MISSING LINK RESTORED

The fire destroyed only the business which was on the first floor of a multi-unit building.  The business had subscribed to a central station monitoring service, reporting automatically by telephone.  The alarm control panel had not been burned enough to have prevented it from sending a fire/smoke report to the central station.  The central station had received no fire/smoke report.

The basement of the building exhibited telephone lines from the various installations that had come and gone over the years.  No wires were burned in the basement, and the damage to the wires on the first floor was superficial.  However, electrical testing showed that the telco line which appeared at the demarcation point in the basement, did not continue to the alarm control panel.  What happened to the circuit?

Inch-by-inch examination of all the telephone wires in the basement found a link missing in one line.  Cut points had been carefully made at two locations where wires went through wood beams, a piece had been removed entirely, and the wire ends had been pushed back so as to be invisible.

Sure enough, when the cut-out link was restored, the wire was found to be the circuit serving the business’s telephone including its alarm control panel.  The missing link explained the absence of a fire/smoke report from the panel.  The physical cuts established tampering.

It was a good enough job to fool a visual inspection, but the missing link was revealed through electrical testing.

ROGER L. BOYELL,  FORENSIC ANALYST

416 PARRY DRIVE,  MOORESTOWN NJ  08057-2877

PHONE  856-234-5800 • FAX  856-234-9539

E-MAIL  boyell@ieee.org  •  WEB SITE  www.boyell.com

EXPERTISE IN ELECTRONIC CONTROL AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS.

SERVING THE LEGAL FORUM WITH CONSULTING AND TESTIMONY.