8.Donald Simley — Direct

DONALD SIMLEY: Forensic dentistry can, basically, be defined as the application of the science of dentistry to the field of law. I'm sorry. Slow down? The application of science of dentistry to the field of law.

Uh, there are a number of different areas that can be involved in forensic dentistry. Uh, routine dental identifications are the most commonly involved where individuals that are -- are not viewable or visually identifiable need to be identified. Um, mass disaster involvement, uh, just dental identifications taken to a -- a higher number. Uh, child abuse cases. Uh, bite mark evidence, uh, dental malpractice and negligence in trauma of injury that are involved in litigation.

DONALD SIMLEY: I'm a member of a -- a national disaster team. It's part of what they call NDMS, or the National Disaster Medical System, which currently operates underneath the Health and Human Services. And it was under Health and Human Services at September 11. And then they restructured things. And then Katrina, they were actually underneath, uh, Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. And now we're back with Health and Human Services.

And I've been involved with this NDMS, and they have a DMORT team, and DMORT stands for Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team. And I've been involved with the DMORT team for a number of years, but I've only actually been deployed or activated twice. And once was for the World Trade Center and then once was for Katrina.

DONALD SIMLEY: Um, to be board certified, uh, would indicate that you have a -- I'd say a higher degree of experience, or expertise, um, or training in the area of, in this particular case, forensic dentistry.

Uh, it means taking a -- a -- an examination. In my particular case, to be qualified, you have to submit an application. I believe the application that I submitted, uh, and I was board certified in 1993, was -- consisted of two, three-ring binders that were full of documentation of, uh, cases that I've been involved with, uh, court testimony, uh, documentation of affiliations with certain agencies, continuing education.

And then if you're deemed to be board eligible to take the examination, the examination is a -- it's a two-day written/oral examination that you have to take to pass.

DONALD SIMLEY: Uh, there are a number of different organizations that I -- I belong to. I'm not so sure that they assist me, although you -- I shouldn't say that either, because they -- they do assist me in the fact that you gain, uh, continuing education and additional learning experiences from these organizations.

Uh, the American Society of Forensic Odontology is kind of an entry level organization, but it's one of the biggest forensic organizations in the country and the world.

The, um, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, uh, is probably one of the premier organizations in the United States.

Um, I'm also a member of the Wisconsin Association for Identification. Uh, the Wisconsin Coroners and Medical Examiners Association.

Um, and then the board affiliation with the American Board of Forensic Odontology. And odontology is just a fancy name for dentistry.

DONALD SIMLEY: When I say potential, because, initially, it's -- it's -- it's difficult to identify, uh, some burned and fragmented dental structures. Um, so potential, meaning that some of the items that were recovered were not dental structures, but it wasn't initially known then, or they wanted to be verified.

Um, there were, I believe, 24, uh, dental structures, root fragments, um, crown fragments. There was not one whole tooth that I was able to examine. There were three bone fragments. There were 24 pieces of wood that, again, looked like dental structures. And one piece of plastic.

DONALD SIMLEY: They were all burned. They were all charred. Uh, they were very, very brittle. Um, again, they didn't look like normal tooth like we would normally see, and, essentially, the crowns were all gone. What we were looking at was just the root structure, which was, um, part of the tooth that's buried in the bone.

There was one portion of a crown, um, but that portion of the crown was from a -- a cuspid or an eyetooth and was not able to be identified.

DONALD SIMLEY: There were two root fragments that I was able to fracture match back together. Actually, I should say four. There were two that were very critical, but there were two other ones that ended up being academic.

Um, the two critical ones were -- were root fragments from, uh, the lower right second molar, which would be Tooth No. 31, which we call it, and that particular tooth, the crown, again, was -- was destroyed, but there were two roots associated with that tooth, and they were separate, but I could put those back together, and I could see that they had initially come -- at one time been together. And then to fracture match them, I put them back together and then I applied a little cyanoacrylate, or Super Glue so that they stick together.

DONALD SIMLEY: Well, there's a couple benefits, really. Number one, if you've got 52 pieces of potential evidence, if you can combine that down so that there's a little bit less, that's a -- a small advantage, not a big one.

The big one is -- is that these pieces of -- of dental remains are extremely brittle when they're burned and they're charred. And these pieces of -- of -- of dental structures could be very easily crushed with finger pressure. If they're dropped, they could be broken. And if that happens, that pot -- potential piece of evidence is -- is lost. It's gone forever.

So by Super Gluing them, and -- and fracture matching, and putting them back together, and reinforcing them with the cyanoacrylate, you can preserve, you can protect, and -- and maintain that evidence better.

DONALD SIMLEY: Well, there were a number of different x-rays that I had of -- of Teresa Halbach, and all the x-rays were labeled with -- with Teresa's name. On November 10, uh, Special Agent Jim Holmes brought to my office dental records for Teresa.

And those records consisted of a panorex x-ray from August 30 of 2001. Um, a panorex x-ray is an x-ray that goes around the outside of the mouth and picks up everything from ear to ear. Uh, oral surgeons love them. A lot of general dentists love them. Pediatric dentists love them. Because it -- it picks up everything.

