By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, Tom Owen, and Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio engineer and forensics expert, have independently concluded that the furtive pleas for help clearly heard on the 911 tapes are not George Zimmerman’s. Both acknowledged experts used voice enhancing software, but different techniques, to rate the probability of the voice being Zimmerman’s at no more than 48%. A 90% match is considered scientifically reliable.
In a report published by the Orlando Sentinel, Owen said he derived his conclusions based on biometric analysis. “It basically just means using personal characteristics for identification. A fingerprint scanner is an example of a biometric device. Much as the ridges of a human hand produce a fingerprint, each human voice has unique, distinguishable traits, Owen says. ‘They’re all particular to the individual.'” The expert recently used the technique to identify the accused killer of Sheila Davalloo in a 911 call made almost a decade ago.
Owen, who also served as the chief engineer for the New York Public Library’s Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, said that, “as a result of [the testing], you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it’s not Zimmerman.”
Ed Primeau agreed but went further, saying that, under the known circumstances, ” I believe that’s Trayvon Martin in the background, without a doubt. That’s a young man screaming.” Primeau used the technique of voice enhancement to reach his conclusion. Unlike biometric analysis, his method does require an in-context sample of the voice for testing.
An article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer published in 2010 describes the 66-year-old Owen and his cohort, Stuart Allen, this way:
[The pair have] more than six decades of experience between them in the forensic audio profession. They’ve worked with the FBI and other federal agencies, police departments, private detectives, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and news organizations. Many courts have designated them as expert witnesses. They’re good friends who sometimes are on opposing sides, but respect each other’s abilities. “Both of us are known as sort of contrarians,” Owen said.
Primeau is a former sound engineer in the movie industry who worked with
pop stars Anita Baker, Bob Seger, and Barry Manilow. Primeau has over thirty years of experience in voice identification and is a registered investigator for the American College of Forensic Examiners. He describes his work in voice identification as:
There can sometimes be differences in speech patterns that can help identify clues in your identification puzzle. I look for several similarities as well as differences, nasal resonance differences, voice tone with regard to inflection both similarities and differences.
The test results seem to present another blow to Zimmerman’s credibility who claimed that it was his voice on the tape — and not the African-American teen — heard crying out for help mere seconds before the fatal gun shot.
It is likely that similar audio testing is being conducted by the FBI’s Digital Evidence Laboratory’s Forensic Audio, Video, and Image Analysis Unit, based in Quantico, Virginia. Should they reach the same conclusions as Owen and Primeau, Zimmerman would almost certainly face charges in the death. An opposite result would go a long way in substantiating his claim of self-defense.
Source; msnbc; Orland Sentinel; Cleveland Plain Dealer
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
mespo,
Non mentis gets my vote. I know he’s not talking to me unless he’s mistaken me for someone who cares what lunatics think.
With all respect Mespo, you owe it to Professor Turley and his readers to update your post with links to Jeralyn Merritt’s and Tom Maguire’s posts.
Hey Otteray Scribe, I’m beginning to wonder if I went a bit over the line. Just joshing with you dude, breaking your balls a little, we’re still buddies, right dude?
anon, you have me confused with someone else. You appear to think I care about your nonsensical babbling and will take the time to read your copy and paste stuff. I am not that person you seem to think I am. To put it bluntly, I don’t really care what you think.
I agree. I simply delete when I see his name since I have no time for fools.
