Episode 5: When Power Preys: A Case of Hidden Abuse

🕵️‍♀️Episode 5: When Power Preys: A Case of Hidden Abuse

In this episode, we examine a deeply disturbing case involving abuse of power, where young women placed in positions of trust became victims behind the very doors they were expected to feel safe in.

As a crime scene investigator, this case reinforced critical realities about our role in the justice process. 

Testimony became a powerful tool, translating forensic findings into clear, factual narratives that a jury could understand and rely on. Every detail mattered, and every word carried weight.

It also underscored the importance of evidence preservation. From the moment I became involved, maintaining the integrity of the evidence was essential to ensuring it remained reliable and admissible in court.

But just as important was a hard truth:
👉 You cannot control how evidence is handled before it reaches you.

What you can control is what happens next, your documentation, your processing, and your commitment to preserving the truth.

This episode is not just about the crime, it’s about accountability, process, and the role forensic professionals play in seeking justice.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to Through the CSI Lens Behind the Yellow Tape. I'm Christina Breakman and I will be your host. Thank you so much for joining us. We have been gone for a couple weeks and we are gonna get back on track. So thanks for bearing with us. I hope you enjoy this episode. You know, you can follow us on social media, on Facebook, Instagram, and if you have any questions or suggestions, you can also send an email. So make sure you check out us, check us out on social media so you can follow and you won't miss anything. So the last episode we talked about the teenager who had been molested by her mother's boyfriend and how he murdered her, stored her in a tote, and then placed her in a dumpster. So today, I mean, that was a pretty significant case. You know, took a lot of resources and time to work through that case, and so I was glad when he was finally convicted. But like I said, most people in this profession, we just we see things like this all the time, and it never gets easier, it probably gets harder through the years, actually. I that's what I would like to say, but it's definitely something that we need in our society. We need people who are gonna be willing to go out and do these type of scenes and do this kind of work and make the kind of sacrifices because these victims need a voice, they need results, the family needs resolution. So, definitely, you know, gotta look at the full picture, but I was really glad when he was convicted and sent to prison. So, tonight we are gonna talk about a sexual assault case, and it was a pretty big deal out here in the Arizona Phoenix area because the suspect was previously a semi-pro soccer team owner, and he was from the Northwest, and so he had been up there running a semi-pro soccer team, and then he relocated to Arizona. I don't know why, but he did, and he would sexually assault women, obviously, and so we'll talk a little bit about that. But when he was living up in the Northwest, you know, he was running a successful soccer team, he was doing soccer camps, he by all means and purposes on the outside he looked very successful, you know, money, worldly possessions, people knew who he was, so he, you know, had made quite a name for himself. And I guess he had also committed acts of you know sexual violence against women up in the Northwest as well. But when he moved down here to Arizona, what he did was hire college girls to babysit his kids. And during those times when he hired them, he sexually assaulted them. And he had more than one victim when he was down here. So it was a couple agencies, a couple cities here in the East Valley that joined forces to prosecute this man after both victims who did not know each other came forward and filed a complaint for you know sexual assault against this man. So it was kind of a big deal, like it had been was in the news and people knew about it. I didn't really know about it, obviously, because I uh to be honest with you, I don't really watch a lot of news, or at least I didn't back back then. So I was unfamiliar with him or his history or anything like that. And actually, I didn't even know that the agency I was working, you know, working for at the time that we actually filed charges in conjunction with another agency. So I didn't know that until I showed up to court to testify. So I can't really speak to why that decision was made as to trying the two cases together instead of having two separate cases. I mean, obviously there was a court decision behind that, and I would assume financial resources and you know, expedition speeding it up, speeding the trial up, and trying to get through that process. So at the time, this is how I got involved. So at the time, I was on light duty because I had had my neck fused, so I was not on the street, and I really was limited on what I could do when I was on light duty. So when I was in light duty, I was in the office doing office work. But we were very understaffed at this time, at least during that shift we were, and a sex crimes detective had called over to one of our supervisors and said, Hey, I have some evidence that I collected or retrieved, took possession of that involved a sexual assault, and I'd like to bring it down and give that to you guys so that you can submit it for evidence, and then hopefully it can be analyzed. So when my supervisor asked me if I would go ahead and take possession of those items, I'm like, yeah, because I can do that. I just can't go out into the field and do all the crazy things. So he showed up and he tells me he okay, first