Now that I’ve heard back from all my sources that assisted me in this, here are my findings:
Towards the end of May one of our CTist posters cited blood spatter evidence from a source I was unfamiliar with – Sherry Fiester, A.K.A. Sherry P (Pool) Fiester, Sherry G (Gutierrez) Fiester.
Her bio, from her site:
http://www.sherryfiester.com/about.html
Sherry Fiester is a retired Certified Senior Crime Scene Investigator and law enforcement instructor with 30 years of experience. She has testified as a court certified expert in crime scene investigation, crime scene reconstruction, and bloodstain pattern analysis in Louisiana Federal Court and over 30 judicial districts in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. Author of numerous articles in professional publications, Fiester is recognized as an instructor in her field at state and national levels.
Fiester has presented forensic findings at the Coalition on Political Assassinations Conference (COPA) in Washington, DC in 1995, the Dealey Plaza Echo Annual Kennedy Assassination Conference in the United Kingdom in 1996, and at JFK Lancer November in Dallas Historical Research Conferences since 1996. Fiester is a recipient of the prestigious JFK Lancer-Mary Ferrell New Pioneer Award, presented for advancing a better understanding of evidence in the Kennedy Assassination through innovative research.
Now retired from police work, Fiester is a prominent author, lecturer, and educator. "Enemy of Truth: Myths, Forensics, and the JFK Assassination" is her first in a series of upcoming publications utilizing various forensic disciplines to address important subjects of interest to Americans in the 21st century. Her next book, "Demystifying Mind Control" is slated for release in late 2013.
Never having heard of Ms. Fiester or her book, I set out to determine if the information in her bio was factual.
Let’s go point by point:
Sherry Fiester is a retired Certified Senior Crime Scene Investigator and law enforcement instructor with 30 years of experience.
The statement on its face is impossible to verify without additional information. There are various online “universities” that offer courses in “Crime Scene Investigation” and it’s entirely possible that someone that has never been employed in the field could receive some sort of “degree” as a CSI. My first task was to attempt to determine where Ms. Fiester had been employed and with what agency had she served.
The only clue I had to go by at the time was the statement further on in her bio specifying Louisiana.
I have several LE contacts in La., both retired and active. I e’d folks and made some calls to friends and asked them to ask around – not one person I spoke with recognized her name right off the bat (at that point I had not discovered the AKA’s) but that didn’t mean that she had not served. As an aside, when folks asked why I was interested in her and I explained it was related to the JFK assassination the reaction was either an expletive, a laugh, or the observation that “you have too much time on your hands.”
She has testified as a court certified expert in crime scene investigation, crime scene reconstruction, and bloodstain pattern analysis in Louisiana Federal Court and over 30 judicial districts in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida.
For this I enlisted the assistance of a researcher employed by my attorney, using his electronic legal database service, with the attorney’s knowledge and permission – it cost me a very expensive lunch.
Author of numerous articles in professional publications, Fiester is recognized as an instructor in her field at state and national levels.
This part was relatively straight forward. I contacted active and retired forensic science wonks and CSI’s I know through my service and asked them Do you know her or her work? If so please point me in the right direction and if not, could you ask around?
While I was waiting for information to come back, I whipped out google and other search engine fu and some time at the SF public library, looking for any publications regarding CSI or forensics written by Ms. Fiester. During the ‘net portion I discovered Ms. Fiester’s Linkedin profile, which listed the two agencies she claims to have been employed by for a total of 15 years, 3 months. It also lists her education achievements, two years at a University specifying two subjects, neither science related, no degree cited. It does not include any mention of her instructing in CSI or forensics at any level.
One of the things I turned up online was a post at JFK Lancer announcing her death. It was written by Debra Conway, one of the owners of JFK Lancer and stated that Ms. Fiester was her sister.
I emailed Ms. Conway requesting assistance in locating any information concerning her sister’s written work regarding CSI and/or forensics, and requested information pertaining to where her sister had taught in these subjects.
The final two paragraphs in Ms. Fiester’s bio are immaterial to my inquiries.
Conclusions:
1. It can’t be determined by my sources and my own work that Ms. Fiester or her A.K.A’s has ever worked as a sworn LEO or as a CSI (sworn or otherwise) in Louisiana. Even having the names of the two agencies she cited in her Linkedin profile didn’t pan out – one agency told my source they never heard of her. The other never responded to phone inquires from a serving La. LEO. I wasn’t asking for any personal or sensitive information, just a simple yes or no. One individual listed in her Linkedin profile was in-fact a serving LEO. He hasn’t responded to my inquiry or to the inquiry from one of my guys back there that is a serving LEO. General inquiries of retired and serving LEO’s in my circle and my guys didn’t turn up anyone that knew Ms. Fiester. It’s possible that Ms. Fiester could have had some type of connection to law enforcement in some other capacity than what she claimed, but as of the time of this writing there is no evidence past her assertion that she served as a LEO or worked in the field that she claims.
2. There is no evidence that comes up in available electronic databases of criminal court cases, state and federal nationwide, that includes testimony from Ms. Fiester or her A.K.A.’s. Even after I acquired the names of the two agencies she claims to have served with and had the search focused on those two counties nothing came up. My source for this information was able to run defined searches and looked for her name(s) in combination with her specified expertise in different variations in all documents in the various databases he has access to and there were no results – Ms. Fiester is a ghost wrt any of her claimed expertise (there were results that she came up not related to my inquiries) as an expert witness in the field.
3. Debra Conway was kind enough to get back to me concerning my inquiry about her sister’s writings and activities as a forensic/CSI instructor. She informed me that she had her sister’s computer but had not opened it, but did provide me with this link:
https://portlandtribune.com/cr/24-n...-follows-the-clues-at-oregon-city-high-school
At a crime scene, witnesses may be untrustworthy, but “blood spatter doesn’t lie.”
These are the words that Sherry Fiester lives by, and words she shared with 70 students at Oregon City High School last week when she presented a three-day seminar, “CSI: Forensics.”
The above led me to this:
http://ochspioneers.org/sites/default/files/article-files/OC-CSI.pdf
Day 1: April 6th - OCHS FBI Blood Spatter Analysis Training with expert Sherry Fiester
My sources in forensics/CSI from local to the federal level did not discover any materials written by Ms. Fiester related to forensics/CSI other than her JFK assassination book. No retired or active forensics/CSI that I contacted has ever heard of Ms. Fiester before my inquiries. She did not attend or graduate from FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center) a common professional education step for certification in various forensic disciplines. She was not a degreed professional in any forensic related field, something that is critical for someone who claims to be qualified as an expert witness in court – defense attorneys drool at the thought of getting a prosecution witness on a stand testifying on science related issues with nothing more than otj training and experience.
There is no evidence past the high-school seminar cited above that Ms. Fiester has ever instructed on forensics/CSI.
As the late great Herb Caen put it:
Tips, check ‘em and lose ‘em.
If any evidence comes my way that indicates Ms. Fiester was in fact what she claimed to be, I will post same.
If anyone feels the need, please do your own due diligence and look into this for yourself.