Season 2: Episode 6: Proof I Actually Loved This Job

Season 2: Episode 6

🕵️‍♀️Some jobs give you a paycheck. Some give you stories you’ll be telling for the rest of your life.

This episode is all about the moments that made it worth it, the ones that made me laugh when I shouldn’t have, the ones that stuck with me long after the day ended, and the ones that reminded me why I truly loved what I did.

From unforgettable (and sometimes unbelievable) experiences, to the incredible training opportunities, to the people who became more than just coworkers, this one is a look behind the scenes at what made the job so impactful for me.

It wasn’t always easy… but it was always memorable.

If you’ve ever had a job that shaped you, challenged you, and gave you stories you still talk about, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to season two and episode six of Through the CSI Lens Behind the Yellow Tape. I'm Christina Brakeman, and as usual, I am your host, the one and only. Thank you for joining me on this podcast. Hopefully, you're enjoying it. If you have any questions, any recommendations, I would love to hear from you. You can connect with us on Instagram, on Facebook, and you can also send emails as well. And I will get back to you accordingly. I would love for you to push the follow button also so that you do not miss an episode of this podcast. So last time, or I guess episode five, we talked a little bit about a call for service that I went to involving nannies who are college students and who were being sexually assaulted, basically preyed upon by an older man who was, by all intents and purposes, a successful businessman. He also faced charges up in the Northwest, and then he faced charges down here in the East Valley. Multiple agencies ended up going in on a case and prosecuting him for more than one case. I don't know if any other cases have come up for him here in Arizona. I just know of the two specifically from the agency I worked for and then another East Valley agency. So we talked or I mentioned some of the resources that I used, even though my role was limited, it was still pretty impactful, especially when I went into discussing the court case and how it was called to testify, which is uncommon, and just how much scrutiny there was with the way the evidence was handled prior to the crime scene unit becoming involved and how that played out in court, how that impacted the victim's family, and then what I was able to witness on that end, which I typically don't get to see. I mean, to be honest with you, the agency I worked for, to the best of my knowledge, we did not have evidence, chain of custody issues for the most part. I can't recall a single time in courtroom testimony that that's ever come up. We're pretty straight-laced when it comes to the crime scene in the crime lab. We have strict accreditation standards that we have to adhere to. So there's not a lot of gray as far as how we do things. It's pretty structured, it's written in policy, and anytime we deviate from that policy, we have to have a reason and it has to be documented. Depending on the reasoning and whether or not you got authorization from a supervisor for deviating from policy, it would determine if you would get something in your workstation file written up, time off, suspended. It just depends on how egregious it is. So I don't know of any circumstances in any of my cases where that happened. Anytime I've ever had to deviate from policy, it's been because of weather or safety or an equipment malfunction, something. And I've discussed it with a supervisor typically. Once you get into the position, you know, you've expanded on your education, your training, your knowledge, and you move into a senior position, they give you a little bit more discretion, but you still have those policies and procedures that you have to adhere to. That's never going to change. I mean, that's why you have policies and procedures so people don't go, you know, off the deep end and start doing things that aren't scientifically effective, that are not scientifically accepted. It protects everybody. So anyway, that was a pretty interesting case. And one of the things I talked about previously was one of the tools that I used when examining one of the victims' clothing. And I mentioned that it was a forensic light source, and I use it as a detection or a search tool, you know, very similar to a flashlight that you would use. And some of the important takeaways of a forensic light source, I mean, they're important, right? At least I can say that it's an important tool to have available. But just for clarity, I just wanted to again drive home the fact that they're used for detection and used as a search tool, and that anything you see that responds to the forensic light source is nothing conclusive. In the field, you do not do anything conclusive, no conclusive testing. What you do is find something that may be presumptive or indicate a presence of or be consistent with. So then you would collect it or collect a sample of it and submit it to the crime laboratory where forensic scientists would then be assigned to the case and would check out that evidence and take chain of custody of that evidence and then do their analysis. And once their work has been confirmed by a second forensic scientist, then they would publish their findings, their report, and then something conclusive would be generated or as close as being conclusive as you can in forensic science. And I mentioned that with the forensic light source, they have different wavelengths. So again, think about the wavelengths or nanometers being very similar as to a battery and the voltage to a battery. So depending on the numeric value, it will determine the strength or the weakness of that wavelength. And depending on what it is you're searching for will determine what wavelength you want to use, right? Because there are certain wavelengths that you want to use for biological evidence. There's certain wavelengths that you would want to use for bruising under the skin or gunshot residue on clothing. So part of your job as the forensic or as a crime scene investigator is knowing which one you should be using for what type of evidence and in what scenario. But for my job, I mostly use the blue light UV wavelength. We also started to use towards the end of my career a camera that had infrared capabilities. And so that came into play when we were looking at clothing that maybe a suspect had worn that we thought or we had learned or during the course of the investigation had been worn during a shooting incident. And also another thing we tend to use it for were strangulation victims because Arizona changed their laws a while back where if there was a strangulation case in a domestic violence case, it was a felony. And so sometimes we would use the infrared camera to look for bruising underneath the skin that can show up or appear with infrared wavelengths. So again, it was used here and there, and that can also be used. Let's say you have somebody who's deceased and you have no form of ID. You can also use the infrared camera for bodies that are in the process of decomposing and looking at tattoos and other types of markings on their body because obviously the ink from the tattoos would interact with the infrared and show up. So we could use it for that as well. So there infrared has a lot of uses in forensics, mostly in the crime lab, but we did start to have some capability out into the field. We didn't use it a lot, and like I said, we were just beginning to implement it before I left in 2022. So we probably had it there for a couple years. So that doesn't require any type of filter because the camera already is an infrared camera. But if I'm using a UV blue light, forensic light source, obviously I want to have a colored filter, I want to have goggles on so that I can see myself, plus it protects my eyes from the infrared and the blue light. And one of the advantages for another thing that I forgot to mention is one of the advantages to using the forensic light source is specifically the UV blue light wavelength. When you have a background that has a lot of light or more light than you would prefer, or maybe you have a pattern or something that's really conflicting or distracting, you can use colored filters and goggles to help block out any of that background light. And what it can do is just enhance the contrast of the fluorescence from the fabric itself or whatever substance that it may be there. So it just makes it, you know, stronger, appear stronger. So that is definitely one of those advantages to using your UV light, and definitely the you