by Laurie Fruth
You've seen it a thousand times at the movies: A murder has been committed. Uniformed police officers set up barricades to protect the scene from a rapidly growing crowd of curious onlookers. The gruff but handsome police detective arrives, his face illuminated by flashing red lights. He casually slips under the strip of yellow police tape and approaches the body. He stoops and lifts a corner of the blood-stained sheet covering the body to look at the victim's face - and to look for the first of several clues that will lead him, within the allotted two hours of screen time, to the killer.
Of course, it's all fairly cut and dried in the movies. The detective, usually the star of the show, doesn't spend much time at the scene of the crime; he's back on the streets in minutes to solve the case.
But in real life, much of the case revolves around the crime scene, the often-complex set of details found there, and the team of law enforcement professionals who must meticulously sort through those details to help build a case.
UNLV alumna Maria Thomas is one of those professionals. She is a crime scene analyst with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
"I've always been fascinated by deviance, by what makes
people commit crimes," says the 1995 graduate of UNLV's criminal
justice department. "And I knew as far back as high school that
I wanted to work in law enforcement."
Thomas began her career in law enforcement in Metro's records department. She was a single mother raising three children and working full time when she decided to begin attending UNLV classes in the evening.
"I enjoyed my work in records, but I wanted something more," Thomas says. "So after I graduated, I started looking around. I considered becoming an abuse and neglect specialist. Then I saw the crime scene analyst position posted, and I knew right away that this was the door I had been waiting to open."
Thomas walked through that door and today is one of 33 crime scene analysts, or CSAs, as they are called, who work in the field services division of Metro's criminalistics bureau. They are not police officers but specialists trained to follow the trail of evidence left behind by criminals.
Their work is rigorous, exacting and, in some cases, emotionally draining.
"People often ask, 'How can you do this kind of work?' And it's true, we do see things that most people would cringe at," Thomas says, referring to scenes resulting from acts of violence. "But I can't help the victim if I allow myself to become emotional. Time is precious in this job."
Time is indeed precious when you consider that crime scene analysts average approximately 200 cases each week. While the caseload is sizable, the work is far from routine. Thomas admits that's part of the appeal.
"A lot of people believe that crime is predictable. And it
may be predictable in the sense that we do respond to many
property crimes. But there's usually some variation. Sometimes
it's a hot prowl, meaning that the suspect is still inside when
the victim arrives home. Or in crimes against individuals,
sometimes a gun was used, sometimes a knife. That's the
challenge - trying to piece together a series of events from the
physical evidence left at the scene of a crime."
Although each case is different, they all begin for Thomas with a call from the police dispatcher directing her to a given crime scene. If police officers or detectives are still there when she arrives, she asks them for details about the crime. Then she begins the laborious process of documenting, collecting, and preserving the physical evidence.
Next, the scene is assessed and systematically photographed from every relevant vantage point. If the crime is a homicide or an officer-involved shooting, one of her tasks is to sketch a comprehensive diagram of the scene showing the position of the body and the weapon, if it's present. If appropriate, a search for trace evidence - hairs, fibers, semen, and blood - comes next.
Thomas is quick to point out that CSAs do not perform DNA
testing, blood typing, ballistics analysis, or latent
(invisible) fingerprint analysis; that work is performed by
other specialists in Metro's crime lab. CSAs do, however,
collect the samples on which such analyses are conducted.
The collection process might involve cutting out a piece of carpet or lifting fingerprints from a window sill. It could involve the measurement of blood splatter patterns or the use of special light sources or chemical techniques to detect the possible presence of substances such as blood or semen.
"The tests we do in the field are presumptive; they indicate the possibility of such substances as semen or as blood," Thomas explains. "We book it as evidence, but we don't do comparisons or analyses. Our job is to ensure that everything has been covered, that we haven't overlooked what could be evidence in the field. It's critical for us to do so because we can't always go back."
Each piece of evidence is identified with an event number specific to the scene. Thomas carefully records each piece, noting what the evidence is and where it was found. Her notetaking must be meticulous because, she explains, she may be called upon to testify in court weeks, months, or even years later.
