Loaner NASA Rover Helps Solve Cold Murder Case in California

NASA’s Senseta MAX 5.0A Rover Armed with a magnetometer, it's a crime fighting machine. NASA

Add gumshoe detective to NASA's resume. Last year, scientists from the space agency working with the US Geological Survey and the Menlo Park District Attorney's office solved an 18-year-old murder case using technology developed for autonomous Earth science missions, NASA has announced.

In 1991, a man named Bernardo Bass shot and killed his girlfriend Dawn Sanchez, but her body, the firearm used and Bass's car -- the last place Sanchez was seen -- were nowhere to be found. It didn't take a seasoned detective to finger Bass as a person of interest, but the case was dismissed the same year for lack of any hard evidence attaching Bass to the crime.

Related Articles

	Blood Is the Ink, Crime Is the Story
	The World’s Smallest Crime Lab
	New Virtual-Reality Forensic Technique Maps Out 3-D Crime Scene From a Single Photo

Tags

Technology, Clay Dillow, earth science, menlo park california, murder, nasa, nasa earth science, robotics, robots

The NASA group was already working on various technologies and processing algorithms geared for underground surveying, specifically ground penetrating radar systems. NASA was also working with Senseta Inc., a Carnegie Mellon spin-off company that was building the rovers that would host those sensors.

Working together, USGS, NASA, and Senseta scientists and engineers deployed a Senseta MAX 5.0A rover to map the magnetic environment of the abandoned lot. After processing the data set, the USGS was able to pinpoint some specific places ripe for excavation. The ensuing dig turned up pieces of Bass's car that led to his eventually pleading no contest to charges of manslaughter nearly two decades after the crime was committed. Just another day at the office for America's space program.

[NASA via Smart Planet]