Coroner Stories

When I first became interested in forensics, I loved to watch the Discovery Channel and Learning Channel shows about real-life crimes and the evidence and techniques that were used to solve them. I can only assume that these shows are created by PBS-type production companies rather than by the Hollywood studios that generate crime dramas. Still, I address them here because the documentary style shows can be just as misleading as Hollywood dramas.

This misrepresentation is the main reason I’ve gotten away from watching even the more factually based shows. I suppose part of my disdain for them comes from playing my part in the investigative process day in and day out. Most of these shows contain a synopsis of anywhere from one to three cases packaging months or years of investigative work into a segment no longer than a “Spongebob Squarepants” cartoon. As such, these segments are typically only able to focus on one particular aspect of a case and ignore the bulk of the investigation.

An example would be a case in which a suspect was identified because a single fiber found on the victim matched a rare imported rug that was recovered from the suspect’s home. Granted, this particular piece of evidence may have been the element of the case that ultimately solidified the guilt of the suspect. In my opinion, many shows give the impression that the entire case was based on the importance of one piece of evidence and the comparative analysis of one fiber expert.

In actuality, dozens of people and hundreds of articles of evidence have played a part in any given case. The example given above gives due credit to the fiber expert’s work, but completely ignores the very likely possibility that some other person was proficient enough in their role to have discovered the fiber on the victim and collected it in the first place.

Editorial Comments:

–I’m hesitant to say that it isn’t possible for one piece of evidence in a case to outweigh all the rest. Doing so would completely ignore the exculpating effect of O.J. Simpson “struggling” to put on a pair of gloves in the minds of jurors when it came time for them to evaluate actual evidence.
–I’m not trying to discount the role of the fiber expert. As a matter of fact, I admire their ability to do what they do.

Special thanks to Terri Poposky who submitted the following link to a BBC News article by Paul Rincon:

CSI Shows Give ‘Unrealistic View’

There is one aspect of this line of work that no amount of formal schooling or training can prepare a person to experience. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with traumatic injuries. There are plenty of photos and textbooks for that, and anyone interested in this field is expecting to see trauma. What surprised me about this job was the constant exposure to poor housekeeping.

Crime scenes on television are so clean. Every once in a while there is a body in a wooded area or a dumpster, but for the most part people never die in a filthy house in “Hollywood.�? I’ve worked deaths at several houses that were immaculate. The rest of them however range anywhere from “my house after a week without the wife�? to “someone needs to call the health department.�?

There is nothing more disheartening than arriving at a scene and seeing a filthy yard. If creative landscaping isn’t the only reason it is impossible to navigate a direct path from the curb to the front door, then I generally assume the interior is worse. Unfortunately I have yet to be proven wrong. In my experience, if someone doesn’t care about the part of the house that people see when driving by, they typically care even less about the part hidden from public view.

Sometimes when I drive down a street I try and guess how many houses on a block are filthy inside. I try not to judge based on the socioeconomic dynamics of a given neighborhood. Interestingly enough, the level of cleanliness has nothing to do with the part of town that someone lives in. I’ve been in upper class neighborhoods that were absolute pits inside. Still, I have to admit that I’ve seen more filthy houses in upper class neighborhoods than clean ones in lower class neighborhoods.

I groan a little each time an officer tells me, “You may want to wear shoe covers on this one.�? This statement is usually followed by a detailed description of the condition of the floors in the house. During one scene investigation, I took my first two steps onto the linoleum of a kitchen floor that was so sticky I walked completely out of my shoe covers. There must have been a previous spill of construction grade adhesive. Or maybe it was Mountain Dew.

Sometimes there are piles of dog feces all over the house. I recall one time when an officer noticed I was having trouble seeing the body I was examining. The wall switch was already on, so he pulled the chain at the light fixture. The first chain he pulled was actually the ceiling fan chain, which generated a snowstorm of dog hair and other mysterious particles from the fan blades that drifted down onto everything in the room.

