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.
Hi, sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Again, titles and job requirements aren't uniform, so the only way to know is to call the crime labs in your area or whereever you might be interested in working and ask them. You can also go on the websites for professional organizations such as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and check out their job vacancy postings and see what the various positions require. Good luck.
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32. It was my second career, I majored in political science during my first round at college and was a personnel secretary for ten years first.
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Hi Cybill, I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I believe that they can use the inside of a tooth for DNA analysis, but of course if the tooth is loose they may not be able to determine which body it came from if there's more than one. I expect a dentist would need the teeth still in the jaw to compare with dental x-rays in order to make a comparison that way, but it may all depend on what work, if any, has been done to the tooth and how distinctive that work is. I'm not a DNA analyst (any more) or a dentist so I'm not 100% sure.
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Biology would help with the natural fibers (like cotton or fibers from plants, or hairs from animals like wool) and chemistry helped with analyzing synthetic fibers with polarized light or fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Those last two don't work on natural fibers because they're not consistent all the way through like a synthetic fiber, that comes out of a machine.
Fiber analysis was usually only examined in cases of stabbing, strangling or bludgeoning, where there had to be close physical contact between victim and suspect. (A gunshot didn't mean there had to be contact.) It was only a small part of my days. Very little is done any more because you can only say the fibers are consistent with having come from a particular sample, you can't say they did, as in DNA or fingerprints. You can't even give a statistic for how likely it would be to find a particular fiber unless it came from the suspect, etc., because we can't know how many items with that fiber are in the environment.
Only collection would be done in the field, to do anything more you would need the microscopes and the equipment at the lab.
Hope that helps!
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Poet
Does being a professional poet pay the bills?
Chick-fil-A General Manager
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Have you ever had to disarm an attacker?
Many forensic chemistry departments only analyze possible drugs, so I would think it would be possible to find.
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The 'forensics industry' encompasses at least twenty different areas, from pathology to accounting, so any certifications would be administered by that disciplines organizing body. Fingerprints, for example, are regulated through the International Association for Identification. Death Investigators have their own organization. Whether or not these certifications are required for your job is up to the agency (such as your city police department or a county medical examiner's office) hiring you for that job.
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The people to ask would be the people hiring forensics personnel in LA county. All agencies (the police department, the sheriff's office, the medical examiner's office) should all have websites that post current job openings. If they don't have any current postings, then you can always call them and ask. That's the only way to know for sure. Best of luck!
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