Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist Read Online Free PDF Page A

of case notes that fill my lab in Oregon and handpicked the most compelling, curious, and chilling crimes to share with you. As you’ll see, they’re filled with just as many gripping twists, turns, and red herrings as a prime-time crime drama. What sets them apart? They’re all true-life stories. Every one. All the close calls and the clever crooks you’ll read about in these pages, all the ones we got and the ones who got away with it, sprang not from a screenwriter’s overactive imagination, but from life. They were—and in some cases still are—out there.

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From Rookie to Undercover Ace
    B Y THE TIME WE graduated from high school in 1960, many of my childhood friends were getting ready to take over their families’ farms, stepping into their fathers’ long-familiar roles. Dad hoped I would do the same, but my heart was elsewhere. I was determined to become a cop. I was also eager to go to college. When my uncle Wes and aunt Louise Chamless offered to let me live with them rent-free in Los Angeles if I attended school there, I seized the chance.
    In the fall of 1961, I packed up my Chevy and drove straight to Southern California, stopping just long enough to refuel. As soon as I had settled in there, I headed down to the police station—a wide-eyed, eager nineteen-year-old—and asked for an application. “Sorry,kid,” the desk sergeant told me. Nineteen, I learned, was two years too young to become a cop.
    Disappointed but with no other choice, I channeled my energy into studying instead. I spent the next two years at East Los Angeles Junior College, where I earned my associate degree in 1964. Then, with the help of a Johnson administration grant, I enrolled at Cal State at Los Angeles, majoring in police science and administration. Veteran cops from police departments in the area would show up regularly to guest lecture and serve as adjunct professors, and I would listen spellbound to their tales of thwarted robberies and special investigations, hoping one day to be working cases like those myself.
    As soon as I turned twenty-one, I applied at the LAPD’s Parker Center—named after the force’s chief at the time, William H. Parker, a no-nonsense former war hero beloved in those days for his integrity and for purging the force of corruption. After completing the paperwork, I had to take a medical exam at a local hospital. I had worn contacts for years, so I wasn’t surprised to find myself struggling to read the minuscule letters lining the bottom of the eye chart. I was stunned, however, when three months later an official rejection letter arrived because of it. Twenty-twenty vision, it turned out, was a prerequisite for joining the LAPD.
    After years of anticipation, my dream was about to fall apart. Resolved not to let that happen, I started applying at all the other police stations within driving distance. A few months later—in early 1963—a letter showed up from the Downey Police Department, just south of L.A., congratulating me on my acceptance to the force and telling me where to report to begin training. I was elated, but still smarting over my rejection from what I deemed the big leagues of the LAPD itself. At least I would get to attend the Los Angeles Police Academy for training, I told myself. I’d get to become a cop.
    Looking back, I realize Downey turned out to be the best careermove I could have made. L.A.’s department was so huge and sprawling that I would have spent years edging my way up the ranks. Downey was small—small enough for an eager, energetic young cop to work every assignment. I volunteered for all of them, even offbeat ones like presentations at PTA meetings in the evenings, where I taught parents how to recognize narcotics and how to know when their kids were revealing signs of drug use. That public-speaking experience would prove invaluable training ground when I started lecturing on blood pattern analysis decades later.
Basic Training
    The next three months of my