Essay Example on Murder Investigation at 123 Harriet Avenue, Key West

On the 20th March 2020, at approximately 1605 hours, I received an alert from for the dispatch to initiate a murder investigation. The location of the crime was at 123 Harriet Avenue, Key West Florida. This was the available information I had received before arriving at the scene of the crime. Upon arrival, the responding police officer Johnn Tsunami of the Key West Police Department offered additional information as follows.

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Officer Tsunami provided the victim's name as Scarlet Sahara and the suspect as her husband, Scarlet, Esteban Julio, who was not at the scene of the crime. Additionally, Tsunami informed me of the individual who discovered the victim's body. The witness was never physically at the scene. The officer also informed me of how the body of the victim was discovered and the available paths on the scene of the crime. As a neighbor was walking along the adjacent road, at 1545 hours, she noticed a body unusually lying on the front yard of the residence, and a male hastily freeing while carrying what appeared like a weapon, and decided to call 911. Additionally, the information conveyed was the exact location of the victim's body within the front yard of her residence. The evidence, including blood, spatter, shell casings, and tread marks from the suspect's shoes, were found within the scene of the murder.

When I entered the scene of the crime, I conducted the initial survey and chose to use the quadrant search method. I noted all the existing conditions like the outdoor temperature, scents in the air, and took note of the house (Schiro, 2018). That is, whether the lights were on or off, whether the house windows and doors were closed or open. I also took note of the condition of the fence, the gate, and the landscape around the crime scene. Also, using my sound recording device, I took note of all the sounds from the surrounding. The surrounding temperature 67, and it was slightly windy (AccuWeather, 2020). Besides the food aroma from the neighboring house, there was no other aroma. There are only one entrance and exit to the property, as it is completely fenced. Besides rock music praying from a stereo in the house, there were no other sounds.

As I walked through the gate, I noticed trimmed grass and two still chairs in a small gazebo. There was nothing on the gazebo table. From the gateway to the main house is paving blocks leading to a garage and trimmed hedge. The main door of the house was half-open, but all the windows were closed. Entering the house, I noted that the temperature was reasonably similar to the outside. All the lights in the living room were off, but the ceiling fan was still on. From the living room, the kitchen lights were on, and the hallway leading to the backyard was also lit. The door to the garden via a veranda was wide open. The doors leading to the bathrooms and bedrooms were locked except the main bedroom door. The main bedroom had nightstands lamp, bedsheets, and an air conditioner. Its bathroom door was open, and water was still running. All the while, I had on my personal protection equipment (PPE) (Schiro, 2018). I was also taking all the essential notes and sketched the evidence location. My notes included the details of the outside where the body was and the details inside the house. My sketches comprised of an overview of the scene, and an evidence area details. I also had a third sketch of the condition of the house and as rough space, labeled everything by the item names and the unidentified ones were numbered (Kelty et al., 2011).

After a thorough survey of the whole scene, I decided to initiate processing the crime scene, beginning to the main bedroom, as it seemed to the starting point of the altercation. Upon entering the bedroom, I noticed there was a wardrobe right ahead of the door, and the adjacent wall had an open door to the bathroom and a small dressing table with a broken mirror. There were several clothes scattered on the floor, and the bedsheet was roughly placed. The nightstand lamp to the left of the bed had fallen far off the cabinet, and one drawer was open. The contents of the cabinet were also everywhere and included a few formal documents and what seemed like a wedding ring proposal casing. To the west, the nightstand lamp had fallen but just near the bed, and the rest was confirmed as intact. The wardrobe doors were open with one near the door was broken. Besides, the few clothes scattered on the floor were other clothes on the floor of the wardrobe that had fallen together with the hanging rail. The mirror in the middle of the closet was broken, and the pieces were lying along the wardrobe skirting. The water in the bathroom was still running, but the transparent glass to the shower cubicle was broken. A towel soaked in water was lying on the floor, and there were some blood drops on the floor.

Before embarking on evidence collection, I decided to photograph everything that would assist me with evidence, using a digital camera. I took the pictures in such a way that I would have a 360 view of the bedroom once the photographs were developed (Marsh, 2014). Aside from the bathroom, the rest of the space had latent fingerprints. The main focus for the prints collection was the metallic stands of the night lamps, mirrors, bathroom soaps, and the cabinet handles. To discover the latent prints, I dusted a smooth and non-porous surface with black granular, a typical fingerprint powder (Widjaja, 2009). Once the prints appeared, I photographed them and then lifted them from the surface with transparent adhesive tape (Widjaja, 2009). Subsequently, I placed the cellophane on a latent lift card for preservation. The patent prints on the soaps in the bathroom were photographed using a high-resolution camera and a forensic measuring scale in the image for referencing (Trapecar, 2009). To enhance the quality of the image, I used a low angle and an additional chemical. The broken glasses did not have any prints on them, but I took a closeup photograph of each area they were at. I also took the prints on the door handle both from the inside and outside. Since the floor was tiled, there were no shoe tread marks on the floor of the house. However, outside, there were shoe tread marks, near the victim's body, on the lowly trimmed glass that went all the way to the gate. The shoe prints were allegedly from the suspects and were dirt from the yard.

