Scene of the Crime Read Online Free PDF Page B

residential garbage can in the alley two blocks from where the crime occurred, the inside top of a lipstick tube (an Avon special, made for holding solid cologne as well as a lipstick), inside sugar and flour canisters, inside refrigerators and freezers, inside an ornamental clock, and inside curtain rods. Narcotics officers once searched a house for marijuana and hashish without success, but totally missed the six marijuana plants growing in small pots on the kitchen counter. (Dell Shannon—in real life, Elizabeth Linington—put that one in a book, after I told her about it.)
    Secret documents, jewels and drugs have been smuggled inside baby's diapers, inside corpses being returned home for burial, in balloons swallowed or thrust up the courier's anus, inside linings or hems of clothing, in cameras and film containers, inside ballpoint pens or fountain pens. Disassembled weapons have been smuggled disguised as camera components; assembled and disassembled weapons have been shipped in bags of flour, meal or powdered milk, in barrels of missionary clothing, in crates of tools and hardware. In fiction, hide contraband anywhere you like. You can be sure some real criminal has thought of it before you.
    Collecting evidence deserves a special chapter—or more—of its own. In real life, it is critical that evidence be collected and treated correctly, if it is to tell what it can tell. In fiction, you have to know what you can and can't do with evidence—but bear in mind that this is something that changes. Keep track of court decisions and technical developments to keep your writing current.
    A person searching a crime scene is less likely than someone searching a suspect's house to find evidence deliberately hidden, unless the scene also involved narcotics, smuggling, the concealment of stolen property, or something like that. Also, a person searching a crime scene doesn't need a search warrant if someone who has control over the area is willing to sign a consent-to-search form.
    If no one is willing, or legally able, to sign a consent-to-search form, then a search warrant is essential.
    Searching With a Warrant
    For clarity, let's assume again that you are your fictional investigator. Here is how you get and use a search warrant:
    1. You must be a law-enforcement officer. No search warrant can be issued to anyone who is not a law-enforcement officer.
    2. You must prepare an affidavit, in duplicate, describing the area
    to be searched, the items you intend to search for, and why you expect to find those items in that location (probable cause). Prepare a search warrant, in triplicate. Take the affidavits and warrants to a judge and swear to the affidavits. At that time, if the judge thinks your cause is probable enough, the judge signs the search warrants. The judge keeps one copy of the affidavit; you keep the other, along with all three copies of the search warrant.
    3. You and however many more people you need go to the scene. Unless the scene is already under the control of the police, as it usually is when you're searching the scene of a crime, or unless you have a no-knock warrant—which is issued only if there is strong reason to suspect evidence will be destroyed in the time it takes for someone to open the door, or strong reason to fear for the safety of the officers serving the warrant—you knock on the door, announce yourselves as police officers, and wait for somebody to come to the door.
    4. Usually one officer (or more, if necessary) will corral all people on the scene and keep them confined to one area. It is courteous and good public relations, though not a legal requirement, to avoid frightening children or other innocent people unnecessarily.
    5. Search for the items on the list. Make a list on the warrant itself—in triplicate, because that's how many copies of the warrants you have—of everything seized whether or not it was on the original list of items sought for.
    6. You are not responsible for