Even more disgusting is when there is fecal matter scattered throughout the house and the person didn’t own a pet. It makes it easy to track the movements of the homeowner (no pun intended)—sort of like footprints in the snow. Fortunately, most fecal matter is contained in the bathroom. Unfortunately, it is not always contained in the toilet. Sometimes I get the impression that the person must have been standing over the toilet with a case of projectile diarrhea in order to make that kind of a mess.

I suppose from now on I should take time to photograph the various elements of filthy houses. Things like skillets of half-eaten Hamburger Helper infested with maggots and roaches crawling inside of baby bottles in the sink. Then I could publish a textbook of those photos to help prepare others to experience this unexpected aspect of death investigation.

A special thanks to all who have commented and linked since I began this site. Feel free to ask anything you like. I’d be glad to use your question as a topic. It’s easier when I know what others want to read as opposed to what I assume they want to read. Also, I wanted to post these two comments on the main page as the authors have some insight of their own…

RD commented:

A friend of mine sent me your link a month ago but I have to admit when I saw “stories�? in the title I didn’t exactly rush to it. No offense. I’m a death investigator in a medical examiner system and I was expecting to see a bunch of poorly-crafted attempts at creative writing that were loosely based on reality. I too have a problem with TV (that goes beyond simply watching too much of it). I have to admit I was way off. It looks like a blog, but nowhere in it do you use the phrase “my little corner of the web�? or describe the color and consistency of your most recent stool. Very factually based and you’re right, there are a lot of things that don’t occur to people about this line of work. If you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you should never run out of things to write about.

Barratic commented:

I’m glad to see a site like this. I myself work at the Medical Examiners office. I’m the pathology supervisor. I’ve been doing autopsies for 15 yrs. I have been to several scenes with investigators. In this line of work, every day is different. In 15 yrs I’ve just about seen it all I guess. I find the death investigation T.V. shows to be rather comical. It’s amazing how many people call our office to ask questions about their loved one and refer to one of those shows for the answer. The one thing I can think of that I haven’t seen is a homocide with a bow and arrow. But anyways great site sir!

To which I responded:

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a bow and arrow homicide (or accident) either. Then again, I’ve never seen a fatality that was a result of running with scissors.

I admire the amount of detail that special effects departments are able to incorporate into the modern day crime drama. These shows are able to make the most of computer animation in their storyline unlike any other type of show on television. They can painstakingly create a visual reconstruction of a projectile as it passes through the human body or show how blood spatter is formed as it is cast off of a blunt instrument.

So why is it that studios can’t get the dynamics of a dead body right? Whenever a body is shown in the morgue, it appears flat on a table or a tray under a white sheet. In reality, if the body is covered at all, the sheet is stained with whatever deposits it has come into contact with. Unless the person died in the same position they are laying in the morgue, the posture of the body itself is usually contorted because of the onset of rigor mortis. This posture makes for a rather abstract shape under a sheet.

I happened upon the premiere of a new crime drama last night that I paused on simply because I didn’t recognize it. In this particular scene, the main character (I assume) was examining a corpse at a scene. To get a look at the side of her face, he simply placed his hand on her head and gently turned it to the side. Having passed the point of laughing at such inaccuracies long ago, I simply shook my head and turned the channel.

In reality, a body that has been dead for even a short amount of time can already have rigor in the neck, thus making it very stiff. In reality, it would have taken two hands and some effort to force her head to turn to the side. I find that it’s usually easier to roll the entire body onto its side to look at the side of head. “Easier” is a relative term in this case and depends on the size of the person.

A dead body in Hollywood always seems rather flaccid. A character can grab a body by the wrist in an attempt to lift a hand for closer inspection. In this case, the actor portraying the dead person is as flexible as you or I. In reality, a dead body reacts similarly to a “Barbie” doll. You can try and change the position of the doll’s knees or elbows, but as soon as you let go, the doll is pretty much going back to the position it wants to be in.