Brain
Fingerprinting Testing
Traps Serial Killer in Missouri
By Beth Dalbey Ledger News
Editor
THE TRUTH
SHALL SET YOU FREE -- In this case, it was
the truth that convicted suspected serial
rapist and murderer James B. Grinder, right.
The test conducted by Fairfield scientist
Dr. Farwell, left, identified Grinder as the
rapist and murderer of Julie Helton in Macon
County, Missouri, 15 years ago.
Brain
Fingerprinting Testing
Traps Serial Killer in Missouri
Technology developed by a Fairfield
entrepreneur tied a tidy bow around a
15-year-old murder case in Missouri earlier
this month.
The brainchild of Lawrence Farwell,
Brain Fingerprinting is a computer-based
technology to identify the perpetrator of a
crime accurately and scientifically by
measuring brain-wave responses to
crime-relevant words or pictures presented on
a computer screen.
Macon County, Mo., Sheriff Robert
Dawson said the state had a strong case
against James B. Grinder, 53, in the Jan.7,
1984, abduction, rape and murder of Julie
Helton, a 25-year-old Marceline, Mo., woman
who worked at a book-publishing company. Her
badly beaten body was discovered four days
after the murder near a railroad track in
Macon, the county seat of Macon County.
Grinder, a wood-cutter who had lived
in Arkansas before moving to Macon a few years
before the crime, has been "a suspect for
years," Dawson said. In 1993, court-ordered
blood samples were taken from Grinder and
another suspect - Wilford Swank, a former
Macon city policeman free on bond as he awaits
trial for first-degree murder - but at the
time, there wasn't enough evidence to indict
them.
Grinder and Swank were arrested in
March 1998 when Grinder was released from
prison, where he had served time on an
unrelated charge. Granger had confessed his
involvement, but authorities wanted to make
sure "we had the right guy," Dawson said.
Dawson recalled news coverage of
Farwell's patented technique and gave the
founder of Brain Wave Science and the Human
Brain Research Laboratory in Fairfield a call.
On Aug.5, Farwell tested Grinder's brain for a
memory of the 15-year-old murder.
"There is no question that J. B.
Grinder raped and murdered Julie Helton,"
Farwell said after the test. "The significant
details of the crime are stored in his brain."
For investigators Brain
Fingerprinting testing provided a measure of
reassurance.
"I think she was planning on
pleading guilty, but the test confirmed to us
that we had the right guy," said Dawson. "He
told us prior to testing he had committed the
crime, but we were trying to verify that."
On Aug. 11, 6 days after crime-scene
specific messages were flashed before him,
Grinder pleaded guilty to first-degree murder
in 44th Judicial Circuit Court. He was
sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole, and was immediately
transported to Arkansas, where he is a suspect
in the murders of three other young women.
Farwell's technology had proven 100
percent reliable in more than 120 tests on FBI
agents, tests for a U.S. intelligence agency,
and for the US Navy, and test on real-life
situations, including actual crimes.
"The accuracy rate so
far has been 100 percent," Farwell said.
"All scientists know nothing is ever 100
percent, so I don't tout it as 100 percent
accurate technology, but I do have high
statistical confidence in it."
The Grinder case was "the first time
I've been called in on an active criminal
case," said Farwell.
Grinder had confessed to
authorities, but "the difficulty was this
suspect had told many different stories many
different times," Farwell said. "At times, he
had actually confessed, but he later testified
and contradicted himself.
"What his brain said was that he was
guilty," the Fairfield scientists said. "He
had critical, detailed information only the
killer would have. The murder of Julie Helton
was stored in his brain, and had been stored
there 15 years ago when he committed the
murder."
In terms of the advancement of his
technology, the test on Grinder's brain
represents a huge step forward. It's proven
technology in the laboratory, in studies for
the U.S. government, in studies on FBI agents
and in studies on a wide variety of different
times of information," the scientist said.
"What I did in the J. B. Grinder case is to
prove the technology can detect the record of
a crime stored years ago in the brain of the
suspect."
"We can use this technology to put
serial killers like J. B. Grinder in prison
where they belong," he said.
There are hurdles to be cleared, the
admissibility of Brain Fingerprinting evidence
in court primary among them.
Farwell points out the primary value
of the technology is to "identify the
perpetrator," but he said that "if it can be
used as evidence in court, that's an
additional benefit."