of all, he shows up with a grocery, plastic grocery bag with items inside of it and tied closed. So you can imagine what was going through my mind at the time when he presented the plastic trash the plastic grocery bag. I am just thinking to myself, what is happening right now? Why first of all, why do you have this evidence? Two, why is evidence in a plastic grocery bag? And three, why are the items together in the plastic grocery bag? And if you know anything about forensics or CSI or you watch a million shows on TV, you know that all of that is a no, no, no. But there's nothing I can do prior to me getting involved. I can't control what they did or did not do prior to calling the crime scene unit and wanting our assistance. So keep that in mind. So anyway, he comes to our crime lab and he's like, okay, I've got these clothes on here. Would you be able to look over these clothes with a blue light, is what he said, and see if there's anything on the clothing that looks like it could be by you know, semen. I'm just gonna tell you what he said, not how I would normally speak to it, but he basically said, you know, I have these clothes. Can you look over them with your blue light to see if there's any semen on the clothing? So how I would say this, if I was asking somebody, I would say, I have these clothes, you know, there's a suspected sexual, you know, assault that occurred. Can you take these clothes and use your forensic light source and search the clothing for anything that might fluoresce and react to the fluorescent, you know, forensic light source? That's how I would ask or say it. But he's not a he it's not his specialty, it's not his discipline, it's not his profession. So he's he's a detective. So I said, sure, I can do that. So obviously everything's in the trash bag, and he informed me that the victim had put everything together in the bag, and then they went and picked it up from her. Meaning an officer, a patrol officer, went out to meet with her, whether it be her house or someplace, and took possession of those items, and then and then that officer took it to our advocacy center, which is where our sex crimes detectives are located, and then gave it to the sex crimes detective who then came to our crime lab, who then gave me the items. So, what should have happened is they, as soon as the victim called and made contact, they should have had an officer go out there and talk to her and find out, you know, the information, just like they do with any type of incident. Then that officer should have called a crime scene person out there so that we could collect the items correctly. Again, we can't control what the victim does to her clothing before we're involved. So whether she had put all those clothes in a laundry basket on top of each other and intermix, that's one thing. If they were laying on her bedroom floor or some flooring or a couch, that's another thing. But we would always try to, you know, package those separately so that we don't cross-contaminate items. That becomes less important when they're all thrown in together and everything's contaminating everything, right? I mean, there's nothing we can do with that point, but I still would do my best to separate the items, trying my best not to lose any trace evidence like hairs and fibers, or maybe even dry biological evidence. I would do my best to try to prevent any of that loss. So, and I wouldn't have put it in a plastic bag that's been used at the grocery store or wherever they used it at. I would have put them in appropriate evidence bags, paper bags. You don't want to put things in plastic because what if something's damp, then it could get moldy and it could degrade any evidence, biological evidence you have on that clothing. So there's a lot that goes into it. Clearly, they did not follow that rule and or those procedures, and they were not aware of those procedures. So can't control what they did before I got involved, but I can control what I do once I take over. So we in our crime lab we have this area, it's kind of what we call our drying room where we have several secured basically closets, and you can hang evidence in there and secure it so that it can dry. Because you never want to put evidence, you'd never want to submit evidence wet or damp because it could mold, it could cause damage, and it could degrade any samples there. So, and then we have smaller kind of cabinets that we can dry, smaller items on a more temporary basis. And so we have a couple different things that we can use in there, but we also have these large tables and we have butcher paper that we typically it's white, just like if you go to the butcher, you know, and they wrap up your meat, it's like that. We use something similar to that to package things, especially if there's some we suspect you know, trace evidence might be present on an item, and then also because we just don't want to put evidence down on the table, we want to make sure there's a barrier there, and so that's what I did. Put the butcher paper down, and I pulled out a pair of very, very tiny black pants, they look like sweatpants. I mean, when I say tiny, they were super tiny, they almost look like little, like little girl pants. So unfortunately, in that room, the floodlights are on, so it makes it a little bit more difficult to use your forensic light source. Ideally, you want to use your forensic light source in complete darkness because you don't want the exterior light interfering with your light source, right? But can't control that. So I took my forensic light source and it looks like a handheld flashlight. So just imagine a flashlight you would go get at the hardware store or what at Walmart. It it looks like a handheld flashlight, but it does magical things for us. So you'll hear it