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.
At a guess, I would suggest: slash marks that are too wide for a knife, some partially healed, would indicate animal claws inflicted at different times, but none deep enough or near vital arteries to cause bleeding out. Then water in the lungs would indicate drowning, though that is not always a definite indicator. Drowning is an elimination diagnosis, as in you eliminate other possible causes.
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Yes, to some extent. That’s what I’m doing now. It all depends on how much staff and equipment the agency has. For instance I’ll collect items and process them for fingerprints or do preliminary tests for blood or semen, but it’s unlikely that a DNA analyst would also be doing crime scene work.
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A good way to get a handle on the situation is to look at online job postings from places where you might want to work--the local police department, the county morgue, the state crime lab. They will post the duties and requirements for each position. You can also check the same information on the websites of professional organizations such as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences or the International Association for Identification. That should give you a good start.
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Sure, email me at lisa-black@live.com
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Sorry, I'm having a hard time picturing how what you're describing would be possible.
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Oh, sorry, for some reason I thought you meant that the guy had done it himself. In that case it is quite possible of course. The scene would be very bloody, of course, with all those injuries. The bodies would bleed out but probably more from gravity than from the heart pumping because they would have died so quickly. (At least I’m assuming the attack was over quickly.) The heart is about the size of the person’s fist and, obviously, would be blood covered after removal. A brain is grayish white and convoluted and other than some blood smears would look fairly neat, if the entire thing was removed carefully as one would at an autopsy. The killer would need a scraping tool and the expertise to do that. Otherwise it would probably look pretty mangled, but still largely a grayish white color.Hope that helps!
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Titles and job requirements aren't uniform, so the only way to know is to call the crime labs in your area or wherever you might be interested in working and ask them. At the coroner's office we had to have at least a bachelor's in a natural science (this was before they had forensic science majors). At the police department where I am now, they only require a high school diploma but you get more points in the interviewing process for having a four year degree, so we all have one. 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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