know, UV blue light, whatever you want to call it, is definitely one of the ones that is used the most in the crime scene world because typically it involves sexual assaults. So again, just the search tool, just a detection tool, but you definitely have to know how it works. And yeah, so part of the job, part of the learning process, and it's something that you always have with you as far as your equipment. And every month you're responsible for checking to make sure that it's it's working. We call it quality assurance. It's part of the quality assurance process, is just making sure that it's meeting those QA requirements and is actually functioning the way it should be. And the one way that we would test it at the beginning of the month or end of the month, depending on when your lab requires you to do that, is we actually have test samples of semen and blood and other bodily fluids that we keep on hand. So they're controlled samples, they're known samples. And we just go and we would take our forensic light source and take it in there and use it against the known standard samples to ensure that we're getting the results or the reaction that we would want. And then if we didn't for some reason, they would need to check the standards to make sure that there wasn't something affecting the quality of those, or checking the forensic light source, making sure that it was not damaged or something didn't need to be replaced with it, or maybe it just needed to be maintenance. It's hard to say, but it just another step to ensure that we don't get false positives, negative positive, negative negatives when we're actually using it in field work. We always want to make sure that our equipment, any of the instrumentation we use is calibrated correctly, it's being monitored and you know well maintained. That that's a big thing with forensic science, right? All right, so enough about the blue light, UV, forensic light sources. I think you guys have a pretty good idea on how those work, or at least a little bit of the basics. There's a lot of information out there on them. There's videos on YouTube. Look at any forensic science website, they'll talk about the forensic light source and the different filters and the different nanometers slash wavelengths and how you use them, when you use them, why we use them. I mean, there's more information that you probably care to know about. So, but if you're going into forensics, you'll want to know what that is. That may be a question that they ask you in your interview process. So just a little FYI. So today I thought we would talk about something positive because so much of forensic science crime scene investigation is it starts, the foundation is negative, right? Because we're responding to something that's typically crime related, that is a heinous act of some sort. You can determine yourself what you decide, what you ascertain is more heinous than the other. I personally think our society today has been subjected to so much violence through TV, movies, videos, video games that we have become desensitized to what is actually violent. Yeah, so that threshold has risen quite a bit and not too much shocks us anymore or appalls us. And I think we can see that pretty clearly. But I thought we would talk about something a little bit more lighthearted, and I would discuss some of the things that I loved about the job because I know you've heard, you know, about how I got started, some of my experience working for the agency I did work for, and some of the negative aspects that come with the job, that come with working with, you know, in a toxic environment, a way you deem a toxic environment, how that impacts you, your mental health, your physical health, how you relate to people, your friends, your family, and how easy it is to become like-minded and not see things like the rest of the world see that sees things. But for me, you know, I'm not gonna lie, it took, I really struggled with this assignment because again, the job is not a happy, it's not a happy place. We're not doing, we're not in environments where there's happiness and joy and gratitude by any means. So I will say that I really struggled with this, and I still at this moment have very few recollections of joy or happiness as a result of my job. But that being said, there's still positive moments. There's moments I would love to share with you because I don't want to deter people who are really passionate about passionate about forensic science or passionate about serving their community from going into this field. But I will always be totally honest with you. I will always tell you my experience doesn't mean you will have the same experience, but I just want you to be aware. And also something else I recently learned about the job in the environment, which was validating for me, not that I needed to be validated for my feelings, but I didn't realize how big of an issue it was in the profession of forensic science. So much so that they're writing articles about it. So imagine my shock when I was like, oh, this is a real thing. It's not something I've made up in my head as a coping mechanism, that there is some legitimacy to this. So we'll talk about that towards the end. But I remember, you know, just being excited when I switched over from police communications to crime scene. So I will say this: the crime scene unit I started with in 2007, and the crime scene unit I left in 2022 was vastly different in every single possible way. It just was night and day, and a lot of that has to do with the evolution of our unit and the quality candidates we started to bring in and the training, the quality training that we started to implement going through an accreditation process also helped. So it definitely evolved, and that did make a difference. But I just remember being really excited about going to the crime scene unit. I was excited about learning something new, I was ready for a new challenge because I did not feel challenged in the job I had been at. Not that it wasn't a challenging job, but I just felt like I could do more, like I could take on more. And so forensic science definitely challenged me. It challenged me mentally, it challenged me physically in all the ways. But I was excited to get there, I was excited to go over there. You know, I felt like I was positive, positively accepted when I moved over to that unit. And the training was just okay. It was okay for that time, it was okay for what the standard was. But the training, like I said, has really evolved. Our the job has become way more technical. Matter of fact, people left the unit because we were becoming too technical and they didn't want to be a part of that process. They didn't want to learn the new things, they didn't want to, they didn't want to have to do the competency testing, the proficiency testing. It was just too technical for them. And so they ended up moving on, which is fine because they found success in other ways with the agency we worked for. But it definitely started to change from a high school entry-level support position to a bachelor's, grad, master's degree, highly technical, skilled, knowledgeable unit. But yeah, so it was fun. The training process, I would not say was fun. There was fun things about it, like learning the new techniques or being able to finally connect the dots between when you see, let's say you see a shoe print, okay, how do I document that shoe print best so that they can do an analysis and then being able to see the final result of that documentation and then being able to be notified by the forensic scientist that your, you know, photo or fingerprint or DNA swab identified somebody, that was exciting. Like that was super cool. And it would be really, it was really awesome when you would get those notifications and then you could talk to your coworkers or like, hey man, do you remember that case that we worked and that they had multiple break-ins down this down what and what street at these businesses? They're all linked together by this shoe print or this fingerprint, you know, and that was exciting, and people would get excited because people started to recognize our department or our unit and started to look at us as a professional unit instead of a more of a support unit. So the mentality started to change and we started to get earn more respect, and we started to earn that because of our knowledge and of our expertise and our training. And so they kind of began like the police side started to relinquish control over that and dictating what they thought we should and should not be doing because they trusted that we were getting the appropriate training and establishing those