CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL

JUSTICE SYSTEM
MINHAJ UNIVERSITY LAHORE

Name of Student: M. Shehroz Latif

Degree: M.Sc. Criminology and Criminal Justice

System

Semester: 2nd

Session: Fall [2020-2022]

Roll No: 2020f-mulmsc-cjs-008

Subject: Applied Forensic Sciences

Assignment Topic: Crime Scene Search Methods

Prof. Name: Ma’am Aroosa Akram

 CRIME SCENE SEARCH METHOD
Sr. Contents Pg. No.
No.
1. Importance of crime scenes 01
2. Initial steps at crime scene 03
3. Protecting, managing and investing the 04
site
4. Kinds of search methods 06
5. Suspect who made another suspect 07
6. The Boston strangler 11
IMPORTANCE OF THE CRIME SCENES:
The place of incident carries the importance in the investigation as it is
beneficial for the investigation to have the details of the place where the incident
happened.

Without understanding the detail of the place of incident, one can face
difficulties while solving the critical methods of the investigation.

A successful criminologist needs some strong evidences and a good

laboratory. For this purpose, police, crime laboratory examine and prosecutor mil
serves well so the evidences cannot be forsaken. A criminal investigation must
he handle scientifically and for this purpose, report or recreate is needed. Reports
are recreated again and again just to have the strong reports at the end.

There can be used different methods as well like logical speculation or

hypothesis. Like what must have happened here? Use different methods and
speculation in order to analyze the hypothesis for getting the results. And also
examine the results whether they strongly support the gathered evidences or not?

It depends on the skills and knowledge of the investigator that whether he

is able to understand all the logical and critical methods or not, whether he
understands or not that each evidence carries important information and before
even sending it to the laboratory for examination, he/she knows already about the
victim and the crime and he is satisfied with his own hypothetical results.
Investigator should have this in mind that what possible outcomes can be gathered
after the examination of the laboratory.

Although the main success of the investigator depends on the crime scene
and the people who were present at the time of the incident, and their testing, but
the police officers or the petrol officer who reaches at the crime scenes first plays
an important role as well because it's his job to gather the evidences and to keep
them in their original shape and form without letting them destroyed.

The investigation of the investigator mostly depends upon it. Reality check
is that all the activities and investigations doesn't work until the responding police
officer doesn't perform his duty well (gathering the evidence in their true from)
He has to perform well in order to have a smooth investigation later. As a police
officer, it is his utmost responsibility to know that how should be reached the
crime spot.
i- How to enter the crime scene
ii- The isolation of the crime scene with the other things.
iii- The documentation of the crime scene.
iv- How to inform the police station or the officers about the crime scene.
v- What duties the responding officer has to perform before the other police
officers can reach at the scene.

Before the investigators and the other police officer can come, how he
can help them with the crime scene and the evidences.

i- How to handle the wounded at the crime scene if there's any.

ii- How to provide medical aid to the injured or the severely injured persons.
iii- How to handle the dead body
iv- How to handle one or more than one bodies
v- How to handle a person hanging on a gallows

Questions like these and many other questions will arise before the
responding officer.

INITIAL STEPS AT CRIME SCENE:

What if the responding officer has not performed the initial steps at the
crime scene?

i- Send medical aid for the wounded.

ii- Isolate the crime scenes and secure them.
iii- Prohibit the involvement of the general people
iv- Help the experts and technical team
v- Protect the evidence from sun rays, weather and smoke.

Initial survey:
A big mistake which is made at the initial steps is the immediate action at
the crime scene by entering and starting the processing. It is important here to
stop first. Take the analysis and understand the environment and make it suitable
for you. Make the report in the form of short notes in which following points
should be mentioned:

i- time of arrival
ii- make the environment understandable
iii- personal involvement
iv- decision of the important and specific spot

Understand the nature of the crime spot after entering and without touching
anything. There can be evidences and you can harm them.

i- What is the main point?

ii- What are the main items?

Make the proper planning.

Gather the important evidence. Decide the order from which all the items
and the evidences are going to be collected from start till end.

Apart from the nature of the place, also gather the other evidences. Decide
the investigating team and assign and select the work which is to be given when
and where. Decide the documentation which is going to be prepared for the
planning.

PROTECTING, MANAGING AND INVESTIGATING THE

CRIME SITE:
The procedure of protecting the crime scene:

1. Indoor crime scene:

i- Appoint the police officer at the door
ii- Close the door and the windows
iii- Don't use the bathroom
iv- Don't touch the other common or disposable items until the crime
scene is not investigated completely.

