Even after responding to more than 600 murders, suicides, burglaries and other harrowing scenes, there’s an incident that one forensic crime scene investigator can’t seem to forget.
More than two years ago the investigator, Eva, responded to a call about a dead woman in a house in the Washington D.C. area.
What initially appeared to be a quick job — photographing the corpse, which had its pants pulled down and showed no signs of defensive wounds — quickly turned into an 18-hour day when the medical examiner arrived. Upon checking for signs of rigor mortis to determine the time of death, the medical examiner lifted the deceased woman’s head to find a long cut in the neck, indicating that a killer had apparently slit the victim’s throat.
“Then, because she was face down, there was a large pool of blood beneath her body but no knife, gun or trail to her,” Eva says now.
Rather than merely taking pictures of the scene, she documented as many details about the house, noticing that it smelled like chemicals and that the body was oddly stationed in the middle of the floor between two walls. Acting on a hunch that someone had used bleach to clean up the scene, Eva sprayed a bioluminescent chemical that causes surfaces to glow in the dark if remnants of bleach are present.
“The room lit up like Christmas, from the bedroom to the bathroom,” she says now. “You could also see on the walls where someone had made a circular motion — the same circular motion you make when you wash your car — to clean up the wall. I cut out the wall with a handprint impression and sent it back for processing.”
She walked through the house, placing placards to mark possible evidence and dusting for fingerprints. And then the case went cold.
Soon after, Eva would move across the country to start a new job in Southern California, falling out of the day-to-day conversations with detectives that would keep her up to speed on the case of the deceased woman in the house. Even now there haven’t been any arrests, she recalled during a recent phone call.
“It’s not under my jurisdiction, so I don’t need to know,” she said. “I could walk into a scene and think I’m taking pictures of someone who had fallen and bled out, but then get to a scene and see that it’s an unnatural death.”
Such is life for a forensic analyst. Eva — whose name has been changed to protect her identity, as she’s not authorized to speak to the press — says she regularly puts questions about what happened out of her mind in order to follow the science.
“That’s very important because someone’s life was affected and, to me, that’s a big deal,” she says. “I need to take as much care as possible.”
The work could entail tasks ranging from swabbing DNA and collecting fingerprints to taking detailed notes about what she finds in a house after detectives obtain a warrant. Careful descriptions and clear handwriting are key, as defense attorneys often aim to challenge Eva’s credibility on detailed minutiae years after she participates in an investigation. Cameras help, too.
“Everything is a lot easier when you can see a person,” she says. “It’s not even just the face, but I like to see if they made an effort to wear gloves. And, scientifically speaking, you get nervous when you’re doing something wrong, so you start to sweat. And if you sweat, you might leave behind a glove or your DNA throughout a house.
“I’m very meticulous and very good at solving puzzles, so I can help find people,” she added.
recommended (climate) reading
The latest United Nations climate report, put together by hundreds of international scientists, is clear: Humans are causing rapid and widespread global warming, heating the world to temperatures it hasn’t seen in 125,000 years. The result is ongoing extinctions throughout the natural world, and unpredictable weather patterns that will upend the way we live.
How Much Hotter Is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born? Type in your hometown and birth year. Then, this graphic quantifies the number of 90-degree days that the area should expect to see by the time you turn 80 years old. Look at the rest of the world, too. Another New York Times story explains the extent to which a single cup of coffee relies on predicate climate, geopolitics and supply chain stability. [@nytimes]
How Much Carbon Comes From a Liter of Coke? Companies Grapple With Climate Change Math: There’s serious momentum behind a plan to force companies to disclose how they affect the climate. The idea represents the biggest potential expansion of corporate transparency rules since the Great Depression, and has sparked a "confusing melee as companies, regulators and environmentalists argue over the proper way to account for carbon." [@jeaneaglesham + @shaneshifflett]
“What can I do?” Anything. Heated is an email newsletter chronicling our ongoing failure to face the climate catastrophe head on. The most recent edition is a guide on how to identify misinformation from the fossil fuel industry, calls out environmental groups that would most benefit from donations and spells out other ways to take action. [@emorwee]
Are Electric Cars Really Better for the Climate? Yes. But the real point of this episode of How to Save a Planet is to answer common questions about what kinds of individual behavioral changes (investing in renewable technology, recycling, no longer eating meat) matter the most. Key here: Consumer demand can change destructive market forces. [@ayanaeliza]
one more thing
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