Check it Out! There are Many Wonderful Things Happening at Eastern Kentucky University.
NEWS & ARTICLES
Professor to be Featured on Discovery Channel Program
5/24/2006
An Eastern Kentucky University faculty member will be featured on the Discovery Channel.
Tom Thurman, an associate professor in the Department of Safety, Security & Emergency Management and a 1969 EKU graduate, was interviewed on the EKU campus Friday, Feb. 24, for a pilot program for a series with a working title of “Forensics of Terrorism.” The series is expected to debut this fall.
While serving as a special agent in the FBI’s explosives unit, Thurman played a key role in the investigation into the Pan Am 103 explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people in 1988. After a British detective discovered a tiny piece of a green circuit board, half the size of a thumbnail, Thurman determined the evidence was part of a timing mechanism used to detonate the bomb. The timer had come from a batch of prototypes made by a Swiss electronics company, and most of those prototypes had been sold to the Libyan government.
“I know Tom realized right away we had something very important,” John Hicks, assistant director in charge of the Washington FBI lab and Thurman’s boss, told the Lexington Herald-Leader in 1990. “That’s what Tom had been looking for. That’s what kept him going.”
The discovery led to the criminal indictments in 1991 of two intelligence aides of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
In addition to his laboratory work, Thurman also spent considerable time the Lockerbie site, talking to investigators from several countries and sifting through thousands of pieces of evidence.
LATEST NEWS
- Coming Soon! Special Topics in Ergonomics and Human Factors I
- McConnell, Majors Address Spring Commencement
- Cordner Named Academic Fellow by Foundation