2. Outdoor crime scene:

 i- It is relatively more difficult to protect the outdoor crime scenes. The
best way to cover such kind of crime scenes is to rope off or cordon the
spot.
ii- Protect the crime scene. Begin by using barrier tape, official vehicles,
or other means to secure the scene. Establish a crime scene security log
to record the names of all persons who enter or exit the crime scene. Do
not smoke, drink, or eat within the secured crime scene.

Instructor note:
Ask the questions to the trainees that how they can protect or cover the
crime scenes. Also ask them their personal experiences and the ways they will
opt in case of outdoor crime scene. Highlight their mistakes, weaknesses and the
plus points. Guide them the best way to protect the crime scene.

The success and the failure of any investigation mostly depend on the
initial investigation done on the crime scenes. In order to make the investigation
successful, it is necessary to do the proper initial investigation.

Best and the ideal way of investigation is that before the detectives, experts
and the teaching team arrive at the spot, the responding police officers after
reaching at the specific spot gather all the evidences in their present form and
save them.

An expert police officer always gather and save the evidences before the
investigating and the technical team can arrive, he takes all the possible
measuring steps to make sure that no one can interrupt the crime scene, so he can
save both his and their time.

KINDS OF SEARCH METHODS:

In the process of crime scene investigation, this approach is not only

common sense, but also vital. To properly analyze and interpret any crime scene,
certain basic steps must be followed in order to create a sense of beginning and a
sensible conclusion to the examination. The steps employed to adequately assess
any crime scene are, quite basically, to interview, examine, photograph, sketch
and process a crime scene.

Processing a crime scene requires great attention to detail and nuance. In

order to preserve evidence, proper steps must be taken in chronological
order. What would happen if the victim were taken to the coroner's office before
photographs were taken? Or what might occur if the crime scene investigator
waited several days to sketch what he recalled of a crime scene?

It is obvious that an orderly process must be taken throughout the crime

scene, and this can be done in a number of ways. Before anything is touched or
collected as evidence, it must be found and clearly marked. How do you go about
finding and marking that evidence? There are several methods used by law
enforcement agencies throughout the world that follow five basic crime scene
search patterns.

A. Spiral search method:

The spiral method has the investigator(s) examining the area for evidence in
an ever-widening circle, from the position of the core crime scene or on the
perimeter and then moves in an outward direction.

B. Grid search method:

The grid method is best used in large crime scenes such as fields or woods.
Several searchers, or a line of them, move alongside each other from one end of
the area to be searched to the other. Imagine a string of a dozen officers walking
at arm's length down a football field. At the opposite end, they turn and perform
the same search, though moving in the opposite direction in consecutive laps.
Then, they search again, moving across the field at a 45-degree angle to where
they first started, until the entire area has been covered.

Crime scene is divided into a grid and each grid segment is searched thoroughly.

C. Line or parallel search method:

The line method is best used outdoors as well, and is similar to the grid search
with the exception that searchers generally only move in one direction, from one
side of the search area to the other. Because of trees, shrubs, rocks or other objects
that may make a grid search unfeasible, the line method search is the next best
method to use.

D. Quadrant search method:

The zone method breaks the crime scene area into squares. For example,
a living room can be divided into four equal sections and examined by an
individual investigator. In many cases, those squares are further divided into
additional, smaller squares to facilitate evidence location.

E. Wheel search method:

The wheel method employs the use of several crime scene personnel or
searchers. Starting in the middle of an imaginary circle, each investigator moves
in a direction straight out from the center, or "hub" of the wheel, much like the
spokes of a bicycle wheel. However, it is possible to destroy unseen evidence in
the "hub" area if extreme care is not taken to watch where investigators are
stepping as they gather in the center of the search area.

SEARCH PATTERN SELECTION:

The proper crime search method selected is based on;

 Size and type/location of the area

Is it indoor or outdoor?
 Personnel and equipment
How many people?
What equipment is needed and what do you have access to?
 Type of crime was committed
This impacts the type of evidence to be collected
Case No. 1:

(SUSPECT WHO MADE ANOTHER SUSPECT)

If a crime scene is properly investigated with systematic methodology, then

it will provide the means for completing criminal investigation and resolving the
case.

Some of the primary uses of physical evidence found at crime scenes are
corroborating the statements of witnesses, assisting investigators in determining
the credibility of eyewitnesses, and assist in the reconstruction of the events
leading to crime including the way in which the crime was committed.

The case presented here illustrate that a properly Investigated crime scene
and evidence can disapprove an eyewitness account of a criminal act.