Hey OS,
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12589#description
”
Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States:
A Path Forward
Authors:
Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community, National Research Council
Committee on Science, Technology, and Law (CSTL)
Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics (CATS)
Policy and Global Affairs (PGA)
Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS)
OCR for page 47
Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward and studies in the published literature. In testimony before the committee, it was clear that some members of the forensic science community will not concede that there could be less than perfect accuracy either in given laboratories or in specific disciplines, and experts testified to the committee that disagreement remains regarding even what constitutes an error. For example, if the limitations of a given technology lead to an examiner declaring a “match” that is found by subsequent technology (e.g., DNA analysis) to be a “mismatch,” there is disagreement within the forensic science community about whether the original determination constitutes an error.32 Failure to acknowledge uncertainty in findings is common: Many examiners claim in testimony that others in their field would come to the exact same conclusions about the evidence they have analyzed. Assertions of a “100 percent match” contradict the findings of proficiency tests that find substantial rates of erroneous results in some disciplines (i.e., voice identification, bite mark analysis).33,34 As an example, in a FBI publication on the correlation of microscopic and mitochondrial DNA hair comparisons, the authors found that even competent hair examiners can make significant errors.35 In this study, the authors found that in 11 percent of the cases in which the hair examiners declared two hairs to be “similar,” subsequent DNA testing revealed that the hairs did not match, which refers either to the competency or the relative ability of the two divergent techniques to identify differences in hair samples, as well as to the probative value of each test. The insistence by some forensic practitioners that their disciplines employ methodologies that have perfect accuracy and produce no errors has hampered efforts to evaluate the usefulness of the forensic science disciplines. And, although DNA analysis is considered the most reliable forensic tool available today, laboratories nonetheless can make errors working with either nuclear DNA or mtDNA—errors such as mislabeling samples, losing samples, or misinterpreting the data. Standard setting, accreditation of laboratories, and certification of individuals aim to address many of these problems, and although many laboratories have excellent training and quality control programs, even 32 N. Benedict. 2004. Fingerprints and the Daubert standard for admission of scientific evidence: Why fingerprints fail and a proposed remedy. Arizona Law Review 46:519; M. Houck, Director of Forensic Science Initiative, West Virginia University. Presentation to the committee. January 25, 2007. 33 D.L. Faigman, D. Kaye, M.J. Saks, and J. Sanders. 2002. Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony. St. Paul, MN: Thompson/West. 34 C.M. Bowers. 2002. The scientific status of bitemark comparisons. In: D.L. Faigman (ed.). Science in the Law: Forensic Science Issues. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. 35 M. Houck and B. Budowle. 2002. Correlation of microscopic and mitochondrial DNA hair comparisons. Journal of Forensic Sciences 47(5):964-967; see also Bromwich, op. cit.
”
Girl look at that body
Girl look at that body
Girl look at that body
I work out
Oooh, that forensic scientist expert witness has a nice suit and has softwares and a machine that goes ping. I haz to believe him.
Mespo, we have a real Richard Cranium on the site tonight?
“Otteray Scribe
1, April 3, 2012 at 10:32 pm
anon, I will be sure to write a note to those Federal judges who allowed the evidence in under both Frye and Daubert. They need to know that in your less than humble opinion they are wrong. I am sure they will appreciate your input.”
Hah you clown, don’t include my opinion, INCLUDE THE FBI’S 2009 OPINION:
“In US Federal Courts, the admissibility of scientific evidence is determined by the presiding judge, who is guided by Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) 104 [2] and 702 [3], among others. FRE 702 notes the Daubert Criteria, which states the following factors must be met: the technique has been tested and subjected to peer review and publication; has a known error rate and standards controlling its use; is generally accepted in the scientific community [4].
The Symposium committee members believe that automatic speaker recognition technology has not yet reached the maturity to satisfy the Daubert Criteria…Future research and evaluation are needed to advance speaker recognition technology to satisfy scientific-evidence admissibility requirements for the US Federal Courts”
and
“Here’s the 2011 report, National Biometrics Challenge from the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It says on page 14 (it doesn’t allow cut and paste):
In spite of the advances made in speaker verification since 2006, speaker recognition as a biometric application is still faced with many challenges including the lack of a standard measurement for acceptance, difficulties with the capture of a consistent voice sample at enrollment and the performance issues associated with the lack of a comparable recording environments between the enrollment and the test sample.”
OS, this shit was clear to the casual observer of Tom Owen’s website. All you had to do was read it and think critically. You’re pissed I did just that. You should be pissed at yourself.
Instead you are up to your ears in charging courts for your bogus testimony of “sciencey” woo that you concoct and backup for your wallet’s pleasure.
There was no way that you would be able to read Owen’s and do anything other than dumbly go along.
OS:
Gene? Who is our pee-totaling friend talking to? Like I said, non mentis.
