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.
Clothing is kind of interesting because there's so much variety to it and it can give you a lot of information, with blood, gunshot residue and holes made by weapons. I also enjoyed working with fibers because there is a lot of variety to them as well, and they're colorful, but often I'd have way too many and then it would get tedious. No one examines fibers any more, they're not unique enough.
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I have no idea. If a piece of glass is shot or hit with something, most of the glass should move in the direction of the force with some flying back toward the source. But I would think the entire piece is vibrating with a slammed door, so I really have no idea.
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As far as I know, it doesn't. As long as YOU weren't convicted of a felony.
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Possibly. Probably unlikely, but possibly. We would use Small Particle Reagent on a wet car as soon as it was removed from the lake.
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Toll Collector
What happens when a car blows past a tollbooth without paying?
Radio program/music director
Just how good of a radio host do you think Howard Stern is?
Air Traffic Controller
When would you order fighter jets to be scrambled?
Repeat, see above.
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How many shots and do they exit the body?
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How long it takes to get DNA results depends entirely on where you are sending them and how backed up they are. Our state lab used to take at least 6 months, but things have improved and now it is only a few months. However if we have a homicide that really needs quicker answers, sometimes they can do that. If the police department or state attorney's office are willing to pay (probably at least a grand. sometimes per sample) the samples can be sent to a private lab that can get results in as little as three days. It's expensive, but it also has to be a lab that is accredited and that the agencies trust. You can't assume anything from a long wait other than that the lab is backed up. They might have an overwhelming amount of cases, they might not have enough manpower, or they might not be efficiently run. It's impossible to guess.
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