Yes, Dogs Can Locate Your Electronic Devices

Jeffrey Calandra and Iris

You know that dogs can track people, sniff out corpses, and locate hidden narcotics, but did you know they can also pinpoint electronic media devices? A recent case reveals just that. In the Netherlands, a trained canine named Hidu uncovered the storage devices of a pedophile who was then arrested.

The Story: https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2022/06/19/photo-dog-trained-to-sniff-out-memory-devices-helps-catch-suspected-pedophile/

This is not a new technique. Back in 2016, we interviewed Jeffrey Calandra about his canine partner Iris and the work she does. At that time there were only 7 dogs in the world who could track and locate electronic devices and Iris was the FBI’s only one. A fascinating interview.

http://www.dplylemd.com/csr-past-details/jeffrey-calandra-and-iris.html

 

Guest Blogger: Lisa Black: WHEN FRAUD TURNS TO MURDER

WHEN FRAUD TURNS TO MURDER

We all chuckle at the emails to announce that the heir to a foreign fortune wants to give us a hefty chunk of it to help them get it out of the country, the friend requests from European models or silver fox military contractors, and the phone calls from the IRS telling us deputies are on their way to our door with a warrant for our tax-evasion request. But the losses suffered by the ones who don’t hang up or who write back to that email, though a small percentage, are no laughing matter. Reports indicate over 1.5 billion dollars were lost to scammers last year—that’s billion, with a b. 

But some have lost more than that. 

Romance scams can break more than hearts. Lonely housewife Renee Holland of Pennsylvania sent nearly thirty thousand dollars to a scammer posing as a U.S. soldier in Iraq, then attempted suicide when he didn’t show up at her airport as planned. Her husband, former military himself, tried to understand. They moved to Florida and tried to start over, but the stress of guilt and caring for an elderly father drove her right back into ‘Chris’s’ arms. Two days before Christmas 2018, her husband shot her, her father, and then himself.

The foreign fortune that needs your help to move is commonly called the Nigerian prince scam, or a 419, that number being the criminal code for fraud in Nigeria. Sometimes it’s couched as a business opportunity, sometimes a palatable form of money laundering, or sometimes it’s a pure gift, but will always involve money required up front for ‘fees’ and ‘transfers’ before you ever get that big ol’ check. Jiri Pasovsky, a 72-year-old retired doctor in the Czech Republic, gradually lost his entire life’s savings buying in to a fictitious Nigerian oil business and spent over a year lobbying to get it back. Pasovsky was no stranger to deceit—while a real doctor, he had also been an agent for the Czech secret police under Communist rule. In the 60’s he lived in Afghanistan, pretending to work with a team of Czech doctors but in reality, monitoring his fellow countrymen. He joined the CIA, but only in order to unmask fellow Czechs trying to defect to the States—but his cover disintegrated when a fellow secret agent made it to the west. This work must have been part of the pension he lost to the oil scheme and in 2003 he made the last of his many visits to the Nigerian Embassy there in Prague to demand they recover his funds. There he shot fatally shot diplomat Michael Lekara Wayid, 50, and wounded the man’s receptionist who came to intervene. 

The Jamaican version of this is the lottery scam, in which a phone call informs potential victims that they’ve won a prize of millions to be collected…as soon as they pay the taxes on the winnings. Once they get a vulnerable person on the line, the calls don’t stop. In 2015 they hounded dementia patient Albert Poland, 81, out of over five thousand dollars—a relatively small amount in scam land, but enough to drive the retired factory manager to suicide. 68 year old Heidi Muth flew from California to Jamaica to track down her money in 2017; her body was found with multiple stab wounds on a street in Montego Bay. But while the scam produces death in America, it leaves a massacre in Jamaica: over two hundred deaths per year on the island are linked to scam gangs, even after a 2013 law gave prosecutors the tools for sweeping raids and numerous arrests.

Then there’s German expat Christian Gerhartsreiter, who faked the rich and famous lifestyle so well that he made a career of it, churning through identities for nearly thirty years, two marriages, and a double homicide. He spent his last ten years of freedom posing as Clark Rockefeller—yes, of those Rockefellers. Apparently, once you stroll into the club, no one questions whether you belong there. But when his long-suffering wife decided to divorce, she began questioning everything, leading to the discovery of his former landlady’s son buried behind his house. The daughter-in-law’s body has not been found. It didn’t help that Gerhartsreiter had buried two of his own bookbags along with the body, or that he drove the dead man’s truck for several months afterward.   

