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.
Possibly, depending on the time elapsed.
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There are numerous techniques for obtaining fingerprints from surfaces--black powders, colored powders, alternate light, superglue, dye staining. Once you can visualize the print, comparing one to another is done by noting all the information (where ridges end, divide, form a dot, have a scar, etc.) in one pattern and comparing it to another print's pattern. This can be done by a computer so that thousands to millions of prints can be searched quickly, all day, every day, all over the world, but is always confirmed by human beings. Despite what you see on TV!
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I'm very interested now in phone number 'spoofing' that the telephone scammers use to call us, but the technology is a little beyond my ken. Actually a lot beyond my ken. I have a co-worker who could explain it but we never have time.
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I'm sorry I can't give you any concrete timelines (a pathologist would know better than I) but I would think at least a couple of days. Air conditioning would definitely make the smell more tolerable than no air conditioning, but still storage units usually have just enough A/C to keep high heat and humidity from causing mold or causing problems with electronics. That's not the same thing as refrigeration. It might also depend on how close the bodies are to the door. People walking by might catch a whiff of something bad but assume that an errant mouse or cat somehow died inside. Thinking that, passers-by might be reluctant to open the door to someone else's property. The storage unit owners, even seeing it unlocked, might try to at least contact the client first, maybe calling the home and the guy's cell which of course he's not answering. Honestly you could probably make it anything you wanted--if you want it discovered quickly, put the unit at the front of the property or give it a fussy neighbor client who visits that same week. If you want it to be a long time, put it at the rear of the property where no other clients visited their units and all units lead to an outer door that didn't show any signs of damage (because both victims and husband entered with their assigned passkey) so the storage unit employees never had a reason to enter to notice either a smell or an unlocked unit. Good luck!
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Emergency Room Manager
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What's the best way to know if housing prices are going to rise or fall?
I'm sorry but I have no idea. You'll have to ask the lab. I'd love to know myself--I'd also love to know why your ex drugged his own drink and then paid to have a lab analyze it.
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See next question.
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It depends on the crime, but in general I guess you look for how the perpetrator got in, how they got out, and what they disturbed while they were there. Then I look for what we could get information from (such as surfaces that they had to touch that are smooth and glossy and might have prints, whether they left blood or bodily fluids behind that could be tested, whether they wrote something or used something that could point to their identity, etc.).
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