Laura Spots a Hole in the Defense case

Sam got up to leave. As he went out of the courtroom he walked slowly. Terri walked behind him. Her face was sober. Laura was just outside leaning on her crutches with a big smile on her face.

“Why the long faces?”

Sam shook his head. “His testimony will be hard to shake.”

“Can we go somewhere private?”

“Sure.” He pointed to a small room and opened the door. When the door closed she sat down and pulled her purse off her shoulder. She pulled out a paper and unfolded it. “Can you get out the doctor’s charts. Look at this.” Terri pulled out the chart and handed it to Laura. She flipped down a couple of pages and turned the document toward them. Both Sam and Terri looked without comprehending. Finally Terri looked at her and said, “What?”

“See the two test numbers? They are listed as Kathy Seneft but the number is for my pre-op test. And the one six lines down is my post-op test. And Serena Former’s test number is lower than mine. It isn’t hers, it should be higher.”

“Are you sure?”

She ruffled through the papers. “Here, take a look. They changed the test numbers to make it come out the way they needed.”

“Can we prove that?”

“Only by comparison.”

“Lets keep this between us for now. I’m not sure how to use this information. We have to be sure before we claim they falsified testimony. That is a very serious charge to make.”

When Laura got home she turned on her computer and found the contact list she built containing the addresses of amputees. She wrote an e-mail and sent it to the list.

I hope you remember me. I’m Laura Durin. Today in court I noticed something I want to pursue. If you don’t mind please answer the following questions for me. I can’t tell you why but it may make a difference in court. Please respond with as much information as you can. I need the responses by tomorrow.

Patient Name.

For each biopsy give the hospital, and if available, test number, date, and diagnosis

Thank you.

PS If you know any others, please call them and tell them to respond.

She sent the message. Seven times during the evening the phone rang. All of the calls were from someone who wanted to give her the information.

At six PM she checked her mail. She had fifty-three responses.

She started to put the information on a EXCEL sheet. When she was done she was ready to print it when she realized only two, less four percent of the patients were male. She remembered that girls outnumbered boys slightly on sarcoma. She looked on Yahoo Messenger. “Mathwiz” was on with a status of “correcting papers”. That meant to students, “Don’t bother me unless it is important.”

She opened a chat.

Laur64-Can I ask a you a question?

Mathwiz-Go

Laur64-I have set of sixty items that should be divided into two sets, nearly equally likely mutually exclusive but the set distribution is 58 to 2. I can’t explain it

Mathwiz-how near equally likely

Laur64-994 to 1000

Mathwiz-not significant treat it as equally likely – the odds are over 10 to the 28th against a four percent

Laur64-i figured between 28 and 29

Mathwiz-that’s right. Could there be a factor you have missed

Laur64-Not that I know, I just wanted you to check

Mathwiz-Can you share

Laur64-I thought you didn’t have time

Mathwiz-I do for this. A thinking student is cause for alarm. It must be addressed now and proper punishment meted to prevent repeat offense. GA

Laur64-Girls have 1000 cases of bone cancer for 994 in guys. I polled the plaintiffs in the case. Fifty eight girls, two guys

Mathwiz-u sure of that

Laur64-for sure I didn’t c a guy in court-25 plus girls were there

Mathwiz-Then the false positives are skewed to girls – question, why

Laur64-I was hoping you knew

Mathwiz-no tell the lawyer, I’ll think about it. Back to the papers. Bye

Laur64-Thanks

Laura Chapter 1

Laura Chapter 20

Laura Chapter 22