Murder in a bedroom:

Late on Friday afternoon in April, a decomposing

body was discovered in a bedroom. The dead man was dressed only in a bath
towel and was shot twice at close range pith at a shotgun. Two television sets in
the home were turned on and no signs of forced rank sacking of the premises were
found. The state police crime scene unit responded and began the investigation.

The investigators made sure the scene was secure, spoke with the first responders,
proceeded with the preliminary scene survey, documented the scene, and
collected and packaged the physical evidence found.

Within weeks of the discovery of the body, the investigation focused on two
teenage girls who were friends of the 50-year-old victim. One of the girls
periodically visited and drank alcohol with the victim during the 3 years before
his death. Both girls knew the suspect. The second teenage girl had been
romantically involved with the suspect.

At first, both girls denied knowledge of the death. However, when the
investigation focused on them, they claimed that the suspect said he had shot the
victim. The girl who drank alcohol with the victim gave an even more detailed
statement. She said she was an eyewitness to the shooting and robbery was the
motivation.
Her detailed eyewitness account of the shooting specifically stated that the
suspect hid behind the door to the bedroom from the hallway, and shot the victim
twice. The first shot was in the hallway near the door to the bedroom.

The second shot was fired as the victim stumbled forward into the bedroom.
According to the eyewitness, the victim then fell in the position in which
investigators found his body. The eyewitness said the victim was facing toward
the bedroom when he was shot and that the suspect faced toward the hallway
entrance to the bedroom.

She also told the investigators that the suspect held a pillow in front of the shotgun
where he shot the victim and that both blasts were fired while the suspect was
partially hidden behind the bedroom door.

i- Use of physical evidence and crime scene investigation:

Several times of physical evidence documented and collected from the crime
scene, including the shotgun pellets, bloodstain patterns and tears jn a pillowcase,
were determined by crime scene investigators to be crime could not have occurred
in the way described by the eyewitness.

(a). Shotgun pellets and trajectory marks at crime scene:

A not-to-scale crime scene sketch prepared by an investigator showed the

locations of various items of physical evidence. This sketch reveals shotgun
pellets were found in the bedroom at locations marked 7 through 10. The
photographs and crime scene videotape revealed additional shotgun pellets and
trajectory marks. The crime scene report by the note taker at the scene shows that
in the scene investigation, no shotgun pellets or wadding were found in the
hallway and that all the pellets were found in the bedroom as documented in the
photographs, videotape and sketch.

(b). Bloodstain patterns at crime scene:

The crime scene videotape and photographs showed various bloodstain patterns
in the bedroom and in the area of the hallway nearest the bedroom. The bloodstain
patterns are consistent with arterial gushes from wounds similar to those suffered
by the victim.
Their documented locations indicate that the victim was standing in the bedroom
facing the door into the hallway when shot. The bloodstains contradict the
eyewitness account. Also, the documentation of the bedroom door shows no
bloodstains.

If, according to the eyewitness, the victim received his chest wound as he entered
the bedroom and the shotgun was fired from inside the bedroom toward the
hallway then arterial gush bloodstain should have been present on the door, the
floor around the door, and the door frame opposite the area where they were
found.

Other crime scene photographs and videotape segments of the crime scene
showing bloodstains in the hallway leading into the bedroom were used by
investigators to contradict the eyewitness account of the criminal act. The
bloodstains documented by the crime scene investigators were from the victim's
chest wound and they confirm that the victim was inside the bedroom facing the
hallway when he was shot.

(c). Tears in pillowcase from crime scene:

A final piece of physical evidence documented at the crime scene was the
pillowcase removed from the pillow. The pillowcase was in the shape of the tears
and was determined by the investigators to be consistent with a glancing blast of
shotgun pellets and not with a full blast or discharge from a shotgun muzzle.

One again, the physical evidence and its documentation at the crime scene were
used to disapprove the eyewitness statement.

The proper documentation of the crime scene allowed the investigators to

disapprove the lone eyewitness account of a homicidal act her account of the
shoot and the implication of a suspect were not substantiated by the physical
evidence and, in fact, led investigators to conclude that her account was not even
possible.

Conclusion:

Scientific crime scene investigation is the best methodology to ensure that an

investigation is properly conducted and justice is served.
Use of this methodology will prevent the abrupt end of an incomplete
investigation and allow for the best use of the physical evidence found at crime
scenes.
Case No. 2

(THE BOSTON STRANGLER)

Geography of a crime is a discipline of human geography, which explains with

reference to space the study of criminal wrongdoer, the incidence of crimes and
characteristic of victims. Throughout the history of geography, a number of
different approaches try to explain the ontogeny of the world’s societies and
cultures.

