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.
I have never done an autopsy, as I’m not a doctor. I’ve attended many, many autopsies, and they generally take about two hours, but can go up to four or five if there are a lot of injuries. At that point they will be done with the body, but the autopsy report can take much longer depending on if they have to send out samples for toxicology analysis (most places do) or have to wait on some other kind of specialty report. In one case I remember we had to wait a long time for a pediatric x-ray analysis. That can be weeks to months depending on who you’re waiting on and how big their backlog is.
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That’s an exceedingly broad question that could take a stack of textbooks to answer.
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What was it they were testing?
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I"m sorry, I know I posted an answer to this question but apparently it disappeared into cyberspace. As far as I know, no, it wouldn't be possible. The DNA results would show a mixture so that you could say 'it could be a mix of these two people, meaning there's no alleles that could NOT have come from them' but you couldn't positively state that it is a mixture. And it wouldn't be possible to tell which came first as the sample is put in a liquid medium and mixed to analyze.
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Court Reporter
If your special keyboard lets you type 200+ words per minute, why doesn't everyone use them?
Security / Bodyguard
Have you ever had to disarm an attacker?
Hotel Travel Blog Active 2019
What do you do if a guest is doing something illegal in a room?
Stay in school and take lots of science courses. Scholarships would be offered by different schools and/or organizations. What land are you in now?
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That determination is made by the pathologist doing the autopsy, and there are a number of ways--body temperature, rate of decomposition, rigor mortis, but it will be an estimate, not the precise number that you might see on TV. All those things can depend on the environment where the body is, temperature, exposure, physical characteristics of the victim, medical conditions etc. Entomologists can help if there is distinct bug activity at the scene as well.
Hope that helps!
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I'm sorry, but again that is way too broad a question. Most forensic science is based on biology, physics and chemistry, so it's all 'natural' science.
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