Today, Corporal Russell Benefield from the Mobile Country Sheriff’s Department visited us and talked about the crime scene unit. In an investigation, you must be able to identify, document, process, and collect evidence for the case and upcoming court trial. It is best to use your main instinct when ruling out suspects or clues as in the cancel-out method.
Photography is very commonly used and taken from a variety of angles. From where to begin examining the picture depends on the type of photo. Start outside and work your to the middle when looking at distance photography. The midrange is a closer view of the scene, but close-up photography is primarily used because of its use to identify each piece of evidence. Evidence markers and scales are used to mark the evidence as either an identification or for accuracy in reproducing photographs for comparison purposes.
We also learned about bloodstain pattern analysis where investigators and scientists interpret bloodstains to recreate the crime scene for evidence and clues. What’s cool about this is that the bloodstains could tell if a person was standing, walking, or sitting by the shape of the bloodstain. Diagrams are also a form of evidence that can help in a case as they are scale models of the crime scene using measurements and placements of all the evidence.
Other than identifying evidence, processing evidence is a fun process. Investigators use cyanoacrylate fuming, super glue, and ultraviolet lighting to find hidden clues that the suspect tried to cover up. A common substance used is a spray called Blue Star that lights up all blood for about a minute or two.
When collecting evidence, they take everything and store it until the court trial. Everything must be stored properly otherwise the evidence may be tampered with. Temperature, dust, water, air pressure, you name it! One small change and all the evidence is gone. That’s why when storing important evidence, like DNA for example, they are stored in paper bags to prevent the proteins from being disturbed.
The last thing we learned about was fingerprint patterns. All of our fingerprints are unique, but they all share similar characteristics. There are loops, arches, whorls, cores, and deltas. I remember learning about these in my fourth-grade gifted children PACE class. We even got to do our own fingerprints! Now anytime anyone asks me if I've ever been fingerprinted, I say yes and they look at me like a criminal. It’s a funny thing to explain. Our fingerprints aren’t the only pattern that is documented. Many forensics teams review the casting of tires and show impressions. By looking at a show imprint, most detectives can already tell how the suspect walks or if they have a limp, which is pretty impressive.
Today was really interesting learning about fingerprints and evidence. We also got to look at pictures of crime scenes and guess the crime. I already feel like an experienced detective with all my true crime podcasts as prior knowledge. I can’t wait to do the investigation on Thursday and see how it goes!
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