called different things: forensic light source, alternative light source. There's a couple other terms that you also might hear it as, but for for this podcast, it's going to be excuse me, forensic light source. So, anyway, he wanted me to see again if there was any semen present on the clothing. And he made a statement that, you know, depending on what I can see, would most likely help them determine if they were gonna file charges. I don't know if he really should have told me that. I don't need to know that. I don't need that pressure, I don't need that stress, you know, and I don't want to be questioned on bias and what I knew prior to examining the clothing and and not knowing prior to examining the clothing. So I wish he wouldn't have said that, but I did look over the sweatpants and there was a shirt in there. I can't remember if it was a t-shirt or a tank top, but some things to keep in mind when you are using a forensic light source. First of all, you need to wear some type of goggles over your eyes. For specific biological evidence, I'm going to be wearing orange goggles so they look orange, and what that does is help filter out the light that we don't want to see and helps us see the light that we do want to see. And the forensic light source has a certain without getting too technical, the energy or the power, so think about voltage of a battery. Forensic light sources have different voltages for lack of better terms, they call it nanometers. So this the higher the number, the stronger the light source is, and you can see more things, but certain evidence does better under certain power or wavelengths. We call them wavelengths. So we know this when we're in forensics, and so for this incident, it was biological. I'm going to be using a blue light, and I'm going to be wearing the orange goggles, and so I'm expecting if there's anything that could be listen to what I said, could be biological, it will fluoresce. Blood absorbs light, so anytime there's blood present or could be present, it will be black or very dark because it actually soaks in the light where bodily fluids, some cleaning chemicals, some fibers, some fabrics, they will actually take in some of that light energy, those nanometers of that wavelength, and then emit energy. And so when it fluoresces, that's what that energy is. It's emitted into a fluorescence, and so it's going to glow. So instead of taking it all in like blood does, these other substances or fabrics, dyes, threads, trace, other types of trace evidence will actually absorb it a little bit and then kick it out. And when it kicks out, it kicks out with light energy and it looks like fluorescence. I hope that makes sense to you. So one thing that you need to know with the forensic light source is that it's not conclusive. Just because something fluoresces doesn't mean it is what it is, it doesn't mean it's biological evidence, doesn't mean that it's a certain chemical, doesn't mean that it's a certain dye or a certain trace evidence, hair or fiber. It just is detecting something that reacts to the light energy of the forensic light source. There's nothing conclusive about it. It would be considered presumptive, meaning we have no conclusive facts or outcomes, we just know that he it reacts. Whatever this substance is on her clothing reacted with the forensic light source and emitted a fluorescence, a glow. So again, it forensic light sources are just used for searching, they're used for detecting. One thing is really interesting is that black material tends to really absorb the light, so it makes it even harder to use a forensic light source on black clothing. So if and when I did this, it was there was a fluorescence, but it was very weak, and that would kind of you know explain why is because the pants were dark, but also the sample could be very weak, it could be old, it could have been contaminated, it could have been disturbed, there might not be enough residue left on there, or whatever it was that fluoresced on her pants specifically. It's hard to say, you know. At this point, all I would be able to say is I searched her black pants, and during the process, I noticed a fluorescence in this specific area, you know, and I noted that. So that is the extent of what I would do as far as searching clothing. If I was not on light duty, then I would have taken taken photographs of the clothing, how I receive them. So typically, when we're photographing clothing, we want to photograph the entire front of clothing, the entire back of the clothing. We want to photograph labels, brands, sizes, any stains or defects. We want to photograph those as well. And then what I would do since this clothing actually had some areas that fluoresced, I would actually want to do advanced photography on that using an orange filter on my camera lens instead of my goggles or a filter on the forensic light source, I would just go ahead and set my camera up. I would set it up on a tripod because I have to basically set this camera for low lighting environments. Because remember, we're supposed to be in a dark room, and so a camera, if you're hand holding a camera and you're trying to take a picture in the dark, you're not gonna get an accurate representation, right? It's not gonna be focused, you're probably not get going to get the full picture. So, in order to negate that, you put it on a tripod so it has stability, and then you can put your camera into a manual setting, and then you can set how how long you want your shutter open and what aperture priority you want your camera setting, so depth of field, and then you can use the orange filter over your camera lens, and then use your forensic light source to continue to search the substance on the pants and then take photos of that. But I did not do