accreditation standards and so forth. So that was exciting because our relationships changed with our co-workers on the sworn side. It changed with our detectives that we worked with one-on-one, it changed with the chief's office because he was suited, they were always super proud of us. And then with that, you know, we got new equipment and we got grant money. So that was exciting because every once in a while we'd be tasked with looking up new equipment or that we could use in the field. So we ended up getting a 360 camera, which was exciting. We use that on homicide cases, we use that on accident scenes, we use it on officer-involved shootings. So that just took our processing up one, you know, up 10 levels from our regular digital photography, and it really got rid of the aerial photography, which is kind of a waste of time. Imagine being up in a helicopter trying to take photos. Yeah. Imagine what those photos look like. So I was happy about that because I had a fair of height. So not having to go into a helicopter during certain incidents, I was a happy girl. So that was exciting, you know, just being able to share the new technology with officers and detectives and the command staff and you know, show our knowledge and our expertise and how we can help them further their case and their investigations. So seeing that transition over the years was pretty valuable and exciting when, you know, we got to get the feedback that we wanted, you know, from the people that, you know, we, you know, we looked up to. So, and then those started great conversations as well as how can we expand the crime scene unit? What additional training can we bring to the unit? What other grants can we apply for? You know, and then it got to be okay, now we need new cameras, so let's research new cameras because now we have grant money. So that was always exciting when everybody found out they were getting new cameras. What are they gonna look like? What kind of functionality are they gonna have? I remember when I would go to crime scenes and I was using a simple point and shoot camera, I would go to people's homes and their their cameras would be better than mine, and I'm trying to document a crime scene, and then finally being able to get the funding to get a decent camera. Imagine if you were a victim of a crime and I come out with this like eight-megapixel point and shoot camera, and you're just like, Yeah, I have a nice cannon in my house. Would you like to use mine? So it was it was also great, you know. So we were very excited about that, and that was a happy moment. I did have an incident one time when I had just gotten my new camera. I had put on my neck strap, and I guess I didn't secure it properly, so I went to put it around my neck and it fell and it dropped onto the asphalt. And I just had a moment of, oh my gosh, I hope I didn't just break my new camera, but I didn't. It caused the flash had a little bit of damage, but it the camera worked fine. But yeah, so that was super that was a great moment, you know, just a fun moment learning the new cameras and the technology behind them, and it really changed the way we took our photos, it really changed the quality of our photos, and it really changed the capability of what we could do with photos. So, and plus we got new tripods, which we had had these old tripods that were the they were so stripped that they would just kind of collapse when we were trying to do advanced photography, and it was super frustrating. So, just the fact, like remembering that we were getting new tripods, we were jumping, we were like literally excited. Thank God we're finally getting some new tripods, and we're not going to have the issue with you know our camera moving in the middle of taking, you know, advanced photography and our photos turning blurry and having to retake it 10 times. So that was a happy moment getting new camera equipment, getting the new tripod which was great. That changed work and just made it that much easier for us. Plus, it made us look more professional, and with the quality changing, it just made us look more proficient. So that was definitely a positive moment for us. And then, you know, getting new vehicles. We shared vehicles, but we got new vans, and just being able to have say on how the layout of the van was going to be was good because we were the ones in and out of them every day. We were the ones climbing in the back, we were the ones opening and closing the door a million times, we were the ones having to climb in and get, you know, packaging. So being able to sit down and look at the different van styles and look at the layouts, I know it seems super simple, but you don't want somebody in supervision or administration making those decisions because they're not the ones using it. So when we the last vans that we got, I just remember, oh my gosh, you know, I'm short, I'm 5'2, and some of the vans that we had in the past were really hard to get up and into from the back of the van. I know first world problems, but if you're doing it off and on for 10 hours plus a day, multi multiple days in a row, it gets a little worrisome. So just being able to, you know, open up those cargo doors in the back and have a platform to step up onto and into the van and actually be able to step into the back of the van and then navigate the back and pull out the equipment that you needed was awesome. So I just remember being excited about that. I mean, can't tell you the problems with knees and backs that we've all had trying to get in and out of our work vehicles. So that was a happy day. We were very excited and we would all fight over the new vans, but the policy was that he had to take the oldest van. So we would wait to go get the keys for our van to make sure somebody else took all the old van keys so that we could get the newest van. Because we were happy that we got a new van and it drove nice and the mirrors worked and you know it wasn't a C and G van. We went through that process for a while where they the city decided we should switch all of our city vehicles to C and G. Thank the god, thank God they got rid of that after about five years. But I remember one time I was getting gas in one of my C and G vans and I forgot to take the nozzle out and I drove away with the nozzle in the van. Oh my gosh, that was so embarrassing. But we laughed about that forever. I never heard the end of that about driving around through our parking lot with the CNG gas nozzle hanging out of my van. So I got teased a lot about that. We laughed so hard. I actually had a ride along with me that day, and we laughed so hard at that. I don't know how much it cost to fix, but they didn't take it out of my paycheck, so that was a good thing. But that we laughed so hard at that. Just like the little things that you do that are super stupid. But that was one of those things I actually forgot about, but pretty funny. So some of the other things that I liked about the job were the actual work itself, you know, walking through the scenes, making my own observations and challenging myself, you know, determining what's relevant, listening to a debriefing or victims or suspects and trying to ascertain what I find relevant. It's not really my job to determine if they're being truthful or not, but after enough experience, you know what you know. People tell you something happened a certain way, but the evidence speaks differently. And that just happens with experience. So that was always a funny conversation, you know, when an officer would come up and say, Oh, well, she said, you know, XYZ happened, and you know, point of entry was this way, and these items were taken from this area. And then I would go in, let's say, to the car or the business or the home, and nothing about the scene said anything like that. So then I would go up to the officer, I'm like, Well, how much money are you gonna give me when I tell you that this isn't true or that they're lying to you, or let me show you something. So it would it was funny because sometimes I would get officers would be like, Okay, Brakeman, what are you gonna show me today? What are you gonna prove me wrong today? Tell show me what happened, you know. And sometimes you can do it, sometimes you can't, but it just depends on the scene. So that was always kind of fun, depending on the relationship you had with your patrol officers. And one of the things that my coworkers didn't really understand, and I heard this secondhand actually, is people that I worked with in my unit would always be like, Why does Christine always go like talk to the officers? I'm like, Well, that's where I started. That was my foundation. So I have a