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.
I spend about 90% of my time sitting in front of a computer looking at fingerprints. The rest of the time I go to crime scenes to photograph and process for fingerprints and collect items of evidence. When I was at the coroner's office I probably spent 40% of the time examining victim's clothing, 10% on gunshot residue testing, 30% on hairs and fibers, and 20% everything else.
Sure, because fingerprints will have ridges and gloves will not.
Please email me all questions at once at Lisa-black@hotmail.com.
I was going to email your teacher but you didn't give me her complete address, just her name. Please go to my website and hit 'contact me' and let me know where to send a response. Thanks and good luck with your project.
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Yes, that's what we do at our agency, depending on the analysis required. We can process for latent prints and analyze them and also cell phones and computers. For things like DNA analysis and bullet comparison, we send that to the state lab. Every agency is different depending upon available personnel and equipment.
You have to have good attention to detail, can work under stress and unpredictable circumstances, be patient and cautious.
A good knowledge of chemistry is helpful to be able to understand why certain processes work the way they do. We use math to mix reagents and calculate angles in bloodstain pattern interpretation. Any knowledge can be helpful because we deal with every kind of person, job, situation, and object there is.
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