"If I'm assigned to a case and I'm responsible for the evidence, then I take that responsibility very seriously," Thomas says. "I know that I'll have to explain to the court how the evidence was collected and where it was every step of the way. So it's crucial that I be able to account for it."
In many cases, the collection of evidence extends beyond the initial crime scene. For example, Thomas recounts one incident in which a person was shot and had to be transported to the emergency room.
"Of course, the medical team had cut the T-shirt off the person by the time I arrived," Thomas says. "Now obviously a person's life is more important than any one piece of evidence, but this example shows that evidence can't always be collected under ideal conditions. Sometimes the officers have to barge into a scene because the suspect is still there. The evidence may be damaged or destroyed, but what's left of it still needs to be collected and documented."
As long as the evidence she has collected is not perishable, Thomas sometimes travels from one crime scene to the next without a chance between cases to return the evidence to the crime lab. For this reason, all evidence is bagged under a crime scene event number and placed in her car before she leaves the scene.
The pace is often hectic, attention to detail is critical, and the CSA never knows what lies ahead. But Thomas wouldn't have it any other way.
"I chose this job because it suits my personality. I'm a strong person, and I have an insatiable curiosity - two traits that make me well suited for this type of work," she says.
The one drawback to her work, however, is the suffering she encounters.
"The worst is when the victim is suffering, and you know that the person is probably not going to make it. You feel his or her pain and that of the family, but you have to separate the emotion you feel from the job you are there to perform."
An intensive, five-week training program helps prepare the CSA for the emotional and intellectual rigors of the job, Thomas notes. Offered by Metro, the program covers a variety of content areas, including fingerprinting, chemical development, photography, civil and criminal law, radio and transportation procedures, ethics, and crime scene protocol.
Of particular interest to her was the moot court segment of the program during which local district attorneys and criminal defense lawyers grill CSA supervisors to familiarize the trainees with the process of testifying.
At the end of the five weeks, each trainee is teamed with an
experienced crime scene analyst for an additional nine weeks of
field training. But the training doesn't end there. First-year
CSAs are also required to complete a correspondence course
through the American Institute of Applied Science. The course
covers, among other subjects, fingerprint studies, firearms
identification, principles of criminal investigation, and police
photography. Upon completion, the CSA must successfully pass a
comprehensive examination to be certified as a crime scene
analyst.
"Training is integral to this career," Thomas says. "We are expected to take one or more specialized workshops each year."
Thomas says she enjoys the extensive training; she relishes the opportunity to become more specialized. She has set her sights on obtaining a master's degree in anthropology; she hopes to specialize in forensic anthropology, which would enable her to discern considerable information about a murder victim from his or her remains.
"Education is so essential," Thomas says. "I've had to take various comprehensive tests since I applied to become a CSA, and my studies in criminal justice at UNLV certainly helped me get through them.
"And it's also important for my kids to see me in studying. I believe that you lead by example, and if my kids see that I'm excited about school, that I'm working toward a goal, then they learn from that."
But, she admits, she may have to wait awhile before plunging into the master's program. After only one year on the job, Thomas is still finding balance between her work and home life.
"My husband is a Metro police officer, and between the two of us, we have five children," she says, acknowledging her pace at home is often as hectic as it is at work.
While she wants their children to understand her commitment to her job, she has come to realize that she shouldn't reveal all aspects of it to them.
"Naturally, we discuss our work at home," she explains. "But we sometimes forget that the horror of our work environment is not part of everyone's daily existence. Well, one night at dinner I was discussing a case, and my daughters were begging me for details. But my 13-year-old son was so upset by what I was saying that he got up and walked away from the table. That was an important lesson for me."
That incident reinforced Thomas' belief that people seem to be inherently fascinated by crime, but they don't necessarily want to know all the gory details. They generally prefer the film version of the story with the gruff but handsome detective solving the case in two hours.
However, she does acknowledge that since the O.J. Simpson trial, the public has become more aware of the importance of her line of work and how critical it is for CSAs to employ painstakingly precise methods in their collection and preservation of evidence.
It might take her and her colleagues more than a couple of Hollywood hours to wrap up their cases, she muses, but they'll get there - especially if Maria Thomas is on the case.