relationship, I I feel at ease around police officers. I feel a connection with officers because I've been there. And if you have a good relationship, working relationship with them, it's gonna make your job much easier at your crime scenes. And if you start to build that trust, then they're going to trust you and they're gonna be excited when they see you because they know you're gonna get the job done and they know that you're gonna be swift about it. I can tell you how many times they'd be like, oh, Breakman's coming, or I'd show up. They're like, Oh, thank thank you so much. I'm so glad it's you. I'm not trying to demean anybody else in my department at all by any means. But you just get that relationship because you take the time to really cultivate a professional relationship with them. And I wasn't looking for relationships or any of that kind of stuff, not saying that that kind of stuff doesn't happen in our department or agency, because of course it does. But you know, you just get a reputation that you know how to do your job, that you have a good sense of humor, that you're personable, that you're engaging, and you could you'll educate them just like they educate me on their job. So that was always cool when you'd pull up. I remember I went to take some injury photographs at this gas station and I did my photos, and the sergeant's like, I'm so glad you you you're able just to come in here and get it done. And I know you're gonna do a good job, and I appreciate you. And so that always that was always awesome, you know. Just I loved hearing that from my department, like from my officers and sergeants and lieutenants and and commander, you know, commanders once in a while, and we'd see them. I loved hearing that because they respected me. They respected the job. They understood that we have taken this crime scene unit from a high school position to an accelerated, highly technical, scientific position where you now have educated, passionate, knowledgeable, proficient people doing the job so that we can get results and solve cases. We're gonna exonerate somebody, we're gonna ID somebody. That's always our goal. But so that was just one of the things that I loved. And I had so many funny moments with officers on scene because most of the time, by the time I get there, all the stress and the chaos is over. So now they're trying to, you know, kind of relinquish that stress and just kind of decompress. And now's the time for us just to have conversation, kind of, you know, chit-chat, talk about what's going on. And I established relationships with some of those men and women, you know, talk, how's your wife? How's your newborn? Hey, I'm available to babysit. You know, I had an officer who they didn't have any family here. Him and his wife had just had a newborn, you know, and I kind of followed the age of their child and enjoyed going to see him at crime scenes, and we just had a good friendship. And I always offered them, like, hey, you wife want to go have date night, you let me know. I'll come over and babysit for you. You don't have to pay me anything, whatever. Just let me know. These are my days off, or I can come in before work. Because I remember when I had my son and I had no family out here, and we had no literally no date nights, unless it was Christmas week when my mother-in-law came out to visit, then we'd have one date night. So we never had a date night. We just didn't have a babysitter. Could we have hired a babysitter? We didn't even know anybody that had people. I think I had one coworker when I worked up in 911 whose daughter babysit for us a couple times in some in a pinch, you know. But other than that, yeah, we just didn't have that luxury. We just, you know, and I always think that that's one of our biggest downfalls of our relationship is that, you know, we're working different shifts. We're working, I'm working holidays, I'm working night shifts, I'm working weekends, just like so many people do out there. And he's working a normal nine to five job. And we're just, you know, we're just not able to connect as much as we tried. It just the work schedule and the type of work I was doing, it just was conflicting. And then never really having time to yourself. You have no family to help you, no family to help take them to the daycare or daycare if you want to get them to daycare. No nobody to help take them to a doctor when they're sick when the school calls and says your kid's sick. You know, those are all parental duties, but so many people have a luxury of having a nanny or or a grandma or a sister or an uncle or a close friend that's willing to step in and help raise their kid. You know, it's the village. We did not have a village. I recommend you get a village, especially if you're in this line of work, because it's gonna eat your relationships alive. And not just your home life, your friends, your friend circle will change too. So, but I can get off that soapbox. But anyway, so that was one of the things I loved is that I got to establish really close relationships with people at work and just know about their families, and I got to know their husbands and their wives and their partners and their kids, and so that was that was good. That was good, you know. There was just that level of trust and camaraderie that came with it. I would say that I had it more with sworn officers than I did people in my own unit, but uh that's but we're not talking about that. But so that was one of the things I loved about my job is the connections that I had. And then you have connections with your community, with the businesses you're going to, with the victims that you're you're helping, just being able to help them and they're sometimes they're they had gratitude, sometimes they didn't want you there. But you know, I remember one time I had a lady whose whose son was, I think it was a son or daughter, I can't remember. Anyway, high school, very troubled, mentally, mentally not well, was causing a lot of disruptions in his life or her life and in the family's life. And then I ended up having to go to the house and just being able to be there with the mother and just talk to her. And, you know, because she needed somebody to talk to and just talk to her about, you know, what's going on and how she's feeling. You know, I wasn't there to offer advice, but I was there just as an ear, just a sounding board and to empathize with her and let her know that, hey, you know, I'm here, I'm going to help you. This is how I can help you. This is what I'm going to do. This is what may result come as a result. So being able to see families like that who were grateful for your help, who felt vic who felt like victims and felt helpless, but then they see you show up. It's kind of like the cavalry shows up. They're like, aha, crime scenes here. They're gonna solve this for me, they're gonna read, they're gonna redeem this for me. We're gonna find out who did this. There's gonna be justification, you know, all the things, you know, validation, closure, whatever. So I I liked doing that as well. That was one of the things I loved about the job because my job is impactful. What I did or didn't do is impactful. It's impactful to the victim, it's impactful to the suspect, it's impactful to the city. So loved having that positive impact on all of those things. And I know that everything that I did did that. There was never a time where it wasn't, you know, unless I failed to act, which I didn't. So that was another great thing I loved about the job, just being able to connect with the community and be able to help them. And then it even went as far as when I would go to homes where people had passed away, whether it be medical, natural, suicide, something like that. I always checked out the layout of the home and what the vibe was. And if I felt like this is a family I could pray for openly, then I would ask them if I could pray for them or pray for their loved one. And almost everybody was receptive to that. And that's not something that I was required to do, but that was always something, you know, as a Christian, I always felt compelled to do. So there were, it wasn't every scene, it wasn't all the time, but you know, as a Christian, and so there were times when I was in homes like that that I was able, you know, to share that with the family, and they were appreciative, you know. They especially the elderly. So I that was one thing that I loved being able to do is to share prayer and you know, just praying for their loss or their struggles, whatever it may be. And I think they like that too. And then there are people who weren't receptive of that, and that's okay, you could tell that