But authorities are fighting back. Indian cybercrime detectives, working with the U.S. and other countries, arrested over two hundred people in one area of their country for running call centers which raked in over $50K a day, mostly from Americans and Canadians. In another case, 24 people in the U.S. are currently sitting in jail for running an IRS scam in which they would launder the money an Indian call center wrung out, one prepaid gift card or wire transfer at a time. In 2018, 28 U.S. and Jamaican defendants were sentenced in a lottery scam. And in just the past two years citizens of Canada, Nigeria and the U.S. were convicted in romance scams.

In the meantime, we will continue to hang up on the phone calls that tell us we won a contest we never entered, unfriend the fashion model or hunky soldier, and never, ever, click on the link. 

 Lisa Black is a latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. In her August release, Every Kind of Wicked, forensic scientist Maggie Gardiner and homicide detective Jack Renner track down a nest of scammers. http://www.lisa-black.com

 

Guest Blogger: Jennifer Graeser Dornbush: Behind the Story: Cold Cases

Behind the Story: Cold Cases
By Jennifer Graeser Dornbush, author of Hole in the Woods 

It’s no secret that cold cases draw a lot of entertainment and media interest. From podcasters, thriller novels, to true crime TV, viewers and readers can’t get enough! 

And I’m no different! My new thriller, Hole in the Woods, is based on a cold case I followed for twenty-five years. The specific cold case was that of Shannon Siders of Newaygo, Michigan. Shannon was brutally raped and murdered the summer of 1989 and her body was left for three months at the Hole in the Woods, a local party spot deep in the Manistee National Forest. 

Her story inspired my fictional version but also spurred my deeper interest in partnering with the Cold Case Foundation, a non-profit focused on solving the hardest, most forgotten violent crime and missing persons cases. 

Once I started researching Shannon’s case and eventually was led to the CCF, I was eager to get a behind the scenes look at cold case solving. So… what do we actually know about cold cases? Why do they grow cold? How many cold cases are there in America? Why did Shannon’s case go cold for so long? And how is CCF tackling cold cases differently? 

What is a cold case? 

A case is considered cold if the crime has not been solved after one year of when the offense occurred.

Why did Shannon Sider’s case grow cold? 

From what I know and have learned about Shannon’s case, I can point to a couple reasons why it went cold. 

First, Shannon’s body was not found until three months after her murder. Most of the biological evidence, even her own, was very deteriorated. Of the very small traces of DNA found her remains, none was able to be linked to anyone but Shannon. And of course, when she was killed in 1989, DNA science was very new and you needed a lot more of it to test for DNA than you do nowadays. But even when the samples were retested in 2012 with better technology, they were given inconclusive results. With no physical evidence present, it was impossible to make a connection to Shannon and her killers. 

Second, investigators spent hundreds of hours interviewing Shannon’s friends, family, and those last seen with her. Over 460 interviews! At the time there was never any probable cause to make an arrest. Investigators could not find any direct or circumstantial evidence that would give them the ability to make an arrest in Shannon’s killing. Even police examinations of the killers’ vehicle yielded no such cause because by the time the car was examined, the killer had weeks, if not months, to dispose of any evidence and clean up their car. 

Third, the lead investigator on Shannon’s case believed for a short time after her father reported her missing that she might still be alive. There were reports of another Shannon, who looked similar to Shannon Siders, and was seen in a store at a neighboring town. Police also had reason to believe she had run away and was in hiding. Weeks of time that passed after Shannon went missing that investigators just didn’t give her disappearance the credence it deserved. 

Fourth, the county where Shannon was killed is not densely populated and does not have access to a large police budget. Basically, it’s rural and middle class. The police department is small. There is a minor sheriff’s post. And there is absolutely no cold case unit. And wasn’t in the whole state of Michigan until 2011. It all goes back to lack of resources. 

Why do other cases grow cold? 

There are many factors that might render a case to remain unsolved. Maybe there wasn’t enough evidence surrounding the crime or victim? Maybe the victim was found weeks, months, or years after the crime was committed? Maybe the case was not investigated properly at the onset? Maybe all the leads pointed to a false direction where time and energy was used up, allowing other leads to disappear or cover their tracks. 

