Who Are You?

Sep 25, 2015

Hello, all! So happy you are joining me for my “limited series,” Forensic Fridays. I hope you’ll continue join me over the next few weeks as I share info about forensic and law enforcement procedures that have made their way into my books.

My medical examiner in Cover Your Eyes, Be Afraid and I’ll Never Let You Go is Dr. Miriam Heller. While I don’t usually go into vivid detail about the autopsies she performs, there’s no denying the importance of this fact finding research.

Despite what many may think from portrayals on television and in films (a.k.a. the CSI effect), toxicology reports and DNA tests are not obtained instantly but can take weeks and months to get back from overburdened laboratories.  And that oh-so-sophisticated technology that we all find so fascinating is just too expensive– more often than not out of the reach of the average police department and medical examiner’s office.

Here’s Dr. Heller at work in Be Afraid. (Warning: Gruesome Details)

“Detective Bishop nodded. “Dr. Heller, How goes it? Looking lovely as always.”

 

An amused brow arched as she removed rubber gloves from her white physician’s jacket and moved to a wall of refrigerated body-storage cabinets. She donned the gloves and opened the second from the left. Inside lay a draped figure. A sheet covered the body’s shriveled flesh and sinew eaten by the fire.  She pulled back the sheet and revealed a blackened skull attached to a torso, singed black. Hands and feet had been burned away as had the arms to the elbow and the legs to the knees.

 

“Your victim was a female. I was able to take X-rays and as luck would have it, she had a hip implant that had a serial number on it. I’ve sent off a request to the manufacturer for a name of the doctor who implanted it.”

 

“She was older?”

 

“No. Mid-thirties. My guess is the implant came after an accident.”

 

“Good work,” Rick said.

 

“Your victim also didn’t die as a result of the fire. She was shot in the head. Judging by the hole made by the bullet in her right temple, I’d say she was shot at close range.” Dr. Heller reached for an evidence bag, which contained a single slug. “She would’ve died instantly.”

 

Rick took the bag and held it up. He guessed the gun had been a .45 caliber. “The fire was set to hide the forensic evidence?”

 

Bishop shrugged. “Or because the killer liked fires.”

 

 

 

Burning Down the House

Sep 18, 2015

Hello, all! So happy you are joining me for my “limited series,” Forensic Fridays. I hope you’ll continue join me over the next few weeks as I share info about forensic and law enforcement procedures that have made their way into my books.

In Be Afraid, Detectives investigate a murder scene in a home that seems to have intentionally been set on fire.  Burn patterns at an arson scene can tell the investigators a lot about the fire— how it was started, where it began and  how it traveled.  Often human remains can melt in such intense heat.  I was fascinated by some of the things I learned  at the 2014 Writers Police Academy. Not only did a fire investigator speak to us about fire, he took us to a back lot where we were able to witness the controlled burn of a mock room.

Me at Writers Police Academy 2015

Writers often think that when a room catches on fire there’s still time forcharacters to carry on long conversations— something I was guilty of in a rough draft.  In reality, fire moves very, very fast.  Our controlled burn roomwas consumed in smoke within minutes and completely destroyed in 12 minutes.

This conversaton from Be Afraid takes place between Nashville PD homicide Detective Rick Morgan and the arson investigator at the scene of the house fire where a body has been discovered.

 

Inspector Murphy shoved out a breath. “No doubt about it.” He pointed to several sections of the ruins that had all but disintegrated.  “Those spots are ignition points where our arsonist poured lots of accelerant, likely diesel or kerosene.  As you can see, we have multiple ignition points, but if you look over here where the body was found, there’s quite a bit of damage.  That area was the bedroom.”

 

Rick studied what had been the bedroom and could make out the faint impression of a body. High heat not only seared flesh, but melted the body’s fat and ate into bone turning it to ash and dust.

 

“At this point, I can’t tell you how the person died,” Murphy said. “Witnesses  tell me the house was vacant except for the stage furniture. A neighbor was keeping an eye on the house. I don’t know if this is a suicide or a murder. Can’t even tell you at this point if the victim was a male or female. The fire was deliberate and intended to obliterate the house.”

Skeletonized Remains in Be Afraid and Dying Scream . . .

Sep 11, 2015

Hello, all! Today is the start of my “limited series,” Forensic Fridays. I hope you’ll join me for the next seven weeks as I share info about forensic and law enforcement procedures that have made their way into my books. Welcome to week one!

Several years ago Sisters in Crime held a weekend long Forensics University which I attended.  One of my favorite sessions was led by an anthropologist who worked with the St. Louis Medical Examiner’s office.  Her specialties included identifying bones.  I was fascinated and went on to read extensively about bones. I even drove to D.C. to visit the Smithsonian’s Written in Bone exhibit. And I ended up with two sets of bones in Dying Scream.

Facts that found their way into that book include–

• The skull can tell you the deceased’s sex, race and approximate age.
• Teeth give clues to nutrition and general health.
• You can estimate height from a femur bone.
• Bone size can hint at the departed’s profession–work requiring repetitive motions builds strong muscles and leaves a pattern on the bone.

Dying Scream’s bones came from a family graveyard dating back a century and those of two people who’d died in recent years.

Bones play an even more crucial role in Be Afraid.  Detectives called to the burial scene at Nashville’s Centennial Park know immediately that they are dealing with the remains of a child and that the child has been dead a long time. The young victim’s skull still has the lower jaw intact and the medical examiner sees baby teeth still in place. The number and position of the  teeth lead to an approximate age–under six.  Most children lose their front teeth by that age.

There is also a delicate ridge of bones above the eye sockets suggesting the victim was female.  Males generally have a thicker ridge.  A narrow nasal cavity suggests Caucasian.  Brittle bones point to malnutrition. And an indentation in their small victim’s skull suggests death by blunt force trauma.