Crime Scene Essay Examples

It was on a cold January night when the local police were informed of a suspicious activity reported by the neighbors in a locality. An old woman possibly living all by herself had not been seen or heard of since several days, whereas the locals had reported her of being very active and outdoorsy. Yet since two days, she had not been seen outside her home, and when a neighbor visited her, he returned back without an answer even though he waited for several minutes. They tried her number, but she would not answer as well. The police were forced to break into her home through the front door. Inside the house, it was dark and the lights were switched off. They had to switch on the lights and explore the home. A part of the team was exploring the back yard as well. There was no sign of any break-in or intrusion on the first floor hence the team inside the house went upstairs to the bedrooms. A strong odor permeated the top of the stairs and all through the house on the upper story. The bedroom lay on the right, and upon entering it they saw shards of glass on the floor and a sprawled body of an old woman, lying in her own pool of blood. The wide window in the bedroom was broken which showed signs of an entry and exit. With their gloves on, the police started to inspect the crime scene. The cupboard was opened, and clothes and belongings were thrown about in a haphazard manner which indicated that it was a robbery that turned into a homicide.
An inward spiral search technique was used by the police as they started from the perimeter of the house and worked their way to the crime scene in the bedroom. The police were also inspecting the back yard and the rear portion of the house. There was a ladder present below the window which had been laid down. However, there were muddy footsteps present on it. The house was immediately cordoned off, and police tapes sealed it from all ends. The room upstairs and the old woman’s body were specifically dealt with care, and her body was outlined and then very carefully sent for a postmortem. She had evidently been stabbed multiple times in the chest, and there was a blow to the head which might have ended her life.
The entire area was photographed, and pictures of the house were taken in a sequential order. The cupboard and apparent missing items were also searched for. The photography included taking the identification print shots and close ups of the crime scene, the dead body, and the flustered bedroom, as well as medium range shots to capture the bedroom’s condition. Overview photography was carried out by taking images from outside and inside the home and it was added to the evidence. The outside of the home was also photographed, and the ladder and window were thoroughly examined. The weapon of the crime was also searched however it was not present inside the house. Initially, it was guessed that a blunt knife could be the weapon of choice while the head wound might have resulted from hitting the head sharply on the hardwood floor.
The shards of glass were recovered and collected by the team, and the ladder was also taken off for inspection. To measure how the perpetrator touched and broke the glass, the samples were sent for examination in the Glass Refractive Index Machine so that the properties of the glass and possible method of breaking in could be uncovered. The readings showed the glass had been broken with a strong object in a single blow. All evidence of fingerprints was taken from the cupboard, window and various places inside the room. The ladder was also searched for fingerprints, and all traces of mud, dirt, and soil were brushed off and collected samples for investigation. The possible missing items inside the house were cash, the old woman’s handbag and the empty slots inside the cupboard indicated she had either money or some expensive item kept inside. Upon looking at her dresser, it was discovered that there were no jewels amongst her belongings. Hence the initial statement gathered by the investigating officers was that the woman had been robbed and then murdered and the murderer escaped from the entrance site, which was the bedroom. The police found a bloody butcher knife a few meters away thrown into the bushes.
Then it was time for the forensic team to deliver the postmortem. There are four basic types of mortis; rigor, livor, algor and palor. The forensic team analyzed the body through rigor and algor mortis, as the body was cold and not stiff; this coupled with signs of the blood clotting and organ condition revealed she had been killed over 40 hours. There were signs of struggle as there was blood under her nails, which showed she had fought the murderer. There were five wounds in her chest which were pulled off with the use of a blunt knife. The head wound was caused by a deep blow that resulted in an inter-cranial bleed leading her brain to hemorrhage. The loss of blood and the hemorrhage led to her death. There were no signs of sexual assault; hence the reason for the murder was concluded robbery and then assault that led to a homicide.
After the postmortem details had been laid out, the police and detectives sat down to reconstruct the scene. Evidence collected from the neighbors revealed that the woman was not seen since two days, however, on the day of her death, she had been spotted going out in the daytime. Hence the robbery should have occurred at night. It was a suburban area, and there were woods at the back of the homes. The cameras at the front of the homes detected no suspicious person. However one of the neighbors reported that their newspaper boy who came for deliveries early in the mornings had not come since three days. There was virtually no sign of him. They also said that the old woman had no children or relatives visiting her and she only had a few friends in the neighborhood that she was close with. The forensic evidence showed that the muddy steps were imprinted from sneakers worn by the perpetrator and the mud inside the room and on the shoes were from the woods. The soil sample was collected with the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as gloves which were used to prevent tampering of evidence and it was brushed off the places it was found in and then preserved in a zip-lock plastic bag for any future investigation. Therefore whomever it was, wore sneakers, had the ability to climb a ladder to the second story, break in through the window and probably scared the old lady. She might have tried to fight him off, but he was too strong for her; he scared her with the knife, but she was not afraid upon which he stabbed her and hit her head on the floor thus killing her. Then he looted her belongings and ran away, but laid the ladder down. A tool marks impression test was carried out on the ladder which was made with a wooden material so as not to disturb the original impressions.
The fingerprints were from one perpetrator as the rest belonged to the old woman. The ASIF biometric identification system was used to analyze the fingerprints. They showed that only one person was present at the scene since the fingerprints belonged to the old woman and the perpetrator. The tool marks were examined, and the impressions on the knife were the same as those of the other objects in the room. Therefore the killer had only used the knife as his weapon of defense and probably knew the old woman could be handled with the knife; he did not bother for more weapons. It was, however, not a perfect crime since the DNA of the killer was in the hands of the police and they would trace him, eventually.