New York University (M.S., Ph.D.)
University of New Haven (Honorary Degree)
Occupation Forensic Scientist

Henry Chang-Yu Lee (Chinese: 李昌鈺; pinyin: Lǐ Chāngyù; born 22 November 1938), is a Chinese-born American forensic scientist. He is one of the world's foremost forensic scientists and founder of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science.

Early life and career

The eleventh of thirteen children, Lee was born in Rugao city, Jiangsu province, mainland China, and fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s. His father, who was traveling separately from the rest of the family, perished when the passenger ship Taiping sank on 27 January 1949. Growing up fatherless, Lee never aspired to attend university; instead, he went on to graduate in 1960 from the Central Police College[1] with a degree in Police Science. (Central Police College is a "service academy" in Taiwan, and it is tuition-free, with living stipend provided.) Lee then began his work with the Taipei Police Department, where he rose to the rank of captain at age 25, the youngest in Taiwanese history. He later immigrated to the U.S. with his wife in 1965.

In 1972, after coming to the United States to pursue his education, he earned a B.S. in Forensic Science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He went on to study science and biochemistry at New York University and earned his M.S. in 1974 and Ph. D. in Biochemistry in 1975.

Career

Current career

Lee is currently the Chief Emeritus for Scientific Services for the State of Connecticut and an occasional lecturing professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven, where he has helped to set up the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science and he is also a visiting professor at the East China University of Political Science and Law. Previously, he had served as Connecticut's Commissioner of Public Safety, the Director of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory, and as the state’s chief criminalist from 1979 to 2000.

Lee currently resides in Connecticut with his wife Margaret, whom he married in 1962.

He currently has a TV show on the truTV network, formerly Court TV, titled Trace Evidence: The Case Files of Dr. Henry Lee, which highlights his work on many well-known cases.

He has been a guest on the hit Taiwanese talk show KangXi Lai Le, discussing his experiences and getting involved with comedic banters, the show's primary staple.

Famous cases

He has worked on famous cases such as the JonBenét Ramsey murder case, the Helle Crafts woodchipper murder, the O.J. Simpson and Laci Peterson cases, the post-9/11 forensic investigation, the Washington, DC sniper shootings and reinvestigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Lee investigated the 3-19 Shooting Incident of R.O.C. President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu.

Following the O.J. Simpson case, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr hired Lee to join his investigation of the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, who killed himself in Fort Marcy Park on 20 July 1993.

He also was consulted on the 1991 death of investigative journalist Danny Casolaro. Initially, Lee said the evidence presented to him by police was consistent with suicide, but when additional evidence was revealed to him a few years later, Lee formally withdrew his earlier statement.

Lee was consulted as a blood spatter analyst during the trial of Michael Peterson, a fiction writer and politician from North Carolina who, in 2003, was convicted of the murder of his wife, Kathleen Peterson.

In 2008, Lee was involved in the early stages of investigation for the missing Orlando toddler, Caylee Anthony.[2]

Controversy

On May 23, 2007, Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, the judge in the Phil Spector murder trial, said that he had concluded Lee hid or accidentally destroyed a piece of evidence from the scene of actress Lana Clarkson's shooting.[3][4]

References

  1. ↑ About Central Police College
  2. ↑ Orlando Sentinel, November 15, 2008
  3. ↑ Judge in Spector trial rules defense expert Dr. Henry Lee hid or destroyed evidence on CourtTVnews.com
  4. ↑ "Is He Lying or Is He Incompetent?" – Judge Fidler ruled that defense criminalist Dr. Henry Lee had withheld evidence from prosecutors

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry Lee (forensic scientist).
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, April 07, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.