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.
Every county has only one medical examiner (or coroner). The other people doing autopsies are pathologists. They are all (almost always) doctors. So as long as you're okay with completing med school and then whatever residencies are required, it's never too late to change your life!
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Wow, that's a really specific question. The answer is: you never know until you try. I don't have a lot of luck with plastic bags but my newer co-workers, who have a little more patience with fluorescent dyes than I do, often get good results. It doesn't matter to the fingerprint whether the purse was unattended or not and it doesn't matter how many people handled it, it matters how they handled it. As long as they picked it up by its very edge, they wouldn't harm anything. So it's perfectly possible to get a decent print off it, but I also would not be at all surprised if I didn't because, as I said, plastic bags are very hit-or-miss. Retrieving fingerprints is largely a matter of luck. That's why we never say never.
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Well, time and a moist environment definitely don't help, but I'm afraid that's a question for a pathologist. Sorry I can't be more help.
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See the first Q&A about fingerprints for more info, but purses (fabric, vinyl, leather) are not good surfaces for prints so you might be out of luck. Is there anything on or in the purse that they had to have touched (not just knuckled or pushed aside, actually gripped) that is smooth and glossy? And that hasn't been touched a number of times since? That might be a possibility.
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Starbucks Barista
If a homeless person wants to use your bathroom, are you supposed to stop him?
MBA Student
How many years of work experience do you REALLY need before applying?
"The Onion" Contributors
What's your favorite Onion headline of all time?
I'm sorry, I have absolutely no idea what that is.
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I'm sure I did. I actually don't have a good sense of smell, so it probably did get into my clothes and hair more than I realized. You keep smelling it yourself because it gets stuck on your nose hairs (according to popular wisdom) so a whiff comes back to you for a few hours afterward.
ME and Coroner's autopsy rooms are very clean, but that is not the same as being sterile. Except for items used to collect samples for DNA analysis, sterility is not really such a factor--you can't infect the patient. They do take steps to keep from infecting the staff, of course. No food or drinks in the autopsy room, using 'clean' pens and 'dirty' pens, gloves and aprons. I've never heard of anyone catching any loathsome diseases from working there.
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Stay in school and take lots of science courses.
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