Crime Scene Investigator On Finding Cooked Human Brain | Minutes With

in this case there was pots and pans on the top of the cooker and you kind of think to yourself there's just something done there washing up yeah there's nothing wrong with that but then when you looked at the material in the in the frying pan it was like wow that's that's that's not that doesn't look like normal food you know and and anyway it turned out that yeah it was it was brain [Music] in the mid 80s there was a television program called indelible evidence which was um fronted by ludovi Kennedy and essentially I

think it was like six or seven programs where they looked at cases and understood how forensic science had solve them so I watched this program with my mom and I was like I want to be a forensic sciti so I went through school knowing that I wanted to be a forensic scientist and that meant that my parents had to go into school and sit down with the Headmaster I guess convincing them that I wanted to do all the Sciences so chemistry biology physics and that was at the kind of the the death of everything else

all the humanities those went out the window I didn't do any geography I'm rubbish at Trivial Pursuit if we need to look at history so I can only answer questions on science right I did my a levels of course and then I went to University and at the time there were no forensic science degree courses there was only Master's level forensic courses so I had to do an undergraduate degree in biology because I love biology and um I did that with a view that I would go on a Ms in forensic science which I did

there were two really in the country at the time one in Strath Glide which Glasgow and the other one in London and I did the one in stth cide and the reason I did the one in stth cide is because they had really um close relationships with forensic science Laboratories all over the world so it meant that when I was there I could do my research my internship effectively with a place overseas and that place um Turned out for me to be in Miami so I traveled to Miami did the BPA training and again that

was just the start of the the rest of my career basically what are you learning on that course so blood stain pattern analysis is essentially looking at the shape and the distribution and the relationship of blood stains in an area or in in an environment so if you apply any sort of energy to blood whether that's in the form of a violent assault or whatever it is you have the propensity to distribute that blood in that space so blood stain pattern training is effectively a a really cool physics lesson yeah so if you think about

it's a liquid everybody spills liquid all the time we knock over the coffee we look at the pattern but blood is kind of a little bit special because obviously when it's distributed it's usually because somebody is catastrophically injured in in my sense anyway because I'm largely looking at homicide we look at the way in which the blood stains have been distributed in order to then evaluate the mechanism by which those blood stains were created impact cast off projected blood from a damaged artery transfer stains from people who have moved and transferred blood and each of

those categories can lead to the production of a really distinctive pattern and if if you can evaluate that pattern and interpret it identify it you can then say right this pattern is indicative of an impact spatter and then when you know that you can then relate that back to the activities and the alleged crime so as an example if somebody's been shot and injured we can look at the pattern of blood stains and say this is from back spatter or forward spatter or we can understand where they were were located at the moment they were

shot and it can provide this really clear narrative on positions of people relative activities where they were located what they did after they were injured I mean the whole gamut is available it's just how confident you can be depending on the clarity of the pattern some people call it a magic Art I mean it's not it's it's underpinned by really good science but because it's so kind of subjective because it's about observation and about what you your kind of your approach to it I think it does it is tired with this brush that it's not

actually a proper science you know I don't put a sample in one end and get a number out of the other so it's very much it's it does have a subjective aspect to it and when you're training and studying like when you were in Miami are you using real blood or what are you using as a yeah yeah I mean there are various different proxy Bloods that you can use so as an example on the Telly you know they don't throw blood around but but for our purposes we use typically animal blood and usually horse

blood or Pig blood and you kind of think oh God how Grim you know hope they didn't kill anything to create the pot of blood which they don't they they they take it under Veterinary conditions and then we essentially take the material out of it that allows blood to clot because obviously we want to be using it in a liquid form we do simulated assaults so what that means is it's really important as a scientist that if you're asked to look at patterns that have been produced by different mechanisms that you actually have done that

for yourself so we get a really big piece of um pork meat which is known to simulate human flesh we use horse blood we apply it to the surface of that meat and then we bludge in it we kick it we punch it we stab it we do all the horrible things that people do to each other in a controlled environment so that we can see the patterns that are produced as a result of those actions so then when we see them in the in crime scenes we can say well this is showing these observations

this is encapsulating the features that we would expect to see from an impact pattern as an example as you begin your career as a crime scene investigator what sort of crime scenes are you attending Joe yeah so well because um I built up a sort of specialism in blood stain pattern analysis and then when I moved from Edinburgh I came down to London and I was in the homicide department so that by nature is looking at scenes of suspected homicide sus um suspicious death and so to be fair the majority of crime scenes that have

ever attended are usually sites of assault and murder in the main you usually on call so there's a 24/7 rotor and you sat on that and eventually you get to the top of it and the next call that comes in you you go to that scene so you don't know what you going into so once you get there you're briefed by the crime scene manager who gives you kind of a potted history of what they know at that moment you put on your full crime scene kit everybody will know what that looks like it's a

seene suit with you know shoe covers we've got a mask got little hair cover or a hood gloves obviously and once that's on you go across the Cordon which is usually under police control and into the space whatever somebody's told you about a space never really prepares you necessarily for what you see once you get into that space sometimes there can be very little blood and it's just very nuanced and it's just a case of just trying to work out what's what's happened or sometimes it can be a space where there's it's a blood bath