One most prominent approach is environmental determinism which dates back to

antiquity, where it is first found in a fifth-century medical writing attributed to
Hippocrates. This theory is also known as climatic determinism or geographical
determinism.

The fundamental argument of the environmental determinists is that different

aspects of physical geography, particularly climate, influenced the psychological
mind-set of individuals, which in turn determined the behavior and culture of the
society. Traditionally while dealing with causes of crimes most criminologists
have focused on conventional socio-demographic variables, such as sex, age,
race, and socio- economic status.

However there is growing concern of researcher to investigate the influence and

relationship of the physical environment on criminal behavior.

In recent years, crime mapping and analysis has incorporated spatial data analysis
techniques that add statistical validness and address inherent limitations of spatial
data, including spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity.

Spatial data analysis helps one analyze crime data and better understand not only
why a crime occurs but also where crime is occurring. Elaborate some early
problems associated with the analysis and identification of high crime areas or
hot spots.

One such problem is inability to pinpoint the location and time of some crimes
which may add error into the analysis. Initially the maps were used to examine
issues like poverty or demographic characteristics with reference to crime.

One of the first police departments to use mapping was New York City in the
1900. Wall maps have long been a simple and useful way to depict crime
incidents or hot spots. Many police departments still have large maps hanging on
the wall of the briefing room with the most recent crimes represented by pins.
Although manual wall maps are useful, they are difficult to keep updated.

Study Area:

This was a ghastly crime.

Nineteen-year-old Mary had just moved to Boston, where she rented an

apartment. Within a few days of her arrival in January, she was found dead. Her
attacker raped her and strangled her to death.

Sullivan was one of 11 women whom DeSalvo, known as the Boston Strangler,
would later confess to killing. However, he then recanted, leaving lingering
doubts about the possibility that the real assailant had eluded capture.

DeSalvo was never convicted of any of the Strangler killings, but he was
sentenced to life in prison on other rape charges. Fellow inmates stabbed him to
death in 1973. For decades after his death, experts argued about whether he really
was the Strangler or whether someone else committed the crimes and got away.
DNA Provides Answers:

Over the years, a well reputed forensic laboratory has funded the examination of
"cold cases" across the country through its Solving Cold Cases with DNA
program. The funding helps police departments identify, review, investigate and
analyze violent crime cold cases that could be solved through DNA analysis.

Sometimes the cases are so old that DNA testing did not yet exist when the crimes
were committed, and testing biological evidence now might show a match with a
suspect.
The city of Boston received competitive grants under this cold case program. The
Boston Police Department's cold case squad decided to use some of the funding
to test DNA from a nephew of DeSalvo's and look for a match with seminal fluid
that had been found on Sullivan's body and on a blanket at the crime scene. When
forensics experts ran the test, they got a hit.

The match was possible because of tests that zero in on short tandem repeats
(STRs), which are patterns found on DNA strands. Forensic scientists use a
specialized test that focuses on male (Y) chromosomes.

Y-chromosome DNA comes from fathers who pass their Y-STR DNA profiles to
their male offspring. Barring a mutation, the profiles remain unchanged. Every
male in a paternal lineage has the same Y-STR DNA profile. This includes
fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, nephews and a wider group of male relatives, even
out to third and fourth cousins.

The forensic lab has funded research on Y-STRs for years, believing that it would
give forensics experts a powerful and important tool in certain cases.

The program has given agencies the opportunity to put resources toward solving
homicides, sexual assaults and other violent offenses that otherwise might never
have been reviewed or reinvestigated.

Crime scene samples from these cases, previously thought to be unsuitable for
testing, have yielded DNA profiles. And samples that previously generated
inconclusive DNA results have been reanalyzed using modern technology and
methods.

Thanks to these cold case funds and the latest Y-STR technology, the Boston
Police Department was able to solve the mystery surrounding Mary almost 50
years after her death.

Testing of Y-STRs in the Mary Sullivan case showed a match between DNA from
the crime scene and DeSalvo's nephew. According to Boston officials, this match
implicated DeSalvo and excluded 99.9 percent of the male population, but
because a Y-STR profile is common to a group of male family members, it does
not yield the more precise match to a particular individual available in other DNA
tests.
Armed with the Y-STR testing results, Boston authorities went a step further and
exhumed DeSalvo's body in July 2013 so they could conduct a confirmatory test
using a DNA sample directly from DeSalvo.

DNA extracted from a femur and three teeth yielded a match, specifically, DNA
specialists calculated the odds that a white male other than DeSalvo contributed
the crime scene evidence at one in 220 billion, leaving no doubt that DeSalvo had
raped and murdered Mary.