Once satisfied with the main bedroom, I moved to the living room. The living room consisted of a seven-seater sofa, a glass table at the center, a fireplace, and a TV stand. From the living room large windows, the veranda as well as the front yard where the body lay were visible. The seats' cushions were disorderly, and the edge of the glass table had been broken. There were no broken glass pieces on the floor. On top of the table were two half-empty wine glasses and an almost empty one liter of red wine. Also, on the floor lay an empty wine bottle a few beer bottles. Adjacent was an open plan kitchen where everything was in place. I repeated the process used in the main bedroom by photographing and taking all the prints. The prints were taken from the glass table, wine glasses, and all the bottles and also the door handles both at the main entry and the one to the backyard.

After processing the living room and the main bedroom, I moved to the yard. Across to the left of the property had a gazebo and two chairs. On the right side were a gate and a wall all around the property. The wall is half masonry and half-metallic grill; thus, everything is partly visible from outside. The paving cement blocks run from the main veranda and garage to the gate. Along the drive is a lowly trimmed hedge that continues along the walls, only allowing for two openings. One is leading to the yard and one leading to the gazebo. In the lowly, trimmed grass lay the of the victim. The whole of her body was on the grass, with her feet on a recently dug area around the house. Since the dug area was wet, the mud showed the footprints that appeared to struggle in and out of the area. Her feet had dirt too. The victim was a white woman with dark brown hair (brunette) and appeared to be in her early 30s. The victim was approximately 5'8" tall and about 100 pounds. The body of the victim was lightly dressed in a sundress, which appeared to be cotton and brown with white stripes. The dress was wet all over and was torn from the back. The victim had two-gun shots, on the upper body. One of the bullets went right through her lower jaw. Aside from that, her hands were bruised, indicating a push and pull during the wrangles or a form of protest from the victim's attempt to free herself from the attacker. The hand also appeared to have a cut probably from the glass.

I took the overall picture of the yard and a closeup photo of the tread marks from the suspect's shoes, and the victim's body. I also took the close images of the gunshot wounds with and without scale. Additionally, I took closeup photos of the evidence around the body, including the shell casing and the blood spatter. As the division's medical examiner granted authorization to review the body, I progressed to inspect the victim's body for further vital evidence. I collected the fingernail scraping, using a clean toothpick from the victim's house, and carefully placed them on the pharmaceutical fold.

Additionally, I combed her hair for any available fibers and possible pieces of glass. On the hands, I found a print and tried collecting it using amido black, which is a non-specific protein stain that reacts with any proteins present on the victim's skin (Trapecar, 2009). To clear the possibility of further prints, I tried using vacuum metal disposition on the victim's clothing but was unsuccessful in both cases. Additionally, I took all the fibers and hair available on her cotton dress. I fingerprinted the columns, and the grill door handles as well as all the door handles to the rooms and the gates. One section of the trimmed hedge seemed to have been broken like someone had fallen or hastily went through. I took the piece of torn cloth from it and photographed the area.

Since the kitchen appeared normal, apart from a few misplaced dishes, I did not thoroughly process it. However, I took the prints on the surface of the serving hatch, the tall metallic chairs along its half wall. All the other areas, including the gazebo, the additional two bedrooms, and bathrooms, were not analyzed since nothing appeared to connect them to the crime. A review of each showed nothing to suggest that they were connected to the crime. I visited the backyard of the house and processed the back-door handle prints. Everything else, including the swimming pool, appeared normal. The investigation of the scene was concluded at approximately 2200 hours, 29th March 2020.

Conclusion

One day after processing the scene of the crime, I met with the division medical examiner to take an additional photograph of the victim's upper body and the hands. The gun wounds were clearer of the blood. The one through her lower jaw appeared to have been taken closely and at a 60 degrees angle (Heard, 2011). The one on her chest was a straight shot through to her left lib cage. Both the bullets were still lodged inside the victim's body. The absence of gunshot blasts and sound indicates the shots might have been taken from a less powerful gun and with a silencer (Heard, 2011). Often, the bruises from a struggle may not be visible after a few hours (McClane, 1999). However, the bruising on her hands were more noticeable in the previous processing. The bruising on her right hand was more visible. I took a photograph of the bruising and with and without a scale using the Omnichrome...