that because I'm on light duty and I can't have anything around my neck or any of that, so that's how I would have done it normally, just to document it because once I package it, put it into evidence, I don't know how long it's gonna be before they examine it, and I don't know if through time, you know, even though I'm going to freeze the clothing to try to maintain the integrity of any biological evidence on her clothing, you know, things happen, so I I want to make sure I'm documenting it the best I could, but because of my restrictions, I wasn't able to do that advanced photography. It's always a good idea when you have something like this: a sex assault that's against a person, it's a person's crime, and you have potential biological evidence, you want to document that with photographs for sure. And you especially can use your advanced photography and use your tripod and use the orange filter and use your forensic light source to search whatever item you're trying to search and capture those images. Basically, those images they're not going to give you any comparable or identifying information, it's just going to say, hey, this is the clothing that we photographed, this is what the forensic light source was able to provide us with this fluorescent areas and these different parts of her clothing, and these are the images of those areas that fluoresced, right? So we have those photographs, and of course, we would have our original photographs of just the items themselves that I mentioned before. So definitely want to do that because again, you just don't know you know how long it's gonna be before they go to court, you don't know how long it's gonna be before a forensic scientist gets assigned it the case. So, and a lot of policies at the agencies will require you do both. You you don't have a choice. I just happened to because I was on light duty and I was the only one available, and so I could only do what my doctor would allow me to do. But luckily, that it didn't, even though I deviated from policy, it didn't contribute anything negative to the forensic scientist and her analysis, luckily. So that's kind of what the forensic light sources are, and there's many different models and samples, and for me and my job, we typically are looking for biological evidence because most of the time it's sex some type of sexual. Salt. So we're using, you know, around 435 nanometers, which is the energy or the volt, the voltage. And I know I'm using my orange goggles. I know we're using an orange filter, and I'm going to search that area. And it would be the same thing no matter what I search. It's going to be the same technique. It's going to be the same forensic light source, same filter, because that's what I'm specifically looking for. So at that point, you know, he I gave him a pair of goggles so that he could see as well. And that is helpful so that he can also say, hey, I saw an area on her clothing that fluoresced and reacted to the forensic light source as well. It wasn't just her. And then of course, I once I'm done with that and I'm documenting everything I found on her clothing. I'm going to take those items, so the shirt, the pants, and the bag, and I'm going to package those separately. I'm not going to put them together. We may not want to process them all. And so there's no sense pulling it out of evidence when we're not going to do anything with it. And some of the evidence may not be as probative. So the detectives and the forensic scientists now have an opportunity to look at what was collected and decide what they want to process first in the hope that they actually get something probative for the you know investigation. So I've done all that work. And again, just a reminder that anything you do with a forensic light source is not conclusive. The only thing that is conclusive is when there's an analysis done in the crime lab by a trained forensic scientist. And a lot of times they don't even work with you know conclusive, they are probabilities. And if you've ever watched court testimony or any of your favorite forensic files, you'll you'll hear them testify that they can't say anything 100% is certain, right? It's probabilities. We're working in probabilities. The chance of it being anything else but this source or this person is so high and so outlandish and so beyond measure that there's no way it could be anything else but this or this person. So mostly speaking in probabilities and not certainties. But that's okay, that's how forensic science is. And it's always, it's never just the one piece of evidence, it's always the totality of the evidence and the investigation that helps either eliminate somebody, exonerate them, or identify people of interest, or identify a suspect. So at this point, we saw some fluorescence. I don't know what it is, could be anything, like I said, cleaning tools, cleaning liquids, chemicals, hair or dyes, fibers, biological fluids like semen, vaginal fluid, sweat, things like that, could all fluoresce. And so I decide to package them all separately. So I did. I took the white butcher paper, and the reason why I do that is because if there's any trace evidence on that clothing, if I just stick it into a paper bag, chances are it could all fall off and drop into the bottom of the bag or somewhere, and it would never be found and it would never be analyzed. So I'm gonna carefully wrap the clothing in white butcher paper, and then I'm gonna place it into a paper bag, excuse me, and then seal it, label it, and then I'm gonna put it in the freezer so that we can preserve any biological evidence on that. I did the same thing with the shirt and then the paper or plastic sack. I just put it in a regular paper bag and sealed it, secured it, and put it in a regular evidence locker. I