right away, and that's that's fine. I just use my my abilities where they were warranted or wanted. Let's see what else. Also processing the scene. I loved learning, I love learning new things, constantly being challenged to try new things. That's one of the things that's awesome about forensic science. Technologies, you know, advancing and evolving, there's new equipment and new training courses. So that was probably one of my most favorite things is being able to go to training and being able to get new equipment. And I was kind of the one in my unit that when I would go to training and learn about a new technology or new instrumentation that could be used in the field, I would write a proposal and I would try to get that brought into our unit, or if I attended a training that I think would be valuable for our unit, I would write a proposal and get try to get them to come to our agency, our crime lab, and offer the training course. So that was one of the things I loved to do. One time I I researched this, I can't remember what the device was called, but it was a handheld device that I learned about when I took a shooting reconstruction course out in California with Jan Johnson. I'm trying to remember what the name of her company was. Something, I can't remember, something forensics. Anyway, I think she was based out of Florida, but I took a shooting reconstruction course and she had using this handheld device, and it was a presumptive test for gunshot residue, and it also did presumptive testing for suspected drugs. And at the time we were still using testing ampules and we could only test a couple different substances. So I wrote up this big proposal, not a big proposal, but a proposal to use this instrument. It wasn't very expensive, we wouldn't need that many. And I gave it to my supervisor over our unit, and I kid you not, it sat on her desk for over a year. I want to say two years, and it wasn't until she retired and she gave it to another my supervisor at the time and said, Hey, can you let Christina know we're not gonna do this? And I looked at him, I go, You think so? It's been two years, and I had asked her about it after I turned it in, and I never really got much of a response other than we're still reviewing it. So I that was the mentality I was dealing with back then, and so eventually that became kind of a discouragement to me, but I loved researching new equipment and training and trying to implement that into our unit. So, and I got to go to some great training, and part of the reason why we got to go to training is because we were an accredited crime lab. The crime scene unit was part of that accreditation, which is not very common. And because of that accreditation, we are eligible for grant funds, and so with those grant funds, we're able to go to training. So usually we would we would get two weeks of training, one out of state, one in-state, unless you found two in-state. But I was able to go to a Dr. Henry Lee's training out at the University of New Haven, Connecticut, and I took a death investigation, week-long death investigation course with him, which was great. I mean, I went to Colorado for violent crime scene training. I went to where else was it? Arkansas? Was it Arkansas? Mississippi. I went to Jackson, Mississippi for training. I went to Minneapolis for training, training in Arizona, went to California, I went to Washington, I went to Florida, I went to a lot of training, Texas. It was hot in Texas when I went. It was in June. Brutal, brutal. They were having a heat wave, and most of our scene was outdoors. Trying to remember which one it was. It was a reconstruction course and it was brutally hot. And then the one I told you guys already about was the training in Gettysburg. I'm telling you all, if you've never been to Gettysburg, go do Gettysburg. It is so awesome. But do not go in July. Just gonna June or July. It's way too hot. But got to go to Gettysburg, and so that was super cool. So I got to go to some great trainings that I am super grateful for. Always had a blast at those trainings. I met, I'm still friends with people today that I met in those training courses and those instructors. I learned so much, made great connections, great networks, got to see great parts of the country, got to extend my stays most of the time so that I could do some personal vacationing. And yeah, it was awesome. So definitely my suggestion would be to find a crime scene unit that is accredited, that gets crime grant funds that will allow you to go to out-of-state training. So that would be something to ask in your interview when they always say, Well, do you have anything to ask us? Yeah, what is it? What does external training look like? Do you have grant funds to send your you know crime scene personnel to it to training? And they're either gonna say yes or no. So if you can get into an agency that has that capability, I highly recommend it. Of course, some of that does have to, it does weigh on how much staffing you have. So if you're with a smaller agency where there's only two or three of you, they may not let you go out of state, they may only let you do in-state training, but it's something to always definitely ask. And I'm so grateful that I got to do all that amazing training. Just awesome. And most of the training was through Ron Smith and Associates. I think it was Forensic Pieces, was Jan Johnson's business, forensic pieces. And then locally here in Arizona, there is another, there's another training I took. I took quite a bit local, but the instructor's name is Brandon. I can't remember his last name. It starts with an N. And he had a really he has really good photography training. So if you're currently in crime scene, I recommend you go take his photography training. Wish I could remember the name of his company. If I can think of it, I'll post it on my Instagram and Facebook. I'll have to look it up. I think he works for, I think he teaches for ASU now. ASU West, maybe online. I don't know. It's Brandon, it starts with an N. Well, I can't remember what the name of his company is called Forensic Something. Anyway, his training, his training changed my photography, my nighttime photography. That one class changed my photography training night and day. So highly recommend you do that. And again, when you go to training, you meet awesome people. So that was awesome too. Another perk that I loved about the job. The other thing I did like is that when my the results of my work got an identification. So for instance, we worked the homicide scene where a sister-in-law stabbed the other sister-in-law to death. So a little backstory. Apparently, this family lived in this house, in their house, and they had, you know, sister or brother-in-law that was coming to visit. The sister-in-law had known mental health issues. I can't remember if it was like schizophrenia or what it was, but it was diagnosed and everybody knew about her mental health. So they weren't allowed to stay the night at family members' homes. So they came in their like RV travel trailer. So they had whatever celebration they were having, get together family thing. And the couple left in their RV. Well, at some point, the wife went back to the house and got in a confrontation with the sister-in-law. They got into a physical confrontation, ended out in the driveway, and the sister-in-law with the mental health issues ended up stabbing the sister-in-law to death and leaving her in the driveway. And this was all captured on ring, like a ring doorbell. I don't know if it was a ring doorbell specifically, but somebody across the street, a resident across the street, had video. It wasn't the best video, though. That's the only thing. Like you couldn't look at the video because it was late in the middle of the night, like two or three in the morning. So you couldn't notice, like you couldn't tell who it was, but you could see, you know, people fighting and ascertain from there, obviously, who it was. But you could see that there was an altercation that occurred and that somebody was left in the driveway. And so we get called out there. They send our command band out there, which is this big like temporary workstation for you know the police, and then we can go in there and cool off and go to the bathroom. Sometimes we eat depending on how long the scene's gonna be. But it was me and another crime scene person, which is weird because we don't normally work homicides together, it's usually one person. But for whatever reason, I can't remember the specifics. There were two of us, so she was tasked with doing you know most of the stuff that had to do with the body and the blood evidence, and then