Forensic Report        Sheriff's Letter

Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories

Brain Fingerprinting Testing

Helps Bring a Serial Killer to Justice

Dr. Farwell conducts a Brain Fingerprinting test on J. B. Grinder

For 15 years, James B. Grinder was the primary suspect in the brutal murder case of Julie Helton, but there had never been enough evidence to bring him to trial. Miss Helton was reported missing in Macon, MO in January 1984. Three days later her body was found near the railroad tracks in Macon. She had been raped, brutally beaten and stabbed in the neck.

During the 15 years after the murder, Grinder had given several different, contradictory accounts of the crime. Some accounts involved his participation and some did not. Some involved participation by several other individuals. Grinder's accounts contradicted both the physical evidence and the statements of an alleged witness.

After spending over 10,000 man-hours investigating the case, Macon County Sheriff Robert Dawson asked Dr. Lawrence Farwell to use Brain Fingerprinting testing to determine scientifically whether or not Grinder was the perpetrator of the crime. Grinder, already serving time in jail on an unrelated case, agreed to participate in the Brain Fingerprinting test. Sheriff Dawson, Chief Deputy Charles Muldoon, and Randy King of the Missouri Highway Patrol provided Dr. Farwell with the specific background information on the case for use in developing the test.

During the Brain Fingerprinting test, which Dr. Farwell administered in August 1999, Grinder viewed short phrases flashed on a computer screen, some of which were probe stimuli containing specific details of the crime that would be noteworthy only to the perpetrator. These included the murder weapon, the specific method of killing the victim, specific injuries inflicted on the victim by the perpetrators before she was killed, what the perpetrators used to bind the victim’s hands, the place where the body was left, items that the perpetrators left near the crime scene and items that were taken from the victim during the crime.

Computer analysis of the Brain Fingerprinting test found, with a statistical confidence level of 99.9%, that the specific details of the crime were recorded in Grinder’s brain as “information present”, which means that record stored in Grinder’s brain matched the details of Julie Helton ‘s murder.

Following the test results, Grinder faced an almost certain conviction and probable death sentence. Grinder pled guilty to the rape and murder of Julie Helton in exchange for a life sentence without parole.  He is currently serving that sentence. In addition, Grinder subsequently confessed to the previously unsolved murders of several other young women.

Testing Procedure

Following standard Brain Fingerprinting testing protocols, for his test Grinder wore a headband equipped with sensors that measured brain-wave responses from the frontal, central and parietal areas of the head. Electrical brain responses were amplified, digitized, stored on computer disk and computer analyzed at the end of the procedure.

Before the test Grinder was given a list of the target stimuli, details about the crime that were already known to him — details that investigators knew Grinder knew. During the test, Grinder viewed five different sets of probe, target, and irrelevant stimuli. Each set contained three probes, three targets, and 12 irrelevants. He was instructed to press a special button whenever a target stimulus appeared on the screen and another button when anything else appeared on the screen.

The irrelevant stimuli, as the name implies, were not relevant to the crime, and would be equally plausible for an innocent person, (e.g., a weapon that was not the murder weapon, an injury that the victim did not sustain, a place where the victim’s body was not left, etc.)

The test was designed so that:

·        The target stimuli would elicit a MERMER (memory and encoding related multifaceted electro-encephalographic response), because they were noteworthy to the subject;

·        The irrelevant stimuli would not elicit a MERMER, because they were not noteworthy to the subject;

·        The probe stimuli would elicit a MERMER only if the subject recognized them as relevant to the crime, i.e., if the subject had the significant details of the crime stored in his brain due to having committed the crime.

The test was divided into separate blocks. In each block, each of the 24 stimuli in one set was presented three times, for a total of 72 stimulus presentations or trials in each block. The data analysis consisted of mathematically comparing Grinder’s brain-wave responses to the three types of stimuli to determine if the responses to the probes contained a MERMER (like the target responses) or did not contain a MERMER (like the irrelevant responses)

Test Results

Grinder’s brain-wave responses to the probe stimuli containing details of the rape and murder of Julie Helton clearly contained a MERMER, indicating “information present” which means that the details of this crime were stored in his brain. (As expected, the target responses also elicited a MERMER, and the irrelevant responses did not elicit a MERMER.) 

The Brain Fingerprinting system mathematically analyzes the brain-wave responses and makes a determination of “information present’ or “information absent”. “Information present” means that the probe responses, like the target responses, contain a MERMER indicating that the crime-relevant information is stored in the brain. “Information absent” means that the details of the crime are not stored in the brain. The Brain Fingerprinting system also computes a statistical confidence for the determination of “information present” or “information absent.”

The Brain Fingerprinting test result for J.B. Grinder was “information present,” with a statistical confidence of 99.9%. From this we can conclude with a high degree of confidence that, even though fifteen years had passed since the event, significant details of Julie Helton’s rape and murder are stored in J.B. Grinder’s brain. 

It is well established from a scientific standpoint that a Brain Fingerprinting test can help to determine the truth regarding what specific information is stored in a suspect’s brain.  This, along with other evidence, can help to free the innocent and bring the guilty to justice.

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