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.
‘Abundant’ probably just means the hands were smeared with mud on some parts, not that they had clumps of mud in them. Why it would be on the hands after being in water—some possible reasons might be that the body got hung up in muddy shallows and that’s why it was found, or it was dragged over muddy areas when pulled from the water. As I don’t have any picture of where it was or how it was recovered, that’s my best guess.
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There’s a wide variety of knots as people tend to use whatever they think will work.
I hope that helps.
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It is scientific information applied to matters pertaining to the law. And what you major in depends on what area you're going in to--pathology, toxicology, entemology, etc.
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I'm so sorry for your loss. They most likely drew the blood right away, and tested it three days later. As far as I know that would not affect the results--bodily fluids are usually not tested immediately since the M.E. or coroner's office sends the samples to a different location for testing. Blood for alcohol testing is collected in special gray topped tubes for that particular purpose, designed to keep the results accurate. Again, I'm sorry for your loss.
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1. Probably not in a forensics lab. I'm guessing that would require carbon dating; an archaeologist would know much more than I would. 2. Possibly.3. Depends on the backlog at the lab (could be weeks, could be many months) and how much you're willing to pay for rush work at a private lab.4. I'm not sure news releases are ever required for anything, unless there's some sort of imminent threat to the public. Sorry but I actually don't know how our public information officer decides when to issue a release or not. 5. News reporters usually come to the scene of a crime or accident when they see something going on, but it depends on how busy they are, who they can spare to go to the scene, and whether they guess this will be a useful story to them. It's entirely up to them. We have a public information officer that they can always contact to get any release-able information.
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We don't have any particular code words so that only we know what we're talking about. Police departments have all sorts of codes for types of crime--such as, where I live, a signal 23 is a burglary. Signal 4 is a traffic accident. 10-8 means you're on duty and available. 10-6 means you're on duty but busy. If we're somewhere, like a crime scene, and we don't want other people to overhear us we're just careful to move away and out of earshot. Hope that helps!
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That depends entirely on what in the field of forensic science you want to do. The best way is to call some of the places you’d like to work as ask what their requirements would be, because they can vary all over the country. Smaller labs will want you to cross train.Larger ones might want you to specialize.
Good luck!!
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