Elon Law School students recently learned some detective skills at the “CSI Greensboro” seminar organized by Professor Steve Friedland for students in his criminal law class.  The event was aimed at teaching students various techniques used by crime scene investigators.  It included a mock crime scene; guest experts on fingerprint detection, blood detection, and blood-spatter analysis; and instruction on general crime scene investigation. 

Friedland, a former federal prosecutor, encouraged students to dust for fingerprints and test for invisible blood in an attempt to “merge the classroom with the real world” and teach them how to ask the right questions of investigating experts and how each investigative technique functions.

Guest experts included Lili Johnson, ex-NC Bureau of Investigation (NCBI) special agent; Professor Frank Keegan, Binford faculty member of the forensics program at Guilford College; and Duane Deaver, special agent with the NCBI.

With 15 years of experience gathering fingerprint evidence at crime scenes, Johnson is also an associate dean of the American Academy of Applied Forensics at Central Carolina Community College in Charlotte.  Emphasizing the importance of fingerprints, Johnson said that they are telltale evidence revealing the occurrences of crimes.  To detect fingerprints on hard surfaces such as desktops and hardwood floors, silk powder is dusted, while for porous objects such as paper or Styrofoam cups, magnetic powder is used.

Keegan, while elaborating on the use of chemicals to test for blood stains at a crime scene, demonstrated the Kastle-Meyer (KM) test used to analyze objects for blood.  Phenolphthalein, a colorless molecule that turns pink in the presence of hemoglobin is used in the KM test.

Deaver led a session on blood-spatter investigation. “Crime scenes, like everything else in life, are not perfect, and they don’t have to be,” said Deaver.  He explained that blood-spatter evidence records the actuality of a crime.  The amount of blood at the scene of a crime is a giveaway that establishes the facts.  He cited the example of the murder of Kathleen Peterson, who was killed by her husband.  Blood-spatter evidence on the staircase walls and on Michael Peterson’s clothing convicted him of Kathleen’s murder.

Deaver advised students to “use common sense and follow cases where the evidence leads them.”