The case study – Putting the pieces together

Of course, what you really want to do is get to the case study! We are going to do that by working our way through all of the evidence that has been presented in a structured manner.

We have provided copies of the tables referred to in the video in the ‘downloads’ resource section at the bottom of the page, so that you can fill these in as you go and work alongside the video. You may have to stop and start the video to complete this and there are intentional gaps in the narrative to indicate when you should be working on your tables.

Some of you may approach this with “what’s the point – it’s obvious from the start that Mr Ward killed his wife and faked a robbery to conceal it”. Well, you may be correct, but what if you are wrong? In that case a dangerous killer has got away with murder and may try it again! Or what if it was an accident or suicide? An innocent man will be wrongly incarcerated (or in some jurisdictions, executed). Any death investigation is a serious matter and any forensic investigation must be treated with the utmost rigour that the scientific method can bring to the process.

The introduction to this week mentions the legitimate place for intuition in an investigation, but intuition is only another tool to tease out the facts and shouldn’t be used as a short cut to an answer. Remember what you have read in the short paper on the History and Philosophy of Science and the place that Peirce occupies. We have also added some information in the ‘downloads’ resource section at the bottom of the page relating to the the reliability of eyewitness testimony referred to in the video.