Anyway Gene, I’m glad you trust this certified expert witness to use his own totally bullshit software package that he clearly does nothing but he uses bogusly prop up his dumbass opinions.
Don’t you love the press release at his own site:
“The ability of Easy Voice Biometrics to eliminate suspects on under cover recordings and terrorists “live” recordings shortcuts the elimination process for Law Enforcement and saves hundreds of hours while doing it. They can then focus their time on stronger voice matches” says Tom Owen, one of this country’s foremost authorities on Audio Forensics.
” In a recent murder trial I (State of CT. v. Shelia Davalloo) I was able identify Ms. Davalloo as the person making a 911 call in the vicinity of where the murder happened.” I was not able to do this in 2004 because of the quality of the tape. In 2012, Easy Voice Biometrics was able to identify her voice; even with a less than perfect 911 tape. She was convicted.”
Where he identifies himself as one of the country’s formost authorities on Audio Forensics, BUT FAILS TO DISCLOSE HIS ROLE AS OWNER OF THE SOFTWARE?
Gene, Mespo, OS, DON’T YOU THINK YOU OWN Ms. DAVALLOO YOUR EFFORTS TO FREE HERE THANKS TO THE CLEARLY FRAUDULENT TESTIMONY OF TOM OWENS, EXPERT WITNESS?
OS:
I think just non mentis.
anon, I will be sure to write a note to those Federal judges who allowed the evidence in under both Frye and Daubert. They need to know that in your less than humble opinion they are wrong. I am sure they will appreciate your input.
Gene H:
Tom Owen is the chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence and Ed Primeau is a registered investigator for the American College of Forensic Examiners. Both are what is known in the legal business as “expert witnesses”. I’m perfectly comfortable leaving the choice of software to two forensic professionals.
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/easyvoicebiometrics.com
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/easyvoicebiometrics.com (new window)
Registrant:
Owen Forensic Services, LLC
PO Box 189
Colonia, New Jersey 07067
United States
Registered through: JasonHunter Design
Domain Name: EASYVOICEBIOMETRICS.COM
Created on: 08-May-11
Expires on: 08-May-13
Last Updated on: 16-Feb-12
Administrative Contact:
Owen, Thomas owlinvestigationstsacmocnet
Owen Forensic Services, LLC
PO Box 189
Colonia, New Jersey 07067
United States
(732) 574-9672 Fax —
Technical Contact:
Owen, Thomas owlinvestigationstsacmocnet
Owen Forensic Services, LLC
PO Box 189
Colonia, New Jersey 07067
United States
(732) 574-9672 Fax
Damn, need a new adult diaper. Fourth I’ve used in the last hour because of this thread. Need to stop stopping at Buffalo Wild Wings on the way home from the brothel. Anyway, Depends has my back.
mespo, regarding to the few comments immediately above, does the term non compos mentis come to mind?
Or should we simply go with the more popular term, “batshit crazy?”
Says the guy who I have repeatedly shown to be wrong time and time again.
Maine Mammal Act protects whales! Beautiful. Love it.
And shit, my chair is wet again.
anon:
“This is the sound of anon changing his pants because he peed them a little laughing so hard at OS, Mespo, and Gene.
”
*****************************
Don’t know about the others, but it comes as no surprise to me that you are prone to peeing on yourself. You demonstrate that trait with full vigor on most every comment. I think there is therapy for that. Carry on.
This is the sound of anon changing his pants because he peed them a little laughing so hard at OS, Mespo, and Gene.
SKLISHITTY SKLOSHITTY SKLISHITTY SKLOSHITTY SHKLOORT THURCH SHMUZORFT SKLiSHHHHHHHHK SHMUZORFT SKLiSHHHHHHHHK
Okay, so I peed my pants a lot laughing at you dumbass jokers.
Here is Tom Maguire with even more details
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2012/04/are-there-any-media-people-in-new-york-city.html
OS, you are such a fraud. (My opinion, please don’t sue me because in my opinion you’re a complete and total fraud and pox upon the courtroom scene.)
If it helps any OS, Mespo and Gene and you provide a fine three stooges of courtroom taxpayer sucking idiots.
Oh god, it’s just too perfect.
Here’s Jeralyn Merritt, TalkLeft.