I did some fingerprint processing that you know, things like that. But there was a car parked in the driveway that belonged, I think it was a car SUV that belonged. I can't remember if it belonged to the victim or the suspect. I want to say the suspect, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, so where we are processing the vehicle, I am processing the vehicle for print, but on the exterior rear driver, like B panel, so it'd be kind of on the right side of, or I guess it would be the C panel, it'd be on the right side of the rear driver's door. There's kind of like that metal frame area. There was a fingerprint that looked like okay, so there looked like there's a fingerprint in blood. I didn't test it for blood at the time, but it was consistent despite its appearance. So I was able to capture that image with advanced photography, did some processing of that print, and then collection of that print, and sure enough, that print came back to the suspect. So that was pretty exciting, even though we had some video of the incident, and based on the conversation with family members, and then making contact with the suspect, if we were pretty sure she was involved in the incident, whether or not she was the one that did the stabbing, we can't necessarily stay because we never collected the knife, but using critical thinking skills, deductive reasoning, pretty plausible it was her. But then this fingerprint in the victim's blood on this car, which I wish I could remember. I want to say it's the suspect's car, but don't quote me on that. Ended up, you know, just one of those things that just kind of sealed the deal. And I was excited about that. Just knowing that my work, because let's say we didn't have a suspect, let's say we didn't have an investigative lead, let's say we didn't have any video or any context as to who the suspect was. That fingerprint would have been huge, right? Because it identified, I mean, who else's fingerprint is going to be in blood unless there's somebody who arrived on scene who was trying to help the victim, right? So that was a big deal. And I was excited because for me, that was like an open shut case. We had the suspect investigative leads fingerprint in the victim's blood. Bingo. So things like that were exciting to me and brought me a lot of joy and satisfaction that reminded me of all the days that I showed up. Up and I didn't get results, it's that one day that makes all the difference that reminded me that you just gotta stick with it, you gotta keep doing it, you gotta keep falling back on your training, your expertise, and your knowledge, and keep moving forward and know that you're making a difference and that these victims need you, and we need to get these suspects off the street and identified. So that was awesome. That that was one of the things I loved. I mean, when I would get an email from the latent print examiner that said your latent fingerprints that you collected at your crime scene and submitted for analysis came back to an ID. I was like, yes. Or if I collected samples of blood or some other biological fluid and I got a notification a CODIS hit, I'd be like, yes, we got them. We got somebody to question, you know, an investigative lead, something. They're related to this incident somehow, hopefully. So that was that was exciting. I loved getting those notifications. And some people got more notifications than others. I mean, that's just the way it was. It really depends on what type of crime scene you're going to and what kind of evidence is left behind. So that was one of the things that I loved, and I loved being able to get that fingerprint on that car in the victim's blood. Um, let's see what else. Obviously, I talked about a little bit serving my community. And also one of the other things I got to do was PR events, so public relation events. And one of the ones that kind of jump out at me, obviously going to schools and doing, you know, just informational kind of meetings, question-answer type things. I loved being able to do that. I loved going, I was post-certified, so I would I could go out to the police academy and teach the new recruits how to do fingerprint processing. That was always awesome. That was a fun part of the job, always a fun part of the day, because that's when they really learned that it's not as easy as TV looks, and they really should learn to appreciate us for having that skill set. So I going out to the academy was great. Going to do PR events at schools or community events. And then one of the things I got to do was they were doing this huge PR event for hiring. The hiring unit was, and they needed somebody to go through the whole city and photograph all the different units for the police department. So, like canine and SWAT and crime scene and traffic and the air unit, everybody. And so I got to go to all of those different units and photograph everything. So that was super fun. And then those photos were put in our local malls. So yay! Getting to work with SWAT and I wasn't at a crime scene, being terrorized by their mace or pepper spray and they're demolishing the crime scene, but being able to photograph them in action, the canine units, being able to photograph them, the helicopter units, you know, just all of them. All the SWAT, all of them. It was just great. It was a great day of just driving around with another officer from the hiring unit and just meeting everybody and meeting that deadline to get those photos taken. And so that was I liked doing that. That was it was nice to get away from the street and do something fun during the day that was not necessarily job or task job related, but it was task-related because it was photos. So that was a lot of fun. And then again, I mentioned all the training opportunities I was able to take. And then you fall back on, you know, I guess my generation, we're loyal to our employers. You know, we work, it's not uncommon to see us working for them for 20, 30 years, where at today's generation are not gonna do that. They're just I would they're just not gonna do that. Two to five years and they're moving on to something else or moving on to another agency. You're not, we're we've lost the generation where we stay someplace for 20 plus years. But also the pension, the healthcare benefits, the time off, that was always a huge benefit. And now they're doing hiring bonuses, which is crazy to me, like blowing my mind the amount of money that people are getting paid for hiring bonuses. Never heard of back in the day. Never. So that should be huge for people who, you know, are looking at a $75 hiring bonus. Granted, you don't get all that at once, but still you get that throughout however two years, year, depending on what your what it what agency you work for. So that was always beneficial. That was always a plus, you know, being able to provide for my family, that was huge, especially as a single mom. Yeah, so those were some of the things that I loved about the job. And then I was trying to think about some funny things that happened on the job that I can think of. So I was remembering this, I don't even know what this case was, so I can't even tell you the details, but I was fairly new and I had this coworker who started with me, and we actually had a pretty good friendship for quite a few years. But to be quite honest, she was kind of a shitty friend. Well, she was always a shitty friend, but we don't need to get into that. But we had this bicycle, like at I don't know, was it 10-speed or something that we had collected at a crime scene, or some one of us collected this bicycle at a crime scene, and so we were we were trying to figure out how to package a bicycle and try to preserve the bicycle. I literally have no idea, I can't remember what the crime scene was, but so we had this what we call butcher, not butcher paper, but builder bag that was literally was the same material as a brown paper bag, and it came in look these large rolls, like five foot rolls, and you could cut them. So we decided we were going to wrap this bicycle up in this butcher paper, which was nearly impossible to do, I might add. But we got it pretty much covered, and then we started to like steer it towards the evidence section and put it in one of our storage cages, but then the pedals started to bust through the paper, and we are just laughing so hard because we're trying to figure out how to get this bike from point A to point B without damaging the packaging and compromising the integrity of the evidence. And I don't know why we didn't just fingerprint and swab the bike. I don't know what I have no idea. I don't know if it was a homicide, which most likely it