William Tobin
William Tobin (scientist, whistleblower) | |
---|---|
William A. Tobin is an American scientist who spent 27 years as an FBI agent, the last 24 in the FBI crime laboratory as a high-level forensic metallurgist.[1]
Tobin was assigned to work on the July 1977 TWA Flight 800 crash. In 1999, he testified in front of the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight and the Courts, raising concerns about the criminal portion of the case. In the testimony, he questioned the FBI officials’ theories that a bomb was the cause of the crash.[2]
Since his retirement in 1998, Tobin has worked on legal cases for both defence attorneys and prosecutors as a forensic metallurgist/materials scientist.[3]
He was the principal critic of the forensic practice of comparative bullet lead analysis, which has since been discontinued by the forensic community, and has published numerous forensic papers.[4]