On the law enforcement side, the main contributors to a case growing cold are time, resources, and commitment to these cases. 

By commitment I mean the amount of time and the priority a law enforcement agency and investigators are able to allot to cold cases. Police priority gives focus on present and future crimes so as to deal with today’s events and prevent tomorrow’s. Continuing investigation on crimes in the distance past naturally takes a back seat, simply out of daily task priority. 

Lack of funding is another big obstacle facing police departments when it comes to the investigation of cold cases. There isn’t enough money to invest in old cases, and only about 18 percent of the nation’s 18,000+ police agencies actually have a cold case unit. 

Lack of resources, meaning both lack of investigators and cold case protocol is the third challenge. Only 20 percent of those 18 percent of cold case units actually have proper protocols in place to guide them through the process in the most effective way. 

Since 1995, the national average of solved homicides is 64%; leaving about 36% of homicides nationally unsolved every year. (FBI Uniform Crime Report.) Every year, 5,737 killers get away with murder. This paints a bleak picture for crime solving across the country. 

And this is exactly where the Cold Case Foundation can fill the gap! 

What exactly is The Cold Case Foundation? 

The CCF is what I call the Avengers of cold case solving! CCF was founded in 2014 and is currently run by Greg Cooper (former FBI) and Dean Jackson (former law enforcement). The CCF is an NPO and employs an all-volunteer board and staff of law enforcement experts from the FBI, police branches, and investigators and forensic experts from around the country. Most are retired and all are eager to lend their decades of experience to keep fighting crime. 

Each new cold case brought to the CCF is assigned to a super power team of these seasoned professionals who volunteer their time and expertise to those hardest to solve cases. They use a technique called Victimology, which seeks to study the victim’s life and relationships. With these clues, investigators can more effectively and efficiently find clearer and cleaner trails to the killer. 

What Kinds of Cases Does the CCF Help Solve? 

Homicides Missing Persons Unidentified Bodies Rape/Sexual Assaults 

Is There A Cost for Using the CCF? 

No. Applicants can apply through the CCF website. There is no cost to police departments or victims and their families for the CCF support services. 

Why are you partnering with The Cold Case Foundation? 

As a crime fiction writer, I view crime solving for its story and entertainment value; but I’ve always felt that it is essential to give back something positive to the real-life crime fighting world and the real life crime fighters (aka the TRUE heroes and heroines). I chose the CCF because they share my personal mission “to shed hope and light into the darkest recesses of the human experience.” 

My work with the CCF primarily involves being a public ambassador for them and working as an educator for their Victim Prevention Training, which teaches people in all walks of life how to significantly lower their risk of becoming a victim of a violent crime. 

I am also donating a portion of the sales from Hole in the Woods to the CCF. 

Where Can I Learn More? 

Visit: http://www.coldcasefoundation.org

Connect: CCF Facebook page

Reduce Your Victim Risk! Take and host a CCF Victim Prevention Training Event for your school, business, community group, church group to learn how to lower your risk of becoming a victim of a violent crime. Their new victim avoidance program is scheduled to be rolled out on December 1, 2020. 

What is Hole in the Woods About?

In 1989, in a sleepy Michigan town, missing high school grad Nina Laramie’s skeleton is found near a remote party spot in the forest. Fear and anger ripple through this tight- knit community when the case goes cold. Thirty years later, Riley St. James is assigned to the case, despite her similar past to the victim, and must face the killers who want their secret to stay in the Hole in the Woods. This true crime thriller is based on the 1989 true-life murder case of Shannon Siders, in which the author’s father was the medical examiner. 

Jennifer is a screenwriter, author, international speaker, and forensic specialist. As she says, “I grew up around death.” The television or movie screen is the closest most people will ever come to witness in the forensic world. But Jennifer was raised in it, as the daughter of a small town medical examiner whose office was in their home. Her latest novel, Hole in the Woods, released August 4th and can be found online where ever books are sold. Connect with Jennifer and join her newsletter at www.jenniferdornbush.com

 

Golden State Killer’s Evidence Pilfered From Sheriff’s Office for “Book Research.”

Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who authorities suspect is the so-called Golden State Killer responsible for at least a dozen murders and 50 rapes in the 1970s and 80s, is accompanied by Sacramento County Public Defender Diane Howard, right, as he makes his first appearance, Friday, April 27, 2018, in Sacramento County Superior Court in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

An amazing turn of events in the Golden State Killer case. Might this evidence “heist” impact his prosecution and/or plea deal? Is this a problem with evidence handling by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, another case of Hollywood getting special access, or both? We will see what happens.

The good news is that for crime writers this might offer you another plot point to work with. 

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/26/oc-sheriffs-investigators-smuggled-boxes-of-evidence-in-golden-state-killer-case-to-book-author-attorney-says/

 

DNA Comparisons in 12 Seconds?

 

Though there are DNA techniques such as Familial and Phenotypical analyses that can narrow the search for a suspect, in the end, DNA is most useful if it can be profiled and matched against another sample. Databases play a large role in such comparisons when an unknown crime scene sample is obtained. Even if no suspect is on the radar, a “hit” on a database comparison can lead investigators down the right path. But these take time. And if a killer is “out there,” time is often critical. What if investigators could obtain a sample at the scene and compare it against 20 million databases sample in only a few seconds? That would be amazing. But guess what? With the FastID algorithm, it seems to be possible.

Could be a game changer for law enforcement.

PHYS.ORG Article: https://phys.org/news/2019-06-record-breaking-dna-comparisons-fast-forensics.html

 

Criminal Mischief: Episode #06: Is It Harder To Write Crime Fiction Today?

 

Criminal Mischief: Episode #06: Is It Harder To Write Crime Fiction Today?

LISTEN: https://soundcloud.com/authorsontheair/criminal-mischief-episode-06-is-it-harder-to-write-crime-fiction-today

Is It Harder To Write Crime Fiction Today? Notes:

Do modern forensic science and police investigative techniques make creating compelling crime fiction more difficult? Are there simply too many balls to keep in the air? Too much to consider? Or is now little different from then?

The Past, the present, and the future

Forensic Science timeline—-a fairly new discipline

Basic Science, then Medicine, finally forensic science

Personal ID

Visual
Bertillon
West Case
Facial recognition
Behavioral Profiling

Prints, ABO type, DNA, DNA Phenotype

Fingerprints—-then and now

Vucetich—the Rojas case
Stella Nickell Case
Touch DNA
Touch Toxicology

Toxicology

From arsenic to GC/MS

Blood Typing

ABO can exclude but not ID

DNA

Nuclear
Mitochondrial
Familial—Grim Sleeper case
Phenotypic Analysis

Electronics

Cell phones, computers, emails, texts, VMs

LINKS: 

Forensic Science Timeline: http://www.dplylemd.com/articles/forensic-science-timeline.html

History of Fingerprints: http://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html

Brief History of Poisons and Forensic Toxicology: https://www.okorieokorocha.com/poisons-and-forensic-toxicology/

History of Forensic Ballistics: https://ifflab.org/the-history-of-forensic-ballistics-ballistic-fingerprinting/

FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/forensics-for-dummies.html

HOWDUNNIT:FORENSICS: http://www.dplylemd.com/book-details/howdunnit-forensics.html

Stella Nickell Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Nickell

DNA Profiling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_profiling

Mitochondrial DNA: http://www.dplylemd.com/articles/mitochondrial-dna.html

Familial DNA: http://www.dnaforensics.com/familialsearches.aspx

Grim Sleeper/Lonnie Franklin case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Sleeper

Is DNA Phenotyping Accurate: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-accurately-can-scientists-reconstruct-persons-face-from-dna-180968951/

DNA Phenotyping Examples: https://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/examples

Bertillon and the West Brothers: http://www.nleomf.org/museum/news/newsletters/online-insider/november-2011/bertillon-system-criminal-identification.html

 

Q&A with Expanded Audio Discussions Now on the Suspense Magazine Website

Q&A with Expanded Audio Discussions Now on the Suspense Magazine Website

Check out the new posts John Raab of Suspense Magazine and I put together. Read the Q&As and listen to the expanded discussions. Hope each proves helpful for your crime fiction.