was, because usually we don't do those for homicides. We collect the item if they can be collected and then the lab process for that kind of stuff. But we were laughing so hard. I think I almost peed my pants that day because seeing us try to get this bicycle across the alleyway in this paper bag that it really didn't fit, that we had kind of Jerry McGuired it all together and it was taped, and then the pedals were sticking out, were busting through the paper. It was it was so funny. We st we laughed about that for years about the bicycle, and I think it was just a way to decompress and let out the frustrations and the anxiety and the trauma of the day, and something so simple and stupid just made us laugh together, and it was a bonding moment for us. But we laughed so hard, and I'm sure anybody who was watching us on video were like, what are these two idiots doing with this bicycle and this brown paper bag that they basically pieced together and taped? Like the logic behind that, I have no idea. One of the other things that I laughed really hard about is that so I'm afraid of heights. So there was a time where there was a concern that the water towers in our city were being tampered with. So we had a report that a water tower far, far, far, a very far part of our city, had been tampered with, possibly opened, and so they wanted a crying scene unit to go out there to see what we can do. Okay, it's like 10 o'clock at night. It's pitch dark. I had to climb all the way up this water tower with my camera and my print kit. I'm terrified of heights. I have no way, you know, like I'm just barely able to see the little steps because I don't have like a headlamp, which by the way, if you're a CSI, pack a headlamp in your gear so that you always have something like that. Because I couldn't hold on to a flashlight. So I'm climbing all the way up. I'm terrified of heights. I'm ha I'm holding one hand with my equipment, my camera's banging on the ladder, and I'm trying to get up this thing. I get all the way to the top, and my print brushes fell out of my kit all the way down to the ground. And I'm just looking down there, and the officer's down there, and he's just laughing. He's like, I think you're gonna have a problem. I'm like, you think? And I'm like yelling it down to him. He goes, You want me to bring it up to you? I'm like, Yeah, because I'm not going back down there another time. Only one another time, and that's to get down from here. So I get up there. The view is beautiful, right? Because it's dark, there's not a lot of city lights, so you can see the whole it's just beautiful. But yeah, they wanted me to process this lid that is rusted in metal, not conducive with faucet same for fingerprints. But you know, I do my best effort with what I have. The officer brings up my brushes. Luckily, he was able to find them, and I process and then tried to collect any type of swabs on there for any type of DNA, which the surface really wasn't that conducive with that either. And the officer and I were just laughing. He's like, thank God it wasn't something else that fell like you or your camera, because I was kind of known on my unit to be clumsy, to get injured on the job, whether it be like walking through somebody's yard and faceplaning it, or tripping in a garage and knocking myself unconscious, or you know, I was the person that was gonna get injured typically from our crime scene unit. So we laughed, we had a pretty good laugh on that. Just with the like, what are the odds that the one item I needed to do my job would fall out of my kit and onto the ground below when I'm all the way at the top? Because my case was was an open type case, it looked like a little tool case that you would get at Home Depot, you know, and was open. So that was pretty funny. We laughed about that for quite a while, the officer and I. He's like, Okay, how long is it gonna take you to get down from here? I'm like, I don't know. But yeah, one step at a time. It's very scary up there. I would not recommend it, but it had a pretty view, so he kind of gave me some funny nicknames after that. So that was kind of fun. And then we had this, we had this thing because I think a lot of us were feeling frustrated. And one of the one of my co-workers went and got one of those staples, the red button staples. And anytime we were over what somebody was saying to us, specifically a supervisor or maybe a coworker, we would press this button and we would just bust out laughing because they didn't always they didn't really know what it was. It was just sitting there on top of our mailboxes and it would go off every once in a while, and it would kind of be like this inside joke between us, and we would just laugh. So that was kind of funny. Um, trying to remember what it said. I can't remember. I know you guys have seen the commercials with the red staples button, and then you press it and it says something on there. And then there were always people that I worked with that had certain sayings. Like we had this one crime scene guy who would be like, Yeah, I'm just gonna go knock this out. I'm just gonna go knock this out, yeah. I'm just gonna go take kids, I'm just gonna knock this out, I'm just gonna knock this out. So he was always the crime scene person. We're like, hey, Mr. Knock This Out, did you go knock this out? So we just had those like internal jokes with each other. We'd be like, Yeah, Tom's gonna go knock that out. He'd be out there for four hours, not knocking anything out, by the way, because he was one of the he is a talker, and so he took forever at his crime scenes. But I will say he was thorough and he got results. And at the end of the day, that's what you want, even if they take longer and they talk your ear off. He was a talker, so he always had like, oh, I'm gonna go knock this out. Uh, one of the other scenes that we used to say is you can't make this shit up. Like, literally, you cannot make this shit up. It's like every day. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. You've got to be kidding me. Like, this isn't even real, this isn't even happening, this isn't real life. So we had those little, you know, scenes between one another. Then there was this, we had a shooting out of this, I guess it was a mobile home trailer, it was a trailer park. And we, I was fairly new to the crime scene, and so there was two of us out there at that time, and they decided. What did the detective say? He said, I'm trying to remember, he wanted us to process this like white metal door. It was almost like a screen door because it had bullet holes in it, and so he wanted us to collect this door, and I'm like, You want us to do what? He's like, I want the door collected. So we had to figure out how to get the door off the hinges and then transport it back to the crime lab and wrap it and secure it. And so I brought this big ass door to the crime lab, which everybody was laughing because they're like, What are you doing with the door? I'm like, I was asked to bring it, told to bring it, now I have it, and now I have to figure out how to package this sucker. So again, remember that build-abag brown paper, that's what I used. And so one of my coworkers called in. She's like, What is going on in here? She's like, What are you doing? And I'm like, I'm wrapping a door. She goes, This is not Christmas, Christina. We're not wrapping a Christmas, we're not wrapping this door like it's a Christmas present. She's like, What are you doing? How are you wrapping this? And we were just laughing so hard because I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't wrap doors every single day. And so she was, she would went on to other people. She's like, Oh my god, Christina was in there trying to wrap this door in this brown paper. It was the funniest shit I've ever seen. And we were just, it was, it was pretty comical. So that was that gave me a break for the day, and we just laughed and laughed because I had something nearly impossible to do, no idea how to do it, didn't really have the material to do it, but I had to do it. So I had to improvise, and she's just like, I don't know what you're doing, but this is a hot mess. You're a hot mess, I'm out of here. So that was kind of funny. The last thing I'll share with you is that so I was working graveyards and there wasn't a supervisor on duty. It was just me and one other person. I get called out to this house, um, and the lieutenant was out there, a bunch of people were out there, ice was out there, everything was everybody was out there. It was in the middle of the night, it was like four o'clock in the morning, and they want me to collect the skull, S-K-U-L-L. They want