and you have to try and pick it apart and sometimes you go into a space where there is blood but somebody's tried to conceal that in some way so they may have tried to clean it up they may have tried to set the room on fire they may have you know change things to try and obfuscate the investigation so until you get get in that space you really often don't know what you're going to be having to deal with to be fair the thing about crime scenes is there there's such a kind of an honored

space and by that what I mean is that if we Bluster our way into it if we go in without forethought and strategy and thinking we're going to mess everything up because you have to remember that that space is the last place that somebody lived and is the place in which they died so if you can do anything to untangle that and understand what happened who was here and how did we get to this point then the only way you can do that is by respecting that space you have to think how can I do

something that is important in my line of work without messing up the work of everybody else because you're such a small part of that puzzle you know I mean you might be called to seen because of your specialism but you are in no way shape or form the big deal you are just part of a massive team who also needs to understand that when they look at their evidence it hasn't been compromised by somebody else because of what they were doing what is the first thing that you're looking for Jay when you get to a

crime scene I always say that if you're going to be a Blood Stained patent scientist the only tool you need are your eyes I once St with this um this scene which was absolutely horrific actually the the the the guy had it got really catastrophic head injuries and and and the weapon was like a machete so I mean just think about that for a second I mean it's absolutely horrific the reason why the scene had come to the attention of the police was because when um there was a a a business had the the rooms

underneath this flat and the blood was Dripping through their ceiling into their into their office so you can get a feel for the amount of blood that's available and it was pretty horrendous weirdly enough even though there was all this blood around what Drew my attention was like these little circular stains on the ground that moved or traveled away from this body and I was kind of like hang on a second what's what's what's going on there so when you started to follow this little trailer drops like breadcrumbs it led upstairs and then when when

she got upstairs there were a few there's a bedroom and bits and Bobs and on a drawer on a on a unit and a drawer there was a little blood stain on the handle and and I opened up this drawer and in it there was another little blood drop I was like do you know what's happened here whoever's done it has been they've injur injured themselves so all of that blood downstairs the police and crime scene manager like where's she going she's toodling off upstairs following this Trail and we sampled this blood and it was

expedited it was blue lighted to the laboratory for DNA analysis which which nominated an individual and that individual is essentially the the suspect in the case and in the context of this violent assault they'd injured themselves and then after after the killing they'd then gone into the rest of the building to kind of look for valuables and stuff and during the context of that search had been dripping their own blood and deposited their blood on the things that they touched the devil is in the detail right so you know all of that stuff is very

is good in understanding what happened to this individual but it's not really going to solve who was in this space and that obviously to the police is a really important question that they need answers to and in that case was the person who committed the crime Court based on your yeah yeah I mean it was really tragic because um they collected a few bits of you know few valuables bit of jewelry little bit of cash and they left that scene they walked down the street a few doors down I think it was a fish and

chip shop or something like that and there was a slot machine and they put the money in the slot machine and they lost it all and you kind of think what an absolute waste they've just gone through that horrendous killing just for the sake of a few quid and then they've put it all in a slot machine and it's gone what's the most shocking crime that you've come across in your work Joe yeah the brain one oh so I went to the scene it was in East London actually with a a really esteemed colleague and

um the suspect ultimately he was a really troubled individual he was he was a he was very seriously mentally ill actually but he was on a day release from his um his facility and he he befriended this this Chap and he went back to his um his his flat and he ended up killing him and then in the aftermath of that he he dismembered his body and then he um took took his Brave and he he cooked it up in a frying pan and you know I mean what can you say about that I mean

that's just absolutely catastrophic you can't judge anything you can't think how on Earth do people live in a space like this you have to just think people live in a space like this how can I cut through that and get to the evidence and in this case there was pots and pans on the top of the cooker and you kind of think to yourself there just hav't done there washing up yeah there's nothing wrong with that but then when you looked at the material in the in the frying pan it was like wow that's that's

that's not that doesn't look like normal food you know and and anyway it turned out that yeah it was it was brain I read about a case where you found just a body in a freezer can you tell me a bit about that yeah the the steps that people go to to cover their tracks is pretty extensive actually but this case in particular um the school I think had rung the grandparents and said are you going to collect these kids because the the mom hadn't gone to school to collect the children and when um the

police well when the the family went back to their house it was empty the only thing that was left in this um in this place was a was the piano a couple of dumbbells and a chest freezer in the kitchen and when they looked in this chest freezer the body of the of the mom was um had been chopped up and put in bags in this freezer and the rest of the belongings were were gone when you walked in I remember thinking where's the blood why am I here yeah because there was literally nothing visible

to the naked eye and so we applied um a chemical to enhance blood staining and what it did was it started to sort of pick up traces of blood which were indicative of a cleanup so there had been blood there she had been dismembered in that space But there hadd been sufficient cleanup that none of that was really obvious anymore but it was only when we enhanced it with chemicals that we could see the traces that were left again the thing is that we've got technology available to us that can that can detect blood that

