Photos from the Mock Crime Scene

Sorry it took so long, but here are a few pictures from our mock crime scene. Enjoy!

Another email with the forensic scientist...

"I don't remember if I told you much about the mock scene, but it's based on a crime scene we worked back in about '03 where a guy was beaten, stabbed and shot (we discovered that later...great story I can tell you later). The mock scene, however, only involves the beating and stabbing. It should be a pretty easy scene to lay out. It will require a little bit of clean up afterward, but don't they all! We have all the things here to lay out the scene, including the body, so I'll figure out about how long it'll take me to get the scene laid out, with some help from a couple of you, and we can plan from there on."

Love it!

Life lessons from a forensic scientist...

As promised, here are some life lessons from my favorite forensic scientist (as shared with our students).

Revenge:
"... don't pee on someone's jacket, it's just not nice"

Career choices:
"... if you work in forensics, it helps if you have a perverse sense of humor"

Being a criminal:
"... being a criminal is a hungry business"
"... if you're breaking into a house, remember to take your clothes with you"

Lawyers:
"There are some prosecutors that I wonder "how did they make it through law school... and how are they still breathing?""

Carrying a fire-arm:
"I get 10 bullets... 5 to shoot at the suspect, and 5 to shoot while running away"

The call of nature:
"I love our new crime scene truck. It has a toilet!"
"... if you've got to go, and there's no where that you can go... it gets painful!"

Job perks:
"... I got to drive 100 mph down the highway... it was awesome!"
"... this was the first time I had to swab blood from feces"

Crime scene equipment:
"... you never know when you'll need a shovel"
"There are two ends to a measuring tape, the smart end and the dumb end... I prefer the dumb end"

Student: "Why do so many people need to be contacted to send a forensic unit to a crime scene?"
Forensic Scientist: "That's a really good question... people need to justify their jobs"

The great outdoors:
"... me, I'm one of those weird people, I don't mind the smell of skunk"

Hygiene:
"... in your lifetime, you should throw your shoes away."
"I had a buddy who ran over a bloated possum once. . couldn't get the stink off for weeks"

How to be an effective criminal:
"... a gunshot to the head is more likely to produce blowback than one to the abdomen... especially if its a fat guy"
"... if you're going to injure someone, don't do it on carpet"
"If you break into someone's house. .. take the chicken leg with you"

Tips on being a victim:
"If you're getting beat up, make sure to throw out a contact lens."
". . you don't want to come across my desk."

Random facts:
"...there's a lot of blood in a 300lb man"
"It would take 7.2 trillion sperm to reach from here to the moon"

Did I mention that I loved my job...?

I have been trying to organize a mock crime scene for one of our classes during the summer. We have a friend in the state bureau of investigation who has been helping me, and here is a quote from one of his emails:

"Do you have any idea what kind of scene you might want, or do you just want whatever? Shooting, stabbing, beating, strangulation? A combination of a few or all? We've had scenes before where the victim was shot, stabbed and beaten. We've even had one where the guy was shot, dismembered, burned (not completely though), then dumped in a well. I'm thinking you probably would want to keep it to a basic shooting, stabbing, or beating, but not necessarily all three."

I love forensics people...

Me and Indy...

Dum da da dum, dum da dum! Dum da da dum, dum da dum dum dum!!!

Ah, Indiana Jones! Generations know the theme song off by heart and remember Indy shooting the sword-wielding dude... Okay, maybe only I remember the second bit!

One of my readers asked me to share my Indiana Jones story from a previous blog. Acutally there are two, completely unrelated Indiana Jones stories I will bore you with... Because I can!

When I was in high school I use to catch the bus. All 6 busses lined up in a row and waited until they were full, or they had to leave. Normally I was pretty punctual to catch the bus home, but I'd had a less than punctual week and had missed a couple of busses. I really needed to make the next bus!

I'm walking to the bus with some friends, feeling like I'm on time, when we reach the back of the sixth bus in line (my bus was third in line). As I look up, I see my bus beginning to leave!! I can't miss this bus, so I start to run! As I get closer to the bus, I realize the door is still open. I grab the pole in the doorway and swing myself onto the bus... ending up sitting on the floor next to the driver! I'm sure they weren't impressed, but they didn't throw me off and I made the bus!

Next day, I meet up with one of my friends who saw my mad dash for the bus. He proudly announced that he started humming the theme from Indiana Jones the minute I started running for the bus!