READ IT TO DISCOVER:
A) THE FBI THINKS ITS BULLSHIT
B) TOM OWEN THE EXPERT HERE IS DEEPLY INVOLVED WITH THE COMPANY THAT MAKES THE SOFTWARE HE USED, EASY VOICE BIOMETRICS
C) THE OTHER EXPERT, ED PRIMEAU, THINKS TOM IS FULL OF SHIT
Professor Turley is a hell of a law professor and we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his wisdom, sense of humor, courage, insights.
But his blog commenters are arrogant total dipshits ignorant dumbasses.
Looking at you Mespo, Gene and OS. Looking at you.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2012/4/3/03733/45115
How topical. The annual Voice Biometrics Conference begins today in New York. This year’s theme: Benchmarks, Use Cases and Real World Experience.
Registration is $699., but maybe they have media passes available. One interesting talk may be that of Alexey Khitrov, of the Speech Technology Center (a “gold” sponsor of the conference, its program is SpeechPro):
Reality Check #1: Lessons Learned from Forensics and Law Enforcement
What other programs do law enforcement use for speaker recognition? [More…]
Agnitio, one of the conference’s platinum sponsors, touts its Batvox and Asis programs. From reviews, they seem to be in a lead position.
Here’s an interesting 2009 declassified FBI report on voice biometrics.
The report notes investigatory voice biometrics may not be ready for courts –at least federal ones that use Daubert as the standard for admission of expert testimony:
The first agreement was on the meaning of the phrase – “investigatory voice biometrics”. The first word of this phrase, “investigatory”, was taken to encompass the use of speaker recognition technology in criminal and intelligence investigations and analysis.
In US Federal Courts, the admissibility of scientific evidence is determined by the presiding judge, who is guided by Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) 104 [2] and 702 [3], among others. FRE 702 notes the Daubert Criteria, which states the following factors must be met: the technique has been tested and subjected to peer review and publication; has a known error rate and standards controlling its use; is generally accepted in the scientific community [4].
The Symposium committee members believe that automatic speaker recognition technology has not yet reached the maturity to satisfy the Daubert Criteria…Future research and evaluation are needed to advance speaker recognition technology to satisfy scientific-evidence admissibility requirements for the US Federal Courts
Also interesting:
In addition, there is a common consensus about the uncertainty of the error rates of the speaker recognition performance when operating under variations due to the speaker (e.g., stress) and variations not due to the speaker (e.g., channel distortion).
On p. 14 (its numbering, the report talks about the process for comparing a 9/11 call to a sample of a known person:
4.2 FBI Scenario 1: One-to-one Comparison
The Forensic Audio, Video, and Image Analysis Unit (FAVIAU), Operational Technology Division of the FBI, will receive a request from one of the field offices for a voice comparison examination to be conducted between an unknown voice on a 911 call and the known voice of a subject on a recording obtained by law enforcement officers.
…Currently automated comparison is performed in criminal cases solely for research purposes and only if the evidence is deemed sufficient for such an examination.
Another symposium to address current state of voice biometrics was held in 2010. The declassified report is here but its very technical.
Here is the latest draft (March 12, 2012) of the Investigatory Voice Biometrics Committee Report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). On page 50-52 (their numbering) they discuss intelligibility, emotional state and impairment, and speaker styles (crying, chanting, etc.) and “vocal effort.”
Here’s the 2011 report, National Biometrics Challenge from the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It says on page 14 (it doesn’t allow cut and paste):
In spite of the advances made in speaker verification since 2006, speaker recognition as a biometric application is still faced with many challenges including the lack of a standard measurement for acceptance, difficulties with the capture of a consistent voice sample at enrollment and the performance issues associated with the lack of a comparable recording environments between the enrollment and the test sample.
Here is the FBI’s latest on voice biometrics. As of 2008, they didn’t think voice biometrics was Daubert-ready for federal courts, the standard it strives to meet.
