Forensic Scientist's Search For Hidden Truths

April 7 -- O.J. Simpson, JonBenét Ramsey and William Kennedy Smith all have one thing in common: America's foremost crime scene expert, Dr. Henry Lee, consulted on their cases.

The legendary investigator is known for finding the tiniest clues, and has even solved a murder without a body. Over the past 40 years, Lee has helped investigate more than 6,000 cases, including war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia, and the suicide of President Clinton's former White House attorney, Vince Foster.

But the case that made him famous was a double homicide in Los Angeles involving a man Lee said he had never heard of until then: O.J. Simpson. In his latest book, Cracking Cases: The Science of Solving Crimes, Lee reveals a critical oversight of the police investigation in that case. Investigators had missed several drops of blood on Nicole Simpson's back, which Lee noticed in crime scene photos he had examined as an expert witness for the defense.

The blood was never tested. If it had been, says Lee, and it matched O.J.'s DNA, it would have been "case already solved," says Lee. "If you found out that it was not O.J. Simpson's DNA, case also solved."

After Lee pointed out how important the blood in the photos was to the defense's case, the prosecution tried everything to challenge his credentials — even going after him because a ruler he used was a thousandth of an inch short.

At speaking engagements, Lee makes the ruler incident into a joke: "I said, 'Counselor, give me a break. $1.49. I bought it.'"

Getting His Start

Lee started his career as a police officer in Taiwan. Though he made it to the rank of captain, he didn't take to it right away.

"My first homicide case was a dismembering case," he remembers. "For a month, I didn't want to eat meat. I almost became a vegetarian."

Asked if it would have been easier to give up murder, he says, "Somebody has to do the work. Because the victim's family depends on us. Society depends on us."

Lee arrived in New York in 1965 with about $50 in his pocket and knowing about three words of English. Within 10 years he had a doctorate in biochemistry and a job at the University of New Haven running a small forensics department. Four years later, he was hired to run the Connecticut state police crime lab — which had been built in a converted men's room and had only one microscope. He helped build a new lab with millions and millions of dollars in equipment and dozens of specialists.