Can DNA Be Used To Identify Multiple Assailants In a Three Decade Old Rape?

http://suspensemagazine.com/blog2/2016/12/20/d-p-lyles-forensic-file-episode-1/

In 1863, Could An Autopsy Accurately Determine the Cause of Death?

http://suspensemagazine.com/blog2/2017/01/09/in-1863-could-an-autopsy-accurately-determine-the-cause-of-death-d-p-lyle-answers-this/

Can My Female Character Cause Her Pregnancy To Become “Stone Baby” By Shear Will?

http://suspensemagazine.com/blog2/2016/12/31/can-my-female-character-cause-her-pregnancy-to-become-stone-baby-by-sheer-will/

More to come.

Want more cool questions from crime writers? Check out my three Q&A books.

More Info and List of Included Questions

More Info and List of Included Questions

More Info and List of Included Questions

 

Psychopathic Brains and MRIs

 

Psychopath, sociopath, borderline personality disorder, choose your phrase as these are often used interchangeably but in the end they are terms used to describe certain criminal offenders. In many cases, the worst of the worst. These individuals are often impulsive, lack self-control, and have little, if any, empathy with others, particularly their victims. The annals of serial predators are filled with such persons.

Forensic science has for many years searched for a true lie detector and a reliable method of determining someone’s criminal tendencies. Most have not panned out. One recent investigative arena is the use of functional MRIs to determine segmental brain activity in both “normal” and “psychopathic” individuals. The hope is to discover reliable and repeatable differences that might prove useful in criminal investigations.

One current study at Radboud University in the Netherlands has revealed some interesting results. It appears that persons with sociopathic tendencies possess an overly active “reward” area of their brains while at the same time showing some loss of communication between this area and one that is used for “self-control.” Obviously this leads to a dangerous combination of psychiatric defects. If someone is reward driven, impulsive, and narcissistic, while at the same time lacking any sort of consistent control of these impulses, it is easy to see that criminal behavior could follow.

Though this study and none of the others that have looked into this area of psychopathology have delivered the “smoking gun” of psychopathic behavior, they are intriguing investigations.

 

Crime and Science Radio: Dangerous Instincts: An Interview with Senior FBI Profiler (Ret) Mary Ellen O’Toole Ph.D.

BIO: MARY ELLEN O’TOOLE, Ph.D. has spent her career studying the criminal mind. One of the most senior profilers for the FBI until her retirement in 2009, Dr. O’Toole has helped capture, interview and understand some of the world’s most infamous people including:

•Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer

•Derrick Todd Lee and Sean Vincent Gillis, both serial killers in Baton Rouge

•The Collar Bomb Case, a bank robbery and murder of a pizza delivery man

•Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber

•The Polly Klaas child abduction

•David Parker Ray, a serial sexual sadist

•The Red Lake School Shooting

•The Monster of Florence serial murder case

•The Zodiac serial murder case

•The bombing during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, UT

•The mass murder in Florence, Montana in 2001
Dr. O’Toole also worked the Elizabeth Smart and Natalee Holloway disappearances, the Columbine shootings and many other high profile cases. Her law enforcement career spanned 32 years, beginning in the San Francisco’s District Attorney’s Office when she was a Criminal Investigator. Dr. O’Toole worked as an FBI agent for 28 years, spending more than half of her Bureau career in the organization’s prestigious Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU)—the very unit that is the focus of the hit crime series “Criminal Minds.”

During her time in the unit, Dr. O’Toole developed an expertise in Criminal Investigative Analysis (CIA) as well as offender behavior. She has provided assistance to law enforcement and prosecutors on a wide range of violent and criminal behavior including serial and single homicides, sexual assaults, kidnappings, product tampering, school shootings, arsons and bombings and extortions. Dr. O’Toole is also a trained FBI hostage negotiator and has a unique expertise in the areas of targeted school violence, workplace violence and threat assessment.

