LIsa Black
Cape Coral, FL
Female, 49
I spent the five happiest years of my life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist in the Cleveland coroner’s office I analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now I'm a certified latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. I also write a series of forensic suspense novels, turning the day job into fiction. My books have been translated into six languages.
We have worksheets or notebooks that we use to make notes at the scene, and we have worksheets that we sometimes use in the lab if we want to. Then the 'official' report, which is usually fairly simple, is typed into our computer system so that everyone in the department can view results or print it out for the attorneys. It will outline everything we did and any results obtained.
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I've worked in forensics since 1994. The best part of the job is making a fingerprint 'hit' that tells us who the bad guy is, or working a crime scene and finding or concluding something that helps explain what happened there. The worst part is being stressed by detectives or attorneys who want all the answers right now and don't understand what they're asking for, or testifying in court and having no idea what's going to be thrown at you.
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No, because simply from a news article you have no idea of everything that is going on. The officers might not be (should not be) telling reporters everything they know, in order to weed out truthful and untruthful witnesses. They're also not going to tell reporters (and if they did the reporters wouldn't write it) every last little boring tedious detail of everything they do. And information often gets garbled in translation, from crime scene to cops, from cops to the information officer, from the info officer to the press release, from the press release to the news article, from the neighbor looking over their fence and then talking to the reporter. That's just human.
Lots of time the story I get from Dispatch when they first call me turns out to be a totally different thing when I get there.
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As much or as little as it does in any other profession. At least half if not most forensic techs are female, so it's not that uncommon to have attractive ones. Many moons ago I used to be one, so I know that sometimes it's helpful to have people open doors for you, and sometimes it's a royal pain in the neck.
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I've had two jobs in forensics and didn't have connections to get either. I didn't get a number of jobs because they were already planning to hire someone's brother-in-law, but I eventually got a position. The procedure is whatever the agency requires and they will all be different, so you need to check out the websites of any agency you would like to apply to. They will usually have a clearly defined process for application.
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it is always helpful to know what will give a false positive result. Hemastix will also react with a few other substances, such as vomit for one. That's why it's called a prelimary test and not a confirmatory test. Good job!
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I talked about what the coroner's office was like above. There's great job security if, as in any other field, you do a good job, you're fair and reasonable, you are empathetic to victims and suspects and other co-workers, and you're reliable and steady. People have to be able to depend on you.
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