By Sola Ogundipe
Towards helping to address the worrisome incidence of unresolved murder cases, missing persons, unidentified  bodies and other numerous issues of homicide in Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole, a team of researchers and experts in forensic investigations from the University of South Florida in the United States of America,is collaborating with medical experts at the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), Ikeja.

The team, comprising Detective Charles Massucci of the Tampa Police Department of South Florida, USA, as well as Dr. Erin Kimmerle, a Forensic Anthropologist at the University of South Florida, is currently on a  training visit to the LASUCOM as part of the collaborative effort between the two universities.

The collaboration is also to build capacity of the local law enforcement agencies and medical personnel, in addition to setting up a model platform through which the problem of unresolved homicides can be tackled.

• (L-R) Lagos State Chief Examiner and Professor of Forensic Pathology, LASUTH/LASUCOM, Prof. Oladapo John Obafunwa, Detective Charles Massucci of the Tampa Police Depatment and Lecturer, University of South Florida and Dr. Erin Kimmerle, a Forensic Anthropologist at the University of South Florida during a media dialogue by the Forensic experts on a training visit to the Lagos State College of Medicine as part of the collaboration between the two universities.

In a chat, Kimmerle, who   teaches forensic science, and works with the local law enforcement agencies in Florida,  told Good Health Weekly  that she began the teamwork  in 2008 under funding of the National Institute of Justice of the University of South Florida, Department of Anthropology.

“We are here in Nigeria to review what the country has been doing in the area of forensic medicine and to teach about forensic pathology, and also to assist in further teaching and updating the medical postgraduate  students of LASUCOM on the latest developments in forensic research in addition to doing forensic work locally.

“We assist medical examiners and law enforcement agencies with human identification, trauma analysis, body excavation,  skeletonised decomposing human remains, essentially a resource for medical examiners and it’s what  we are bringing from the US to train the resident doctors in Nigeria so they can  have the expertise.”

Lagos State Chief Examiner and Professor of Forensic Pathology, LASUTH/LASUCOM, Prof. John Obafunwa, in his contribution lamented that  “We are not doing things right. The average Police unit is wanting. It’s  either people do not know what to do or because it pays not to know what to do. What prompted the idea of getting people trained in forensic sciences is the lack of data and medical records in Nigeria.

“We need to have a standard, the collaboration with medical residents is important because they will be able to collect data particularly for how people age in Nigeria amd come up with standards specific for Nigerian population.”

Lamenting the lack of medical and forensic data for the Nigerian society or the West African society, Obafunwa opined that it was the development that prompted the study being done with the University of South Florida.

“We are currently involved in assessing certain bones in the human body, such as the ribs, pubis and dental area and relating this to the age and stature of the Nigerian population. So far, we have collected over 400 samples  and are still collecting some more.

“At the end of the day, we’ll be able to build a data base that we can now use for missing persons identification. Every now and then, we encounter skeletonised human remains that need to be identified and we hope by the time we compile the database we’ll have something to work with.”

On the collaboration, Obafunwa noted. “The University of South Florida is providing us with the materials we need such as callipers to take measurement, photography, dental x-ray, we are to use these materials to collect inmformation.

Whatever we do is limited to the autopsy room, nothing is taken out of the body. We are just seizing opportunity of the fact that  we have this number of unknown people and we make sure we record as much details as possible which we will now analyse, and the analysis will, to a large extent, take place in the US. All is being done at no scost to the Nigerian government.”

Massucci,   a homicide detective with 20 years experience and a teacher in the University of  South Florida  said for the team,  part of the Nigerian experience is to learn the attitude and culture of the Police relations with the community and the medical examiner’s office. “It’s been a good collaboration. We are providing training and also learning a lot from the residents and about the community in general. I’ve learned as much as I’ve taught.

“I began work on this research in 2001, similar studies carried out in the Balkaans, Bosnia, Kosovo and variouis European and American populations.

he said his impression about the feasibility of forensics as a  detective is that it  can be adapted, traditional scientists like anthropologists or medical doctors work with a scientific method.

“My observation  of this trip is that we can learn it personally and as a university what the state of investigation is and the importance of that investigation in Nigeria, standards for law enforcement as they exist and then suggest models that work for us.

There is a great variation of law enforcement and forensics in the US, so the idea is that if we offer some level of conversation and training about what works for us, and what improves the solvability of death investigation, as individual States in Nigeria and as a nation as a whole, you can pitch what ever works for you.

“The goal is to put the information out there and let individual police agencies  and medical examiners take what they want.  and utilise it the best they can. It is symbiotic because we benefit from the data.”