people who refuse to die

So we've got these shelves. Mine's right by my desk. It's where you put cases where you're waiting on a result or two before you close. After a while, you begin to notice that some cases refuse to leave your shelf. The first few questions lead to more questions which keep on going until the folder is held together with a rubber band and is bulging with papers and flats of slides and little notes to yourself about whom to check with and you're making appointments with people higher and higher up the chain of command and wishing, wishing that these people would finally, finally just really die.

Then you start looking at other people's shelves and you realize that they're easily four or five times as full. And then the despair sets in...

skinnin' babies

Okay, so that's a little offputting. But the trick is that children, as you may or may not have noticed, are... well... squishy. So when they get hit really hard, it doesn't always leave a bruise you can see on the outside, because the skin stretches and the little capilaries in the skin don't rupture, but there can be very severe injuries underneath the skin, in the fat, in the muscles, and down deeper in the internal organs. So when you do a case in which the child may have been beated to death, you have to, well, carefully flay the skin off in order to see underneath. (You do it so that it fits back on nicely and you close the baby back up at the end of the case so that it looks the same as any other autopsy but still...)

So there you are, carefully, thoughtfully, lovingly skinning a baby...

Goo guy

So we have a wish list of cases we're supposed to see before we graduate fellowship and one of the things on the wish list is "skeletonized." One day, I walk in and get this fascinating case that all starts out with a guy finding a skull in the trash. My co-fellow still hadn't gotten a "skeletonized" yet.

A couple of weeks later, we're talking with one of the investigators and she's saying there's a skeleton out in the desert lying half-frozen in a pile of what used to be flesh but can now only be described as "goo" and we start referring to him as "goo guy" while my partner cringes in anticipation.

The next day, guess who gets "goo guy"...

Bagpiping

I'm still compiling the list of rules of forensics.

Rule #1: Bring oatmeal

(around here, we start cases in the morning and spend the afternoons going to court, filling out paperwork, returning calls from detectives, going to lectures... so there's never time for lunch. Oatmeal isn't bad for you, it's filling, and you can make up the instant stuff at the water cooler near the case files)

Rule #2: People are going to put it where it doesn't seem to go

In dealing with sex crimes, you should pretty much swab everywhere because (see post title) people are going to put that thing in the darndest places...