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Join us in the Cal State Los Angeles teaching crime lab for an afternoon’s inquiry into the history and practice of forensic science in Los Angeles, in support of new research coming out of the Criminalistics Department. 

Presentation #1: L.A. Bombing with Mike Digby

Presenter Mike Digby recently retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department after 34 years of law enforcement service and six years in the US Army. For the last 17 years, he was assigned as an FBI-certified bomb technician/detective on the LASD Arson-Explosives Detail. Mike has a wealth of international experience in the bomb disposal world; having conducted counter-IED training in Thailand, Israel, Germany, Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Poland.

His first book, “L.A. Bombing,” is scheduled for publication in Spring 2016. He wrote it to answer that age-old question, “there’s bombings in L.A?”

Today’s talk focuses on a couple of interesting, yet less-publicized, bombings that have occurred in Los Angeles.

Presentation #2: The Making of a Serial Killer: The Corey King Arson Murder Investigations with Ed Nordskog

In the spring of 2008, an unknown suspect entered the home of a 91-year-old grandmother in Altadena. The woman was later found beaten and stabbed to death, with her home set on fire. Six months later and eighty miles away, fire fighters responded to a structure fire in Lancaster. After the fire was extinguished, the bodies of a mother and three daughters were found strewn about the home. They had each been savagely attacked and beaten and stabbed to death before the fires.

LA Sheriffs Homicide and Arson detectives linked an 18-year-old male to both scenes using forensics, criminal profiling, and pure luck.

Join the investigation as we take this profile in front of a Death Penalty jury. It is truly an inside look at a developing maniac serial killer, and how he was caught before more innocents could be victimized.

ABOUT ED NORDSKOG: Ed Nordskog is an active arson/bomb detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He has been a detective since 1990, working specifically in the arson and explosives world since 1997. He has conducted over sixteen hundred fire investigations and as of this writing has personally arrested and interviewed over 250 persons who were convicted of fire setting and related crimes. He has testified in court as a recognized expert in this field on over fifty-five occasions. He has been consulted by prosecuting attorneys on death penalty cases involving arson and murder on three occasions. He has been personally involved in over twenty serial arson investigations. The author has a master’s degree in emergency services management and is certified as a fire investigator by the California State Fire Marshal and the California Conference of Arson Investigators. He is a graduate of the National Fire Academy Arson Investigation Course, the ATF Advanced Arson Investigation Course, the Forensic Fire Death Investigation Course, and numerous other arson investigation courses. He is involved in course development and teaches fire scene investigation, major arson case investigation, serial arson investigation, and arson murder/fire death investigation. He is a course developer and instructor for the state of California’s Arson and Explosives Investigation Course. He is an instructor for the state of California’s Homicide Investigator’s Course. In 2004, the author was named Arson Investigator of the Year by the International Association of Arson Investigators and Law Enforcement Officer of the Year by the International Association of Special Investigations Units; both of these awards are for his work as the lead investigator on a massive arson for hire scheme, involving fifty-five burned properties. He has received over eighty-five commendations, awards, and medals throughout his law enforcement career related to successful criminal investigations. He is author of the books ‘Torchered’ Minds: Case Histories of Notorious Serial Arsonists and Fire Raisers, Freaks and Fiends—Obsessive Arsonists in the California Foothills.