me to collect the skull that is in a backpack in the closet. Mind you, this house is empty. So I found out that it was a drop house. So it's where they would go and drop illegals temporarily and then probably transport them to their next location. But I found out about it. I mean, this was several years ago, so nothing recent, probably 10 years ago. And nothing recent. So normally when we have skeletal remains, they're buried, and we call the medical examiner and they come out and it's a whole excavation process. But this was a skull in a backpack, and it had a little bit of dirt on it, and so I'm like, I don't know if this is a ritual skull, like some kind of religious thing, or if this is actually a real human skull that somebody dug up and somebody died. Like, I have no idea. Well, we don't have a policy or procedure for that. Other than I was always told we don't collect human remains. That's not what we do. The medical examiner's office does that. So I go out there and they want me to collect this skull. And I'm like, I can't collect this skull. It's not what we we just don't collect body parts. And this lieutenant's like, you're gonna collect this skull. And I proceed to tell him, I we do not collect body parts. That's a part of the medical examiner's office. Go round and round with this lieutenant. Finally, he says, You will collect the skull. Fine. Collected the skull. Mind you, I don't know how to collect this skull without risking damage to it. Do I put it in a box? Do I put it in a bag? Do I wrap it in butcher paper? What am I doing with this thing? So I placed it, I think I had a box or something that I gently placed it in. Obviously, I photographed it, right? Then I took it back to the crime lab, cleaned out in the drawing room, cleaned it up, put white butcher paper down, and put the skull on top of the paper and said, Don't know what I'm doing with this, don't know how to package it, don't know if I'm supposed to have it, but I have a skull. So I text my boss who's supposed to be coming in on day shift. She was supposed to come in at six. I go, just so you know, I collected a skull, don't know what to do with it, don't know how to package it. How do you want me to package this thing? She's like, You did what? And I'm like, trust me, I lost the battle with the lieutenant. So then at the time we had a crime scene person that was working in our evidence processing unit who did hand sketch composites, and she was learning how to do that 3D modeling of a skull. So when she got in at six, she came down to look at it, and everybody she thought it was a real skull. And so then the supervisor got in there, and then the forensic administrator who was over our crime lab got there, and they're all looking at this. So like, yeah, we shouldn't have collected this. I'm like, I know this, but Lieutenant So-and-so didn't order me to take this thing. So we're all trying to figure this out. So, long story short, they get a hold of the medical investigator's office who refused to come out, by the way, because it wasn't in the yard or buried. They made arrangements to get the bot the skull to the medical examiner's office. And I just gently wrapped it in white butcher paper and then in a box and then sealed it up, and then they delivered it to the medical examiner's office. But I came back to work the next day with skull stickers all over my locker. They thought that was the funniest thing because after that I was known as the skull collector, the bone collector. So that went on for a long time, being called the bone collector and those bone stickers being on my locker. And then we had one other incident with the CSI. So we were not, we did not swab for DNA genitalia. That was part of the forensic nurse job. So anybody who was involved in a some type of sexual abuse attack would be taken to our advocacy center where the detective, a sex crimes detective, would contact a forensic nurse or what we call a sane nurse. They have specialized training in forensics, and they would come and they would do a what do you call it? Evaluation or examination on the victim or suspect. And part of their job duties were to collect biological samples. Well, for whatever reason, this CSI was told to swab this guy's penis. We don't do that. Even we don't do that, that's not part of our job. But she did it, she swabbed this guy's penis and collected a sample and submitted it. So she came back to work and she had penis stickers all over her locker. And so from then on, she was known as the penis swab collector. And it was pretty funny. She didn't find it very funny, and our supervisors didn't find it very funny. And they did have a policy, it changed the policy to where we no longer would not do any biological collection on body parts. Same thing as the bone or skull or human remains. We would not be collecting those. So two policies were implemented after both of those incidents, and both of us were hazed and razzed quite a bit, and it was kind of funny in our unit. So kind of some funny things that happened. And then one of the other things I always liked is if when I did have to work holidays, usually it was slower. Businesses were typically closed, but we would be able to spend more time with our coworkers and like we'd get in our vans, we'd drive around the city and we try to find businesses that were open, and you know, we'd go try to have ice cream or just some things to like have camaraderie. I don't know, for whatever reason, those moments of just driving around in the vans with each other, you know, following each other and getting to do those kind of things, having that downtime was just kind of fun. I know we weren't doing anything special. We were just like, oh, we'd drive to Walgreens, let's see if it's open, if we can get ice cream there, let's go to McDonald's or Jack in the Box, let's see if they're open, if they have ice cream or if they have this, you know. I don't know. It was just one of those things that if I had to work a holiday and I had to work with certain people, it was just kind of fun to do that. And then towards the end of my career when I was working in graveyards, I worked with this one co-worker and we would kind of make it a point a couple times to go have breakfast together towards the end of our shift when it was slow, you know, and we would go to the IHOP and we'd have breakfast. And I don't know, I looked forward to those breakfasts, even if we'd get called off, you know, to go to a crime scene or something. Every once in a while, you know, we had extra money. We'd be like, hey man, let's go, let's go hit the IHOP today if we can, you know, around four or five in the morning. And so I don't know, those were some kind of fun moments that I really liked as well. So just kind of like reflecting, you can hear my dog whining. MJ, knock it off. So just some of the reflection I can look back at and enjoy some of those times, you know, that maybe were few and far between, but always left kind of left a lasting impression with me and things that I enjoyed and appreciated that made the job fun when it wasn't really a fun job, you know, like the environment wasn't fun. You like you're seeing people on their worst days. So just those little things you have to hold on to to, you know, keep it human and not make it such a dark place or such a negative environment. Yeah, just some place to escape from a little bit and just have a little humor and a little bit of joy in that day. So yeah, those were some fun things that I just kind of remember. And it I'm sure it's different for every crime scene person. They all have different recall. What things that made him laugh the most and what what things were inside jokes and you know, things that they did with other coworkers on at work that made the job easier or more lighthearted, and teasing one another and just having that connection and bond with your coworkers. So yeah, those were some may not seem like very significant, but they were for me at the time, and I could still look back on it and be you know, be it be fond, you know, have fond memories of it. So well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Through the CSI lens behind the yellow tape. I'm so glad you're here. The best way to support me is by leaving a review or a quick rating. You can do that at your podcast, wherever you download your podcast at. It helps more people find us and it keeps us bringing you more straight from the crime scenes. Make sure. to hit the follow button so you don't miss an episode. Share this with your family and friends and coworkers. I would really love to build this community. 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