Laurie and I went to The Katharine Gibbs School in Norristown Monday Morning to attend a forensics lecture on crime scene investigation, in order to get experience in covering crime scenes.
Sound boring? Well actually, it was kinda neat. Many of the people who attended were students at the Gibbs School who take a class taught by Michael Dayoc, a former Montgomery County police detective. Dayoc's friend, Detective Mike Gilbert, set up a mock crime scene in the class room complete with caution tape and fake blood splatter.
There were two "guns" concealed in the crime scene, bullet casings, footprints, and a mannequin with rope tied around its torso representing the dead body.
I'm not gonna lie, most of the things the experts discussed I've already learned from watching CSI or one of it's terrible spinoffs. The lecture/workshop basically boiled down to DNA, and how EVERYTHING can be used to look for DNA leading to a suspect.
Shocking, right? What was interesting was that when Det. Gilbert discuss every possibility for the crime scene and the students laughed at his responses, he was quite serious when he said all of those scenarios have really happened.
The victim died with rope tied around himself due to a personal perversion of his, it was self defense and the rest of the crime scene was staged to cover up the crime, glass shards on clothing have led to convictions; all of these things have apparently happened in real life.
Man. Guess television isn't always fictional. If this writer's strike lasts too long the networks can always contact police.
Truth is stranger is fiction. I'm glad I went to the seminar but I hope I never have to cover crime scenes like that.
Posted by
Brian Mccarthy