Now, that was not the Indiana Jones story that was requested, but I thought I'd tell it anyway. Here's the requested one...

As mentioned in a previous post, I made the second round of interviews for a job at a national intelligence agency. This required a trip the national capital for a series of individual and group activities (to see if I had the right stuff).

One such activity had three parts: We were taken out into the grounds of the venue to study a prepared situation laid out before us. Next, we were interviewed separately to describe the situation and how we would approach it, before finally working as a group to overcome the situation.

During my interview, I described what I saw: A series of obstacles needed to be overcome as the group would make their way through a passage to a central area. In this area was a large tarp with a small trinket in the center. I felt that the trinket was the object of the challenge.

I felt I was not clearly explaining this last part, so I called upon Indy: "You remember the scene from Indiana Jones, when Indy is stealing the golden statue and used a bag of sand to prevent the boobie-traps from being sprung? Well that's what we're going to need to do here..."

I did not get the job...

Green cards aren't actually green... and the real story about how I got here.

I got my green card in the mail today... It's not green, though I knew that would be the case. It's quite alright with me, because it means I can stay here. I don't have to worry about doing something stupid and being sent home (and we all know I'm capable of stupid!). I can be here with my wife, and that's all I want.

It got me thinking... How did I really end up here? I know some of my audience (probably 2 out of the 4) will think "you flew in a number of large airplanes for a very long time", which is technically correct, but it's not the whole story.

For the whole story, my readers need to hear about a missing professor, a missing vaccination, and a lack of intelligence and organization...

When I completed my undergraduate degree, I knew I wanted to do my honours year under the supervision of Professor HPLC on forensic analysis. We had talked about possible projects at the end of 3rd year, so I was ahead of the game. Come orientation week for us honours students (yes computer, that is how you spell "honours"...), I was feeling good about my plans, and paid only scant attention to the projects being offered by other professors. One professor, who was known for his easy grading but of who I wasn't a huge fan, did offer a forensics project... I took mild interest.

Nearing the end of the second day of talks on the offered projects it became apparent that my chosen professor wasn't due to talk. While this seemed strange, we had 3 students already showing interest in his work (the maximum allowed number), so we figured he was just not bothering to tell the other honours students his research. Still, the 3 of us found him and eventually convinced him to talk to the honours class. He seemed rather uninterested in presenting... At the end of the day, we put in out 3 choices for our honours projects, with the matches being announced at the end of the week.

Friday comes, and I am asked to go talk with the honours coordinator and the head of department... along with the other 2 prospective Professor HPLC students... We were each told that Professor HPLC was leaving the department, and that we had 1 hour to choose a new honours project!!! Of course, we spent the first half of our time tracking down this professor and giving him a piece of our minds (having worked in academia for a while now, I realize that the professor couldn't really tell us before it was official, but it's still frustrating).

With 1/2 hour left to find a lab, I approached the professor with the other forensic project... I announced my presence by slamming open the lab door (yes, you can slam open a door!). I found the professor to be sympathetic to my situation and very enthusiastic about taking me on as a student... While I still felt somewhat unsettled, I had found my lab...

At the end of my honours year, I applied for a PhD scholarship. I didn't get one at first and went looking for a job. I got an interview for a chemist position at a government forensic lab. The interview went well and they were looking for me to start straight away (while it was only a short-term position, I could see it leading to a full time forensic job!). They finally asked if I had my Hepatitis B vaccination... I did not. It requires a course of 3 injections over several weeks, so the job didn't work out (the vaccination was required for the position).

Eventually I managed to get a PhD scholarship and completed a PhD in the lab of my honours professor.

Nearing the end of my PhD, I began a job search. I cast my net fairly wide, not just forensics, but medical science, biochemistry, and even non-scientific jobs. One such job was joining my country's intelligence organization (I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you!). I ended up making it to the 2 round of interviews, which included a 3 day trip to the nation's capital. Despite enjoying the trip, I did not get the position (maybe taking copious photos while I was there and invoking "Indiana Jones" in part of the interview were not great ideas...), and I returned home to a phone interview for a postdoc in a pathology lab.

I got that job, came over here, met a wonderful woman, got my current job, got married, and yesterday my green card came in the mail... Did I mention that it's not actually green?

Happy Australia Day!

It might be a bit late for the Aussies back home, but happy Australia Day to all the Aussies out there. Enjoy the sand, beer, meat pies, and cricket!