Alameda Sheriff Investigates Suspected Werewolf Attack
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:45 am
SPOILER ALERT: This isn't what it sounds like, but I'm vaguely curious to see how many people click here after reading the post subject line.
Anywho... I was taking a criminal forensics class and the professor teaching it is one of the higher-ups at the Alameda County (California) Sheriff Department crime lab. She was discussing things that can go amazingly wrong in a criminal investigation and she told this story:
Sometime in the late 1980s (I didn't get precisely when) a patrol unit with the Pleasanton Police Department responded to a call for service at a residence in that city. The caller reported that there was a substance which she believed was blood running out from under a garage door at the residence. The officers arrived and did indeed witness what they believed to be blood running out from under the garage door -- gallons and gallons of blood by the look of it. The stain was a few feet wide and ran all the way down the driveway, into the gutter and into a storm drain. Believing (somewhat understandably) that there were exigent circumstances, they forced open the front door and entered the premises. The house was empty save for a blood-soaked dog (very much alive), an unidentified bat kept in a cage and an overturned 55 gallon drum in the garage with blood residue inside. The house's owner is nowhere to be found and his car is missing. The scene was sufficiently worrisome that the Pleasanton Police Department quickly enlisted the aid of the Alameda County Sheriff's crime scene investigation team. My illustrious professor just happens to be on duty in the lab when this little case comes in. Specifically, the detectives were tremendously interested in determining if the blood in the drum was human or not. She performs what is known as an antibody test. The exact proceedure for this test can get a little technical, but the short version is that antibodies from a series of known animals (including human) are tested against the blood sample to see if there is a reaction. A strong reaction with a specific antibody gives you a presumptive match with the species that the blood came from. She runs the battery (including both human and bat) and gets an anomalous reading: Faint positives for both human and canine. Now she knows that this probably means that there was some sort of contamination in the sample, so she uses a more sophisticated (and unfortunately time-consuming) test. One of the detectives from Pleasanton calls her and demands to know the results of the test. She replies that the test was "inconclusive" and that he would have to wait until Monday for the tests to be completed. The detective (under significant pressure to make immediate progress with the case) was not pleased by this and makes some unfortunate statements about her competence (it should be noted that Pleasanton is not a community where mass-murders happen with any great frequency). Somewhat flippantly she replies that the detective and his colleagues could start looking for a werewolf if they were in such a rush. She hangs up on him and goes home for the night. She comes back in the following Monday to find a message that the Sheriff of Alameda County himself wants to see her. She shows up and to her chagrin finds that a local newspaper had quoted Pleasanton Police officials as saying that the Alameda County Sheriff Department had told them they believed a werewolf had attacked the house's owner.
So there you have it. An official werewolf attack.
Although the real punch-line in this story is even better:
It turns out that the reason there was no strong reaction to the antibody tests was that the blood was bovine (not one of the blood-types that she screened for). They eventually found the house's owner safe and sound. It turns out that the owner was a man of -- ahem -- unusual sexual appetites, and that he used the South American Vampire Bat as part of some bizarre ritual in kinky sex with his girlfriend (hey, what can I say? It's the San Francisco Bay Area). Anyway the Vampire Bat (as its name implies) subsists upon blood, primarily bovine blood. This particular genius goes to a slaughterhouse in the Central Valley and tries to buy some bovine blood for the bat. He finds out that they're willing to sell him the stuff in 55 gallon barrels. Einstein here decides that he's found blood-Costco or something and takes them up on their offer and gets himself a 55 gallon drum of blood (I have to wonder if he knew that blood needs to be refrigerated or it quickly goes bad, or that it's a pretty severe biohazard... idiot). He brings the drum of blood home and stores it in his garage. He then goes to work. The dog smelling the festering barrel of blood goes completely apes**t and knocks the barrel over (and proceeds to roll around in the stuff). The faint positives for human were due to contamination from the dude (and probably other people at the slaughterhouse as well) and the faint canine positive was from the dog rolling around in the stuff. The owner comes home to find a dozen patrol cars as well as a couple of TV news vans parked in front of the house. Understandably, he chose to go somewhere else that night.
Ah, but they saved the best for last: Neither the Alameda County Sheriff Department nor the Pleasanton Police could charge him with anything... but he was hit with a stiff fine by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the South American Vampire Bat is apparently endangered and illegal to possess.