don't need to put that in the freezer because it's plastic and it's gonna cause moisture, and then there'll be if there is any biological evidence in there, it's gonna degrade it and damage it. So I'm not worried about the plastic bag as as much as I am her clothing that she was wearing when she was physically attacked. So, and I'm glad I did that. I'm gonna come back to that in a minute, and then I just I'm done with my part. So, no, I didn't take photographs, general photographs of the clothing, and no, I did not do advanced photography, but it was because I was on light duty and was not able to hold anything more than five pounds. And they knew that when they had me do this, so if they want to get mad or yell about it, then they'll have to yell and get mad at my supervisor. So we went to court on this, obviously, and that's when I found out there was another agency involved because they also had a case. Both of the girls, I guess, had been going to ASU and had responded to an ad for a nanny, and both of them were babysitters for the suspect's kids. And I speak about the way this evidence was handled because when we went to court, the family of the victims were so mad at the police department, the police department I worked for, because it was such a big deal how the evidence was handled. Prior to me, I mean, they were very outspoken. And then before we even testified, myself and the forensic scientists who did this serology biology analysis, I mean, they were saying things very loud, they knew who we were with. It got very uncomfortable, and so we had to keep moving to separate ourselves from the family, which I totally understand how the family feels. I mean, they don't understand forensic science or evidence, right? They only know what they've been told or what they've learned on their own. But it was a big deal in court the way this evidence was handled and the defense went to town on it. I mean, just grilling and grilling and grilling people about the way this evidence was not preserved prior to our involvement. But again, can't control that. I can only control what I do. So that was kind of an interesting situation listening to the family. Again, they were not happy. So, yeah, finally I got up on stand, and I will say this is probably one of the more aggressive defense attorneys I've ever had to testify against or to. And that's okay because I did my job and I I'm not questioning what I did. And it's not my job to question what somebody else did or did not do. That's not my place. I can only speak for myself and my own actions and what I know, what I was told. So I get up on stand and he's he's he's pretty aggressive about the evidence, and he just starts going down this rabbit hole about, you know, why was the evidence collected this way? Why was the evidence put in a plastic bag? Why wasn't evidence put in a plastic bag and then brought down to the crime lab? Why, you know, why wasn't it packaged at the scene? Why didn't a crime scene personnel go out to the scene? All these things that I can't answer because I didn't make those decisions. And this went on for probably 40 minutes. And then he starts pulling out the evidence, the girl's clothing that I looked at. And he's like, Okay, you know, do you recognize this item? Of course, it's all packaged, right? And he brings it up to me, and I look and I'm like, Yes, it has my, you know, my initials, my work ID, my to my integrity seal, yes, and it says that these are black sweatpants. And he goes, Well, what's this white paper in here? What's that white paper for? Why are you putting things? Why are you contaminating the evidence further by adding something new to the evidence? Why are you adding this white paper to the paper bag? Why didn't you just put the item inside this bag? You mean he's just he he is just going at me for you know, again, another 15-20 minutes. And so finally, you know, I I'm I'm telling him when he lets me talk, I said, when I received the items, they were in a gray grocery bag tied in a knot. I don't have any control on what happened prior to my involvement, so I can't answer what they did or didn't do or why they did something or why they did not do something. But when I had possession of them, I took them into our secured crime lab, into the drawing room. I cleaned the drawing room table to make sure there was nothing on there that could cross-contaminate the clothing. I laid sterile white butcher paper onto the table and laid one item at a time on the table, and I did a visual inspection with my regular flashlight. Then I took my forensic light source and I searched the clothing for anything that could that fluoresced. I noticed areas that fluoresced, and then I wrapped that specific garment, the sweatpants, in the white butcher paper. And then he's like, Why are you doing that? Why are you wrapping the clothing in butcher paper? And I said, so that there is not a loss of trace evidence that may be present on that garment. If I didn't, anything that was on there could fall off into the bag and it would not be recovered. So this is a way to preserve evidence when you're packaging. And he just stood there and looked at me and he got really quiet. And he goes, I have nothing else, your honor. And he walks back to his side of the room. I about died laughing. I wanted to laugh so bad because he thought he had me in in something, like I would had done something to you know cross-contaminate the evidence or that I was engaging in a practice or procedure that wasn't readily accepted in our scientific community. And I was like, no, we do that so that we can preserve anything that's on that clothing and preserve that clothing for future forensic analysis. So then when the forensic scientist goes and opens up that packaging, they can gently