Dr. O’Toole is recognized as the FBI’s leading expert in the area of “psychopathy.”  Her work in psychopathy has put her on the forefront of mental health and law enforcement efforts to apply the concepts of this personality disorder to both violent and white collar offenders and their behavior and crime scenes. She lectures internationally on the application of the theory of psychopathy to real life situations. She continues to lecture at the FBI Academy on psychopathy and interviewing. She has served as adjunct faculty to the FBI’s Prestigious Leadership Development Institute (LDI) at the FBI Academy and also frequently lectures at the Smithsonian Institution about everything from Sherlock Holmes to personal safety. She is a Fellow with the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

LISTEN: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2017/03/04/crime-and-science-radio-with-special-guest-mary-ellen-otoole

Link will go live Saturday 3-4-17 at 10 a.m. Pacific

LINKS:

Mary Ellen’s Website: http://maryellenotoole.com

Mary Ellen on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drmaryellenotoole/

Mary Ellen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/maryellenotoole

Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us: https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Instincts-How-Feelings-Betray/dp/1594630836

Dangerous Instincts: The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dangerous-instincts-fbi-profiler-explains-the-dangers-of-that-nice-neighbor/2011/10/17/gIQAkvNCDM_story.html

Learning How To Read People: http://www.theironjen.com/learning-how-to-read-people-dr-mary-ellen-otoole/

Psychopathy: FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin: https://leb.fbi.gov/2012/july/psychopathy-an-important-forensic-concept-for-the-21st-century

Orlando Shooter Profile: CCTV America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhTjGAsUuzk

Why Are American Cops So Bad At Catching Killers?: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/02/why-are-american-cops-so-bad-at-catching-killers#.PFh6oYRhF

 

Guest Blogger: Lisa Black: Smart Phones and Not-So-Smart Criminals

USING SMARTPHONES TO DEFEAT NOT-SO-SMART CRIMINALS

My boss, the supervisor of our forensic unit, insists that soon we will be able to process an entire crime scene with nothing but a smartphone. Everything from photographs to sketching to measuring to note-taking, all on a 2 ½ x 5” flat item which one needs reading glasses to see unless one is under fifty which I, alas, will never be again.

Most phones now come with 10 or 12 megapixel cameras, which are more than sufficient for forensic purposes. You can get attachments for tripods and flashes. My boss can open and close the shutter from his Apple Watch (important for taking ninety-degree close-ups of fingerprints or tire tracks where the slightest vibration could blur the details).

Simply browsing through the tablet he got us for crime scene work and nagged us for a few months to use before he finally gave up, I find:

The flashlight app. Of course. (I was at a crime scene yesterday where the two young men were trying to plug my USB into the video system, cleverly hidden in the ceiling panels. It’s dark up there, of course, and they were stymied as they had never downloaded a flashlight to their relatively new phones. I pulled my mini-Mag out of my pocket and suggested they use an actual flashlight. Sometimes us old chicks rule.)

Pill Identifier, with which you can enter the color and shape of a medication and it will help you narrow down to the name of the drug, then link to information on purpose, dosage, side effects and drug interactions.

Photo Measures, which allows you to take a photo of a room and then annotate it with measurements. This way my boss, the detectives, the prosecutors and the jury no longer have to suffer through trying to decipher my hastily scribbled sketches of uneven walls and amorphous blobs representing the pit couch. I can take a photo of the room and write the dimensions right over the picture, then add the feet and inches from the south wall to the bloody knife on the floor. The only catch is you still have to take the measurements yourself.

And for that, we have RoomScanPro. Simply start it up, give each room a name like ‘dining’, hold the phone against each wall, in order but at any particular spot on the wall until you’ve gone around the whole room. The app will create a floor plan including measurements. Do a complete walk-through and it will give you the whole house. Be warned, however, that these apps may only be accurate to half a foot, so that you could wind up with an attorney grilling you how the murder weapon could have been five and a half inches from the victim’s body instead of six.

For traffic incidents, Vehicle Identification System can give you pictures of nearly every make and model available in the last decade to aid witnesses in describing the getaway car. And Cargo Decoder can translate the four-digit DOT code on a truck’s placard to tell you what kind of materials they’re hauling.

There are a number of panoramic photo apps, so that you can quickly scan a 360° shot of the crime scene as is before EMTs, firemen, reporters, angry mobs or bigwig looky-lous breach your perimeter.

So the next time you see a team processing a crime scene it might not only be the nerdy young guy using the newfangled gadgets to do the job. It might be the grizzled old detective using a smartphone and a rubber-tipped stylus.

And reading glasses.

Lisa Black has spent over 20 years in forensic science, first at the coroner’s office in Cleveland Ohio and now as a certified latent print examiner and CSI at a Florida police dept. Her books have been translated into 6 languages, one reached the NYT Bestseller’s List and one has been optioned for film and a possible TV series.