Every Contact Leaves a Trace : Crime Scene Experts Talk about Their Work from Discovery Through Verdict

by Fletcher, Connie

• ISBN13: 9780312340377
• ISBN10: 0312340370
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-07-25
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

Real crime scene investigation is vastly more complicated, arduous, bizarre, and fascinating than TV's streamlined versions. Most people who work actual investigations will tell you that the science never lies -- but people can. They may also contaminate evidence, or not know what to look for in crime scenes that typically are far more chaotic and confusing, whether inside or outside, than on TV. Forensic experts will tell you that the most important person entering a scene is the very first responding officer Â- the chain of evidence starts with this officer and holds or breaks according to what gets stepped on, or over, collected or contaminated, looked past, or looked over, from every person who enters or interprets the scene, all the way through the crime lab and trial. And forensic experts will tell you the success of a case can depend on any one expert's knowledge of quirky things, such as: Â"The Rule of the First VictimÂ": (the first victim of a criminal usually lives near the criminal's home) Criminals' snacking habits at the sceneÂ"Nature's Evidence Technicians,Â" the birds and rodents that hide bits of bone, jewelry, and fabric in their nestsThe botanical evidence found in criminals' pants cuffs Baseball caps as prime DNA repositoriesThe tales told by the application of physics to falling blood drops. Forensic experts talk about their expertise and their cases here. They also talk about themselves, their reactions to the horrors they witness, and their love of the work. For example, a DNA analyst talks about how she drives her family crazy by buccal-swabbing them all at Thanksgiving dinner. A latent print examiner talks about how he examines cubes of Jell-O at any buffet he goes to for tell-tale prints. A crime scene investigator gives his tips on clearing a scene of cops: he slaps Â"Bio-hazardÂ" and Â"Cancer Causing AgentÂ" stickers on his equipment. And an evidence technician talks about how hard it is to go to sleep after processing a scene, re-living what you've just witnessed, your mind going a hundred miles an hour. This is a world that TV crime shows can't touch. Here are eighty experts Â- including beat cops, evidence technicians, detectives, forensic anthropologists, blood spatter experts, DNA analysts, latent print examiners, firearms experts, trace analysts, crime lab directors, and prosecution and defense attorneys Â- speaking in their own words about what they've seen and what they've learned to journalist Connie Fletcher, who has gotten cops to talk freely in her bestsellers What Cops Know, Pure Cop, and Breaking and Entering. Every Contact Leaves A Trace presents the science, the human drama, and even the black comedy of crime scene investigation. Let the experts take you into their world. This is their book Â- their words, their knowledge, their stories. Through it all, one Sherlock Holmesian premise unites what they do and what it does to them: Every contact leaves a trace.

Author Biography

CONNIE FLETCHER is an associate professor of Journalism at Loyola University in Chicago, and is the author of the bestsellers What Cops Know, Pure Cop, and Breaking and Entering.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(6)
Crime Scene Processing	7	(44)
Crime Scene Interpretation---Inside Scenes	51	(40)
Crime Scene Interpretation---Outside Scenes	91	(44)
Trace Evidence	135	(39)
The Body of Evidence	174	(35)
DNA	209	(31)
Crime Lab	240	(40)
Cold Cases	280	(39)
Criminal Trials	319
Career Sketches for Contributors to Every Contact Leaves a Trace	355

Excerpts

Chapter One 

Crime Scene Processing
 
Do it right the first time. You only get one chance. Once things have been moved, once things have been changed, once you lose that little window of opportunity, it’s gone forever.
 
—Vernon J. Geberth, Commander, Bronx Homicide, NYPD (Ret.), Author of Practical Homicide Investigation
 
A crime scene investigator has to have a positive attitude. You’ve got to believe you’re going to find the evidence. I just learned to play golf. It helps you search the crime scene. My ball goes into the woods. Every time. Now it’s like a crime scene. I always come out with, say, six balls, when I lost two. The positive attitude is the same with golf and the crime scene: You don’t look at the sand traps. You look at the green. Your objective is always to do your best at that crime scene.
 
—Dr. Henry C. Lee, Chief Emeritus and Director, Forensic Science Laboratory, Meriden, Connecticut
 
A drop of blood on a gym shoe. A piece of fiber found on a stairway. The impression of a spade used to dig a basement grave. DNA picked up from a sneeze. A few microscopic traces of glass, blown back on the clothing of an intruder.
 
These have been the first threads of forensic investigations, discovered and collected at crime scenes, leftover particles from actions that have ripped the fabric of people’s lives.
 
Before any investigation can start, evidence must be collected. The scene itself, whether inside, outside, or mobile, has to be gone over as if the processors were exploring a site on Mars. What’s this? Why is this here? Why isn’t this here? What does this all mean? And—how do we get the evidence back to the lab without destroying it?
 
Generally, once the police call for assistance from the crime lab, crime scene teams consisting of evidence technicians and any forensic specialists needed—like blood spatter interpreters, trace analysts, firearms examiners—are sent to the scene. These processors start the chain of evidence that may stretch from the scene through the detectives’ investigation, through the crime lab, all the way to trial. Processors and investigators have a term for the ideal: “keeping the chain tight.” And they have only one shot at picking up the links left at the scene.
 
This chapter follows crime scene processors, presenting what they’ve found in their own words. Their comments are anonymous, but their expertise is indicated after their quotes (unless an entire section contains one type of expert, indicated before the section). Follow the processors and specialists as they work the scene from the outside in.
 
In late ’81, they were training new crime scene team members in Minnesota. Of course, none of us was smart enough to ask, “Well, why is everybody who’s been here for a long time getting off crime scene?”
 
We’re all young and stupid, thinking, “This sounds great.” Back in those days you started out as a crime scene photographer. We went through the whole course and had to demonstrate our proficiency.
 
Copyright © 2006 by Connie Fletcher. All rights reserved.

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Excerpted from Every Contact Leaves a Trace: Crime Scene Experts Talk about Their Work from Discovery Through Verdict by Connie Fletcher
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