open up that white butcher paper and examine the paper for anything that may have fallen off. And he just, I think he felt like such an idiot because I was literally on the stand for almost an hour talking about this butcher paper. That is a common practice. So in that moment, when I saw that butcher paper, I was like, thank you, sweet baby Jesus, that I did that. Because not everybody does that. I would say people do do that, but I would say it's more common that they don't. I hate to admit this, but there's a lot of crime scene technicians, forensic scientists, crime scene investigators that will not go above and beyond or take that extra precautionary step. Most will not take the time to do that because they're not thinking forward, right? And I am so thankful that I did do that because I know that they were able to examine more evidence than just the sweatpants and the shirt and whatever fluoresced on her clothing, which by the way came back to semen. I didn't know that until after I testified, but the forensic scientists also found areas that fluoresce that tested positive for semen, and they were able to get a profile. And with that profile, they were able to make an identification, and with that identification, we went to court on it. So it all worked out, even though the beginning part of the case, you know, it wasn't done properly. And there's a lot of reasons for that. You know, it could be when the victim I mean, I could quarterback it all day. I don't know, it just didn't happen that way, but I guarantee you there was a conversation had on the police side and the detective side, and something had probably changed a policy, a procedure, an expectation probably changed after that because it this was a big case. Every case is important, especially when you're talking about sexual assaults, because how many other victims are out there? So it was good that you know it was a learning experience for them, but it was good that we still were able to get a conviction and that the evidence that we wanted was present and that identified the person, so that's even better. So I didn't really like testifying on that case, but I knew I hadn't done anything wrong other than the fact that there were no photos that I took. Now they took other photos in the in the forensic side of it, the forensic scientist side of it, but my part of it, I didn't take photos, so but there's nothing I can do about that. Like I said, just wasn't able to do that. So I loved, you know, I've always loved using the forensic light source at my scenes to help me see things, right? Because depending on how long the crime scene was, depends on how many people have come and gone, it depends on the environment that it's been exposed to. There's so many variables that could impact the quality or the visibility of biological evidence. So we just look at the forensic light source as another searching tool, as another way to help us see things that we can't see with the naked eye, or sometimes we will be able to see dry substances, but we don't know what that is. And using that forensic light source will just help, you know, kind of rule down the possibilities because of its reaction. And I think the most important thing to know as a crime scene investigator is how your forensic light sources work and what nanometer, what voltage, what energy level you need for the evidence that you're searching for. And then you have to have access to that equipment, right? And that's sometimes half the battle, depending on what agency you work for, what kind of funding they have. I mean, you I remember when I first started, we had this one, it was just a blue light. That was it. We called it the Kmart Blue Light Special, and it was literally this chency black handheld blue light, kind of like what you would get at, you know, CBS or Walgreens to go look for scorpions, and then they had this little adapter, it was like an orange rectangle screen that you could put on top of it to use to filter out other light and be able to search your scenes for biological evidence. So we used to call it the Kmart Blue Light Special, and then we finally graduated to something that had a little bit more capabilities because we were taking on you know more responsibilities in our unit and we just needed better equipment. That was the benefit of being with an accredited lab, is because you do qualify for grant funds, and with those grant funds, then you can buy equipment. Whereas some of the smaller agencies are not accredited, and they are at the mercy of their city and taxpayer dollars to fund their equipment and their training and their staffing and all the other things. So that is a benefit of being with an accredited lab. So I was very grateful again that I had used butcher paper and preserved what was on her clothing. And that's the thing, as a crime scene investigator, what are we doing? We're documenting, we are processing, we're preserving, we're collecting evidence. That is the main function of our work. And the one the other thing I love about the forensic light source is that, like I said before, it's great for searching, it's great for detecting, and it visual, you know, will help visualize evidence that you may not be able to see to the naked eye. So great options to have in your crime lab if you don't have one, or in your crime scene unit if you don't have one. One of the things I did want to talk about without getting too much into detail about the forensic light sources. So, what happens when I so when I was talking earlier about the energy or the voltage, because I know people know what voltage is, so trying to say in a way that is easy to understand. So, the purpose of that forensic light source when I'm using that particular energy level, 300 to 500 nanometers, depending