Anywho... I was taking a criminal forensics class and the professor teaching it is one of the higher-ups at the Alameda County (California) Sheriff Department crime lab. She was discussing things that can go amazingly wrong in a criminal investigation and she told this story:
Sometime in the late 1980s (I didn't get precisely when) a patrol unit with the Pleasanton Police Department responded to a call for service at a residence in that city. The caller reported that there was a substance which she believed was blood running out from under a garage door at the residence. The officers arrived and did indeed witness what they believed to be blood running out from under the garage door -- gallons and gallons of blood by the look of it. The stain was a few feet wide and ran all the way down the driveway, into the gutter and into a storm drain. Believing (somewhat understandably) that there were exigent circumstances, they forced open the front door and entered the premises. The house was empty save for a blood-soaked dog (very much alive), an unidentified bat kept in a cage and an overturned 55 gallon drum in the garage with blood residue inside. The house's owner is nowhere to be found and his car is missing. The scene was sufficiently worrisome that the Pleasanton Police Department quickly enlisted the aid of the Alameda County Sheriff's crime scene investigation team. My illustrious professor just happens to be on duty in the lab when this little case comes in. Specifically, the detectives were tremendously interested in determining if the blood in the drum was human or not. She performs what is known as an antibody test. The exact proceedure for this test can get a little technical, but the short version is that antibodies from a series of known animals (including human) are tested against the blood sample to see if there is a reaction. A strong reaction with a specific antibody gives you a presumptive match with the species that the blood came from. She runs the battery (including both human and bat) and gets an anomalous reading: Faint positives for both human and canine. Now she knows that this probably means that there was some sort of contamination in the sample, so she uses a more sophisticated (and unfortunately time-consuming) test. One of the detectives from Pleasanton calls her and demands to know the results of the test. She replies that the test was "inconclusive" and that he would have to wait until Monday for the tests to be completed. The detective (under significant pressure to make immediate progress with the case) was not pleased by this and makes some unfortunate statements about her competence (it should be noted that Pleasanton is not a community where mass-murders happen with any great frequency). Somewhat flippantly she replies that the detective and his colleagues could start looking for a werewolf if they were in such a rush. She hangs up on him and goes home for the night. She comes back in the following Monday to find a message that the Sheriff of Alameda County himself wants to see her. She shows up and to her chagrin finds that a local newspaper had quoted Pleasanton Police officials as saying that the Alameda County Sheriff Department had told them they believed a werewolf had attacked the house's owner.
So there you have it. An official werewolf attack.
Although the real punch-line in this story is even better:
It turns out that the reason there was no strong reaction to the antibody tests was that the blood was bovine (not one of the blood-types that she screened for). They eventually found the house's owner safe and sound. It turns out that the owner was a man of -- ahem -- unusual sexual appetites, and that he used the South American Vampire Bat as part of some bizarre ritual in kinky sex with his girlfriend (hey, what can I say? It's the San Francisco Bay Area). Anyway the Vampire Bat (as its name implies) subsists upon blood, primarily bovine blood. This particular genius goes to a slaughterhouse in the Central Valley and tries to buy some bovine blood for the bat. He finds out that they're willing to sell him the stuff in 55 gallon barrels. Einstein here decides that he's found blood-Costco or something and takes them up on their offer and gets himself a 55 gallon drum of blood (I have to wonder if he knew that blood needs to be refrigerated or it quickly goes bad, or that it's a pretty severe biohazard... idiot). He brings the drum of blood home and stores it in his garage. He then goes to work. The dog smelling the festering barrel of blood goes completely apes**t and knocks the barrel over (and proceeds to roll around in the stuff). The faint positives for human were due to contamination from the dude (and probably other people at the slaughterhouse as well) and the faint canine positive was from the dog rolling around in the stuff. The owner comes home to find a dozen patrol cars as well as a couple of TV news vans parked in front of the house. Understandably, he chose to go somewhere else that night.
Ah, but they saved the best for last: Neither the Alameda County Sheriff Department nor the Pleasanton Police could charge him with anything... but he was hit with a stiff fine by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the South American Vampire Bat is apparently endangered and illegal to possess.