isn't visible to the naked eye everybody's familiar with luminol that's a chemical that we spray in darkened conditions and it causes blood to lumines so it kind of glows with this blue glow so we can use that really effectively and the thing about cleaning is we're not very good at it especially from a blood point of view you know if if I was going to chop up something I'd do it in the bath yeah because then I can get the the head of the shower and I can hose it down and clean as a whistle

or so you think because the thing is between the tiles of the bathroom there's grout that that soaks up blood like a sponge the the blood is pushed into the nooks and crannies of the bathroom it can seep into the tiles of the floor and so all of the spaces that you clean are kind of they look clean but they're not clean forensically and when you start to pull the bath panel away there's blood staining behind there so it's very difficult to clean up and unless you're in a a kind of a space that is

completely disinfectable then you you you're going to leave some Trace especially traces that luminol can detect what mistakes to murderers make you know we've got technology up the wazoo you know to detect crime to understand what people have done to detect Trace Amounts of evidence they go to quite extreme efforts sometimes to get rid of the evidence but in every single case certainly my experience I mean every contact leaves a trace right so it's impossible frankly to eradicate every single jot of evidence in a crime scene so the mistakes that they make apart from not

really fully understanding the potential of forensic science is they forget that they're leaving traces of themselves on every surface that they touch on every path that they take you know we've known about fingerprints for centuries and yet it's probably one of the main ways in which I people are identified so you kind of think to yourself how did you forget that you leave fingerprints I once de with a case where the the perpetrator had taken the blood of his victim and he'd written a really horrible word on the wall and then done an exclamation point

and in that point was his fingerprint in the blood of the victim and you kind of think to yourself what an idiot you know I mean seriously did you not think that was going to lead to your detection don't underestimate forensic science is the the take home message and you worked on the London bombings case can you tell me a bit about that the London bombings happened and I was at the top of the list but obviously it was all hands- on deck for that incident but the thing that I was involved with was the

examination of the car that the bombers had used to travel down from um I can't remember where but to loot airport and it had been subjected to a controlled explosion to sure it was safe that car was then transported to London laboratory where I examined it in a a really secure environment basically it was a micro little tiny Micra and whatever they'd done to it the Central Lock in had bust so I couldn't open any of the doors to get in like a normal person I had to sort of lean in through the windows which

were smashed so I got a bit of kind of like well we it's like filter paper but I kind of folded that up and put it over this broken glass so that I could lean in and try and swab stuff because what we were trying to establish was who's driven it yeah so you know you naturally swab the the steering wheel and the gear lever and the handbrake and the Bits And The Bobs that people touch when they're driving um there was quite a bit of hair debris in the car which which which was there

but when I went into the driver's side and looked down into the pocket of the door there's a little peanut packet you know when you B buy a bag of peanuts it's got that little cup so that you can tear the the packet yeah well that was torn and it was empty and when I looked at the little tear it looked a bit G little bit teethy Mark something like that and I thought to myself you know what if I was driving this car and I got myself a packet of peanuts how might I open

it I might tear it open with my teeth we examine this peanut packet and we swabbed around this little tear and it generated a DNA profile that identified one of the bombers because he' literally just eaten a packet of peanuts I I didn't lead the that investigation but the the the the the team that they spent 247 in the laboratory we were having pizza deliveries into the lab because the the volume of work that was that was required in response to that event was just unbelievable we were working a shift system they were examining item

after item after item and you know there's a massive responsibility because obviously it was a horrendous um incident but you want to repatriate every single piece of body tissue in a situation like that back to the person so that that person can then you know have a have the correct burial or whatever it might be so you're asking people to pick bits of body tissue off buildings out of buses you're asking them to work in spaces that are just you know beyond imagination so me leaning in to a little Micra on a piece of filter

paper was frankly the the least of our worries to be honest and how do you protect like your your you know mental health when you're dealing with such graphic and kind of a crimes like how do you take that step away from work I feel that I've got quite a grounding I feel that I um I respect myself so I hope that I respect the job enough to know that it can have a really significant impact on well-being and mental health you volunteer to go into these these scenes it's part of your job it's part

of your training but I think I think it would be naive to think that you know that they don't have an impact on you and and also that you know I think if you ever normalize that experience you're in big trouble because you know these these spaces are challenging there you know there their places that no one should ever really have to operate but once you get into there you just have to put on a different hat and get on with it any any scenario which is not normal has to imprint on your brain and

I I think I think with a nudge in most cases I would almost transport myself back into pretty much every crime scene I've ever attended I adore it I mean I can't even tell you I mean I've never worked a day in my life life I know that's such a cliche if you think about Blackpool Rock and you chop it down the middle it says Blackpool I I would hope that when they chop me down the middle I'm going to say forensic science I honestly don't I can't see a life I can't see any other

life for me I've always wanted to be forensics and I've always I've always wanted to be where I am today and to be there is just mindblowing really [Music] and you have to use language very carefully you have to time your kind of inquiries and questions um in a really thoughtful way it's a bit like kind of doing surgery on the mind in a way