Thread by @mbalter

Here is a preview of an upcoming update on the Danielle Kurin/Jack Cantin story.
Fact: Kurin claimed to have found human remains belonging to missing Montecito mudslide victim Jack Cantin, whose body was not found.

Fact: DNA testing eventually showed the bones were not human, but animal, probably cow.
Fact: Kurin was desperately trying to get tenure at @ucsantabarbara despite her dept recommending against it.
Hypothesis: Kurin thought finding the missing boy would help her get tenure.

Fact: When Santa Barbara Sheriff-Coroner insisted it needed DNA evidence before it could confirm the remains belonged to Jack, Kurin tried to dissuade Jack’s mother from allowing it, claiming (falsely) the testing would destroy the bones.
Hypothesis: Kurin knew her ID was bogus.

Fact: When the Sheriff insisted on continuing the investigation, Kurin enlisted her own attorney, Hoyer Group attorney David Scher, to threaten the Sheriff with a lawsuit unless the bones were returned to the boy’s mother.
Hypothesis: Kurin had gaslighted the mother…

Into thinking that the Sheriff had some reason to deny her a death certificate so she could bury her son’s purported remains. Hypothesis: It was in Kurin’s interest that the bones be returned without being further analyzed because she knew there was no evidence they were Jack’s.

Fact: Jack’s mother did go on to sue the Sheriff and SB County, using a local lawyer rather than Scher. Hypothesis: Scher knew that it would be a conflict of interest to continue to represent the mother given that Kurin had an interest in the outcome.

Fact: The case was put on hold and eventually dismissed by the mother while she negotiated with the Sheriff to have the DNA testing done. Fact: This happened at the same time that Kurin was forced to resign from UCSB after the university investigated the many irregularities…

In Kurin’s handling of the case. Hypothesis: Once Kurin was out of the picture, Jack’s mother realized that DNA testing was the only way to resolve the issue, because, Fact: The Sheriff was not going to issue a death certificate without DNA confirmation the bones were Jack’s.

Fact: Kurin’s behavior, typical of a pattern of misconduct stretching back at least eight years, ended up doing great harm to the mother, and, Hypothesis: To a number of students who had worked with Kurin on the case and thought they were doing serious forensics.

Documentation of the facts, and further elaboration of the hypotheses, coming soon on Balter’s Blog.

For background and back links: michael-balter.blogspot.com/2022/08/bones-…

1/ Evidence that supports the supposition Kurin had the intent to deceive the mother and the Sheriff: She identified a graduate student she used as a supposed “peer reviewer” of her forensics report as a “Professor” and elsewhere as having a PhD, which was false.

2/ The graduate student Kurin used to “peer review” her report was someone entirely dependent on her to complete her doctoral thesis, as the thesis involved artifacts from Kurin’s archaeological sites in Peru; Kurin was on the student’s committee.

If Kurin had been serious about getting “peer review” of her forensics report, she could have approached any number of forensic anthropologists in the U.S. and asked them to do it. Instead, in a whopping conflict of interest, she asked a grad student who was totally…

Beholden to her for completing her PhD and then fraudulently tried to pass off the poor student to both the grieving mother and the Sheriff’s department as a Professor at Washington State University. I will post a link to the report here in case anyone in the field…

Wants to have a look at it now and provide comment on this thread: mbalter.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/kurin-…

In addition, Kurin prepared a “slide show” of her findings which was also released by the Sheriff-Coroner under the CA PRA and which I also link to here for those who would like to examine it: mbalter.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/kurin-…

Kurin’s report and the slide show include “critiques” of the work of the consulting forensics anthropologist the Sheriff-Coroner contracted with, Rick Snow. But he turned out to be right about everything and she was wrong about everything.