on what I'm looking for. One thing I know when I'm looking for semen specifically is that semen contains proteins and other compounds in it that naturally fluoresce. So when I expose any type of sample or debris with that forensic light source, hence the blue light and the orange filter or orange goggles, it will basically light up and fluoresce even more. So it does help that semen has protein in it and other compounds that fluoresce naturally, but the forensic light source help helps pull that out. So think of it again as an energy, it absorbs the light energy, and then it emits the energy. If you remember back in the day in science class, when you're talking about protons and electrons and how you know they are in their copysthetic state, and then something strikes them, or some type of energy hits them, a light energy, a radiation energy, and then they become excited and they bounce all around and they jump out of orbit. That's kind of what's happening here with the forensic light source when it strikes the semen. It jumps up and down the semen, the proteins, they jump up and down, they get excited because this light energy is hitting it and it's exciting it. And then when it is struck with the light source, then it emits energy, which is fluorescence. Once I take that forensic light source off of the semen sample, it goes back to its normal state and it's all cool and copostatic. So you can't see those things happen, but that's what's happening when you're using your forensic light source. And again, that semen, it just re-emits that energy as visible light, and that visible light is fluorescence. So it's always really important to know, like I said, your colored goggles and your filters so that you can block out any background light or any designs in the fabric if you're searching fabric. And again, you just want to enhance what's there. It's not conclusive, it's just presumptive, and again, it's just a search tool, but it's a great search tool. So if you don't have one in your in your crime scene unit, definitely want to check it out. There's a lot of them out there, and you don't have to spend a lot of money, you don't have to spend a lot of money when you're just looking for that type of biological evidence. So, with that being said, that's kind of my story. So he, now that we finished with that part, so he actually was convicted on both sex offenses. So he was convicted of public indecency, he was convicted of sexual assault, sexual abuse, kidnapping, and assault. So he had five charges for both women, and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Imagine going from this like VIP guy, owning a soccer team, and all this money and prestige, and then being convicted of heinous sexual offenses. And he then was actually charged up in northwest of the U.S. for a similar incident. I don't know, I think that case is still pending, but I also found out that he was committing tax fraud and was recently convicted of tax fraud too. So there's even more prison time for him because of the tax evasion and all the tax documents that he was fraudulently creating and submitting and lying about. So he just was not a very good guy, I guess. So for me, when I think about this scene, I always think about the victims and I always think about the victim's family, and I always think about how many women haven't come forward, how many women, there could be men or boys or girls or kids. You just never know with people like this. They're a sexual deviant. That's why they commit, that's one of the reasons why they commit these kind of heinous acts. So for me, it's always thinking about the victims, the victims' families. I mean, will these women ever be the same? I don't know. Maybe they will be. I don't I don't know how you can move forward and not live with something like this every day. You know, obviously that's a there's a process in that. So yeah, just going back on this case and just being thankful that even though I had limited ability, and had I not been on light duty, I would have done more documentation. But at the end of the day, I still went above and beyond by the way I packaged and preserved that evidence, which made it possible for them to do a forensic analysis and actually get results. So perhaps if I hadn't done that, maybe they wouldn't have gotten results. So they wouldn't have been able to charge him with some of the offenses. So always taking it back to the victims and speaking for them, doing working for them, and they deserve that, right? If you loved this episode, I didn't get into too much detail because I didn't actually go to a crime scene if you noticed that. We weren't called to the scene of the crime. I can't tell you why the victim didn't call when it happened. I don't know the delay between the time it happened. Happened and the time it was reported, nor do I know the delay between the time she reported it to police and how long it took us to go out there and collect her clothing. I can't give you that information because I don't have it. I can only speak to what I did, when I did it, how I did it, and why I did it that way. So it all kind of works together. And the end game is always to make an identification of somebody or exonerate somebody. So if you enjoyed this episode through the CSI lens behind the yellow tape, the best way to support us is by leaving a review or quick rating. It helps more people find us. It keeps me bringing you more straight from the crime scene, which I hope you're enjoying. Make sure to hit the follow so button so you don't miss one episode. And make sure you go back and watch or listen to the other episodes. Thanks for tuning in tonight. I appreciate it. I hope you learned something new. Until then, stay curious, and I'll see you behind the yellow tape.