He also brought over 16 bitewing x-rays. And a bitewing x-ray, as I'm sure you're familiar with, is you go in to see your family dentist, and they have you bite down on the film, and shoot the x-ray in from the side, and it picks up the most amount of tooth structure with the least amount of x-rays. And, usually, you're looking for decay. You can look at the bone support there, too.

There were 16 bitewing x-rays varying in ages from 1998 to 2004. At that particular time, though, I knew that we needed -- additional x-rays would be more beneficial. And what I was looking for, specifically, is what they call a periapical x-ray.

DONALD SIMLEY: A periapical x-ray, it -- it's just -- it's just like the bitewing x-ray. The same size. But it's positioned down lower on the tooth so it will pick up one or two teeth in its entirety, and it will pick up the whole root structure. Whereas, on a bitewing x-ray, you're picking up top and bottom teeth, and you kind of cut off the ends of the roots, uh, because they're not designed to pick up the whole root structure.

And I was looking -- Since we had the entire root from this Tooth No. 31 that we were looking at, um, I was looking for periapical x-rays, of which Teresa's dentist did not have any of these x-rays, but he said he did have some additional x-rays from 1997. Um, it was August 25 of 1997. And he said those x-rays were positioned just a little bit lower and they showed a little bit more root structure. So he forwarded those to me so I had those to look at also.

DONALD SIMLEY: All the teeth have specific numbers. They have what they call a universal numbering system. So if I talk about Tooth No. 1, uh, any dentist in the country will know that I'm talking about the upper right third molar. The wisdom tooth.

If I'm talking about Teeth No. 8 and 9, they'll know I'm talking about the two central incisors right underneath the nose. The big front teeth.

Uh, No. 19 is a lower left first molar, and Tooth No. 31 is a lower right second permanent molar.

DONALD SIMLEY: Well, Tooth No. 31 was really the one that was best preserved. It had the most physical evidence that was there with the two root structures. Uh, again, there were no crowns that were remaining. Uh, fillings that Teresa had in her teeth were gone. Uh, they were destroyed in the fire. Uh, all the crown structure that was easily identifiable was gone.

Uh, some of the root fragments that were recovered, uh, of those 24 initial root fragments -- I mean, there were some that I couldn't identify. I mean, they were burned badly enough, and they had just por -- portions of roots that, um -- I mean, I tried to identify each tooth as to, you know, if it was a molar, or bicuspid, a cuspid, an incisor, or what type of tooth it was, and there were some that I couldn't identify. Uh, so that was the best physical piece of evidence that we had for examination.

And, also, then, you have an, uh -- a dental record from Teresa, um, that you can compare. So you need decent postmortem evidence and you need decent, uh, antemortem evidence, also.

DONALD SIMLEY: Buccal means cheek side. So, uh, there are actually five aspects to a tooth that we can examine. And the buccal aspect is the cheek side. The lingual, which we'll see in a second, is the tongue side. The occlusal portion is the top of the tooth. And then two additional sides would be the mesial, towards the front of the mouth, and distal, towards the back of the mouth.

So this just happens to depict the -- the buccal aspect. And what we're looking at is -- If you compare this grainy aspect here, that surface is very rough, um, and usually the cheek side aspect of a dental fragment is usually going to be burned more than the tongue side aspect, because on the tongue side aspect, the tongue actually pushes up against the tooth and the jaw fragment to -- to further preserve and protect that particular fragment.

Whereas, once the cheek gets burned through, uh, the outside or the cheek side aspect of that tooth is going to take a bigger hit in there. Um --

DONALD SIMLEY: Right -- This is the back root, and this is the front root. This would have been the socket where the first molar, Tooth No. 30, would have been, and this is a socket where the second bicuspid would have been.

So we're actually seeing a section from the second bicuspid back to -- And this is actually where a wisdom tooth might have been if one had been present.

DONALD SIMLEY: This is Exhibit 181. And this is just a side-by-side comparison of the panorex at the cropped Tooth No. 31, and then the postmortem Tooth No. 31. And just some of the things I'm looking at is the distance between the roots. The whiter area up here that we're looking at is the enamel. That's the crown of the tooth. From here over is the crown of the tooth. And that part has been destroyed.

The little grayer shade on the inside is the dentin. That's the inside part of the tooth. Um, enamel is the hardest structure in the body. Dentin is the second hardest structure in the body. Uh, they're both harder than bone.

The dark line in the middle of the tooth is the pulp. That's the blood vessel near the middle of the tooth.

So what I'm looking at, I'm comparing the pulp tissues in the middle of the tooth, antemortem and postmortem. There's a little curvature in the root on the postmortem x-ray that I can see on the antemortem x-ray.

So that's just a side-by-side comparison.

DONALD SIMLEY: In my opinion, they were very consistent. And that I could place -- actually place the antemortem x-ray on top of the postmortem x-ray on the panorex, and then, also, on the '97 bitewing x-rays, and they would appear as one. I mean, I could superimpose one on top of the other.

And the -- the pulp tissue, the root structure, uh, would coincide perfectly in there. So they were very consistent.