While many psycologist are in the business of helping people to remember memories, one woman is helping to distinguish if these memories are actually theirs.

Elizabeth Loftus, a professor at the University of Seattle, gave a lecture to a packed Sun Room in the Memorial Union Thursday evening about the “Crimes of Memory.”

Loftus, who recently wrote the book, “The Myth of Repressed Memory,” talks in her book about the different ways memories, sometimes false memories, are implanted into peoples heads.

Loftus said up front that she has the “deepest sympathy for the victims of violent sexual crimes.”

Having done research for decades, Loftus said she has learned that people can begin to intermix events that have actually happened in their lives with events that had no impact on their lives. Not all memories though are false, she said.

“Memories can be dug out by proper therapeutic sessions,” she said.

She mentioned the case of George Franklin. In 1969, the body of Suzie Mason, the best friend of Franklin’s daughter, was found.

Nearly 20 years later, his daughter accused him of killing her best friend. She said she had remembered being in a van and seeing her father rape Suzie, and then he hit her over the head twice with a rock.

Franklin was then was charged with murder in 1990 on the basis of repressed memories. Even though there was no scientific evidence to prove that Franklin had done it, the jury still found him guilty of murder.

The case was overturned by a judge this year. Loftus was called as an expert witness.

She testified that because of all of the media coverage, the daughter had begun to believe that she had been at the scene of the murder.