"I have every reason to believe it
will be viewed the same as DNA," Farwell
continued, explaining the DNA evidence is
regarded as scientific and highly accurate,
making it admissible in court. By the same
token, Farwell believes his Brain
Fingerprinting is equally "objective and
non-invasive."
"Anytime
you have a new invention, there are some
elements of status quo that are going to
resist it, and this is no exception," said
Farwell. "It's not only perpetrators who
resist it, but also people who are locked
into outdated ways of doing things who don't
like to see new inventions come along that
might put them out of a job."
"We're not reading minds here, just
detecting the presence or absence of specific
information about a specific crime," Farwell
continued. "The only people scared are the
people who are criminals--and that does
include some people in high places."
The creator of the technology
believes it will eventually revolutionize the
manner in which suspects are identified and
interrogated and, thus, pursued or dismissed."
"Now, if we have information about a
crime can we have a suspect, we can determine
scientifically whether that information is
stored in that brain or not," Farwell said.
"It is not only perpetrators who
resist it, but also people who are locked into
out-dated ways of doing things who don't like
to see new inventions come along that might
put them out of a job.
"We 're not reading minds here, just
detecting the presence or absence of specific
information about a specific crime, "Farewell
continued. "The only people scared are
criminals - and that does include some people
in high places."
The creator of the technology
believes it will eventually revolutionize the
manner in which suspects are identified and
interrogated and, thus, pursued or dismissed.
"Now, if we have information about a
crime and we have a suspect, we can determine
scientifically whether that incriminating
information is stored in that brain or not,"
Farwell said. "This means not only that we
bring perpetrators and protecting society from
the further crimes they might commit, but it
also serves the cause of human rights by
giving an innocent individual the means to
scientifically prove his or her innocence.
"It could save people not only from
perhaps false conviction and punishment, but
also from the trauma of investigation and
interrogation."
From Farwell's point of view, he is
serving two masters with the development of
Brain Fingerprinting.
"There are two kinds of intrigue,"
Farwell explained. "One, I have always been
fascinated with the brain, how the brain works
and how the brain reflects consciousness."
"There's another kind of intrigue,
and that is, I like catching the bad guys in
bringing them to justice. I think that's a
very important thing to do... I was very happy
to see J. B. Grinder go to prison for the rest
of his life. He killed a number of young
women. I was happy to be part of that healing
process once and for all."
How quickly the technology becomes
as routine in criminal investigations has
securing a crime scene is tied to "how
open-minded, creative and intelligent the law
enforcement community is," Farwell said.
"The question is not
whether Brain fingerprinting will become a
central facet of law enforcement in this
country and worldwide, but when and how long
it will take," he said.
"Locally, it scores very well," said
Farwell, noting as an aside that Jefferson
County Sheriff Frank Bell has embraced the
technology "very much to his credit."
In the central Missouri
County where Julie Helton's family waited 15
years for justice, Sheriff Dawson also gave
Brain Fingerprinting testing high marks.
"I would say there is a lot of
potential for something like that," said
Dawson. "I don't believe it's admissible at
this time, and that's a big hurdle, but
anytime you have got something that's going to
help you ID the perpetrator of crime, it's
going to be helpful. There are not many
investigative techniques that are 100 percent
accurate."
What Dawson would really like to see
happened is for Swank, Grinder's co-defendant
in the first-degree murder case, to agree to
the procedure. Swank is maintaining his
innocence and Dawson doesn't believe he will
submit to Brain Fingerprinting testing.
Dawson said that during his
sentencing, Grinder named Swank as a
co-defendant and also implicated two others,
brothers Todd and Charles Blakely. Charges
also have been filed against the Blakely
brothers, but were dismissed due to lack of
evidence.
Farwell said that as word of his
technology spreads through the law enforcement
community, he is receiving more requests to
test subjects in criminal investigations.
"There are a number of cases I am currently
working on that I can't talk about," he said.
He sees the application of the
technology as carrying the potential to reach
beyond the law enforcement community.
"People who are afraid of this
technology are perpetrators who don't want to
get caught," Farwell said. "Because this tests
the brain, it can catch some of the high-level
perpetrators like crime bosses who master
minded the crimes, but don't ever get their
hands dirty.
"It can also catch crooked
politicians," he continued. "I would like to
believe there are few of those, but the ones
there are ought to have something to worry
about."
Farwell says "there's really not a
downside to this."
"What it does is, it
gets out the truth," Farwell said. "The
truth will set you free. Truth has value in
any circumstance."