Does law enforcement use EasyVoice Biometrics? According to its website, the software was just released and didn’t start shipping until March, 2012. (It costs $5,000.) I was wondering how Tom Owen (whom I have used as an expert in the past and found to be quite professional) got an advance copy since he testified at a court trial in January that he had used the program the year before. Turns out, according to Whosis, he is the administrative contact for the EasyVoice Biometrics website. If he has a proprietary or financial interest in the program, or helped develop it (which I don’t know that he does or did) should he have disclosed it to the Sun Sentinel?
As for the Connecticut state court’s admission of his biometric voice analysis at the prior murder trial, it should be noted that the defendant in that case was pro se, without a lawyer, and likely didn’t know how to effectively challenge it. Also, it’s unclear how much the analysis factored into the jury’s verdict since there was DNA evidence incriminating the defendant. Her DNA was found in a blood stain on a bathroom sink handle in the victim’s condo.
Jurors on Friday morning asked the court to replay testimony from Michael Bourke, a supervising DNA analyst in the state’s forensic crime lab. Bourke testified the estimated frequency of someone other than Davalloo leaving that DNA profile on the sink handle was 1 in 8.5 million.
Also, the 911 case in Davaloo did not involve comparing a scream to spoken words, although I’m not sure it that matters.
On the 911 recordings, a woman tells a call-taker that a man attacked her neighbor on Harbor View Drive. The call was made from a pay phone at a fast-foot restaurant on Shippan Avenue.
The second expert hired by the media to opine on the screaming in the background of the 911 call in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman shooting investigation pooh-poohed biometrics.
Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio engineer and forensics expert, is not a believer in the technology’s use in courtroom settings. He relies instead on audio enhancement and human analysis based on forensic experience.
Hopefully whatever expert the state uses will come up with more of an explanation than Primeau did for saying the voice was not Zimmerman’s:
“I believe that’s Trayvon Martin in the background, without a doubt,” Primeau says, stressing that the tone of the voice is a giveaway. “That’s a young man screaming.”
On his own website, Primeau cautions that his opinion is not for legal purposes.
As an audio forensic expert I want to make clear that this is not formal voice identification and not meant for legal purposes.
He also may not have done a forensic comparison at all. He says:
If I were to conduct a formal voice identification test, here are the steps I would take:
….4. Ask for a speech exemplar from George Zimmerman screaming for help
5. Conduct a voice identification test.
So unlike Mr. Owen, Pimeau thinks a test should compare a scream to a scream. Since he doesn’t have an exemplar of Zimmerman screaming to compare to the 911 call with the scream in the background, he can’t do a test the way he thinks it should be done.
It will be interesting to see whether the State’s Attorney in Florida retains experts who use a biometric program to analyze the scream in the Trayvon Martin case, or goes with more traditional methods of speaker recogniton. And whether the experts they do retain are able to draw any conclusion at all as to who screamed.
In the meantime, maybe the case will be brought up at the biometrics conference tomorrow and there will be some tweeting about it.
Nope, that’s not me–I was the one taking pictures that day. As for her flying, she has not soloed yet. I am IFR/multi-engine rated though. That plane is a 1942 Stearman with a 450 horsepower P&W on the front. It belongs to a dear friend of ours, an old A-26 driver from Vietnam who flew heavies for Southwest after the war.
The pic on the range is at the Sheriff’s department. The weapon was a Ruger .38 revolver that she had never seen before the range officer handed it to her. Sights were off–the revolver had been knocking around in a box with other weapons. The first five shots were high and to the left. Sixth shot overcorrected to the right, into the shoulder area of the target. Next twelve rounds into center mass. Someone joked that she was counting coup with that hole in the middle of the head.
@Otteray Scribe – Yeah I feel your pain bro… House feeling empty is huge. I would get a pet like a cat or a dog or both. They usually do enough shenanigans when you come home anyway. I found a $60 high-tech gadget on Amazon that is a electronic acupuncture machine for your wrist. Guaranteed to knock you out and get some good REM Stage sleep.
Wow she is a cutie-pie! Is she IFR rated yet? Looks like a a rebuilt Sopwith Camel or something? Looks like she could use more time at the range though. Most of those rounds were center mass (kinda’). Tell her to control her breathing and squeeze not pull.
I wonder what George’s target’s look like (LOL – sorry).
Is that you in the background with te black slicker on?