My clinial instructor let me off work right after lunch, so after saying goodbye to everyone (and quickly filling out the clinical experience feedback packet) I left around 2 pm.  Since CSI: The Experience (an immersive, interactive forensic science exhibition) at the HMNS was moving on this Wednesday, getting off earlier was perfect to allow me to check it out!  Gotta milk this student status for all it’s worth ($12 instead of $15).  Elliot had said he was really interested in doing this as a job.  He heard you had to be a police officer first, so at first he was aiming for that.  But when he heard you had to be an officer for quite a while at first (something like that), so he changed his mind.  Here’s some more information from our national government:  http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/178280.htm.  After going through the exhibit, it is really way too much for me to handle (biochemistry, physics, geology, psychology, social science, law….).  Maybe I could do this….http://www.loisgibson.com/

I had remembered incorrectly (I got the two mixed up in my head) that the HMNS was beyond the MFAH if I just followed Main Street, so I walked all the way to the highway (the entrance to US-59).  I thought to myself at this point (after using the gas station restroom), this cannot be right, the museum can’t be beyond this.  So I stepped into a car insurance office lobby and asked the young Hispanic woman where the HMNS was.  She told me to head toward Fannin in the back, take the Rail, and it would drop me right where the HMNS was in the Museum District.  At this point my back was hurting from my heavy backpack (I had brought my Anatomy binder for Jennifer Garcia to peruse, and I had my Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionary), but I still didn’t want to “risk” going beyond my stop and didn’t want to bother with figuring out the system.  So I walked back, and was still confused.  There were two African-American men with their reflective gear sitting under the shade of some trees, I think directing the traffic coming into the parking lot of the church.  I asked them where to go, and they instructed me.  As I was following the directions and apparently missing/heading away from the museum for the last leg of the directions, a guy stopped me and asked where the HMNS for the Lucy exhibit was.  I said that as a matter of fact I was looking for the HMNS as well.  He then said that he suspected that I needed to turn around.  I offered we could both check it out  together, but he said he had family waiting for him in the car, so I headed off by myself.  As I was walking, I stopped an older white man and he turned around and pointed to the building.  Yes!  Turns out it was just at the Sam Houston statue, the one I had stopped and admired and then passed up on my way north.

My first round of business was to take off my backpack, lift up my legs, and replenish my bodily fluids.  Some people were staring at me.  I hope I wasn’t THAT much of a frazzled scene.  Then, I headed to the counter.  I had forgotten that I had been here before when I was younger.  He said he was going to put me at the 3:30 showing (it was timed), and I was a bit disoriented.  Then I realized it was already 3 pm.  He then asked which crime scene I wanted to solve.  I had no idea.  He then made the suggestion that #2 (Who Got Served?) was the hardest, after which was #1 (A House Collided) and then #3 (No Bones About It).  As I was processing this, thinking I’d do the medium one, he continued and made the recommendation of #2.  Okay :-)  The things I learned:

• Digital evidence–checking calls on the cell phone, where was she last?
• Latent prints–fingerprints
• Impression evidence–tire tracks, shoeprints
• Toxicology/Drug Chemistry–like what we did in school, titrating until a different color appeared; blood alcohol concentration
• Forensic Entomology–blow fly growth places the approximate interval since death
• Forensic Biology/DNA–compare with missing persons, mitochondrial DNA in hair is not as informative as full DNA but it can show what species it’s from
• Trace Evidence–artificial fibers from pillow, dog hair
• Blood Spatter–passive (drip, flow, pool), transfer/contact (e.g. wipe or swipe pattern), projected (velocity impacted)
• Firearms and Toolmarks–caliber, retrieving filed off registration ID#
• Forensic Botany–non-native seeds and pollen
• Forensic Anthropology/Dental–to find identity of victim
• Chain of custody is chronological documentation, and/or paper trail, showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of evidence, physical or electronic. Because evidence can be used in court to convict persons of crimes, it must be handled in a scrupulously careful manner to avoid later allegations of tampering or misconduct which can compromise the case of the prosecution toward acquittal or to overturning a guilty verdict upon appeal. The idea behind recoding the chain of custody is to establish that the alleged evidence is fact related to the alleged crime - rather than, for example, having been planted faudulently to make someone appear guilty.
• Cause of death in #2 was toxicology before being run over because if the victim was killed while being run over, then blood would have gushed forth in the visceral cavities.  #1 was a blow to the head before the “forward forces” of driving through the family room of a house (his last meal was pizza - as shown through a plastic vessel mounted to the wall with plastic pepperoni pieces inside).  Manner of death in #3 was homicide, by gunshot (cause of death).

Dr. Edmond Locard (1877 – 1966) was a pioneer in forensic science who became known as the Sherlock Holmes of France. He formulated his basic Locard’s exchange principle of forensic science: “Every Contact Leaves a Trace“:

‘Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value’ (Traité de Criminalistique by Locard).