In Reference to Murder

Estimating Time of Death

This is always a biggee with crime fiction, since the vast majority of mysteries and thrillers includes at least one murder. Just how does the Medical Examiner determine time of death, anyway?  The Australian web site Death, the Last Taboo has a section on "What Happens After Death?" which takes a look at body changes after death (when the heart stops beating, rigor mortis, and grave wax), as well as the stages of decomposition. A note for the squeamish -- the grave wax photo and the decomposition photos (although they use a pig), might be tough for some to take.

The section on determining a time of death has an overview on body temperature, rigor mortis, and insects, then moves on to detailed entomological calculations, as well as case histories. There is a good bit of information devoted to insects, since the presence of insects in a corpse is a critical clue towards estimating time of death for bodies dead for longer periods. There are pictures of the most commonly-found fauna associated with corpse decomposition (squeamish alert here again).

Since Fall is approaching (and even Starbucks has switched from their berry offerings to pumpkin scones and lattes before Labor Day even gets here), it's not too early to be thinking about Halloween and some fun party facts.  For instance, although an exposed human body in optimum conditions can be reduced to bone in 10 days, a body that is buried 1.2 m under the ground retains most of its tissue for a year.  Boo!

Using DNA to Solve Cold Cases

There have been several books, films, and TV shows recently that focused on cold cases, such as the CBS drama by that name, "Cold Case." One of the most crucial keys to solving these cases is DNA evidence. There is an educational site, DNA.gov, which gives a nice overview of solving cold cases with DNA, starting with a primer titled "The Long and Short of DNA."

You can also learn about CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, which permits the cross-comparison of DNA profiles developed from biological evidence found at crime scenes. As the site explains, even if a perpetrator is not identified through the database, crimes may be linked to each other, thereby aiding an investigation, which may eventually lead to the identification of a suspect. You can also read more about how law enforcement agencies identify, analyze and prioritize cold case files and how cold case squads really work (TV notwithstanding).

If you're working on a novel and have procedural questions regarding DNA and cold cases, this is a good starting point.

History's Mysteries

If you're a writer of historical mysteries, or just a fan of history in general, check out Deb's Historical Research Page by Deborah Lawson (no relation, by the way). There are literally hundreds of articles and links on topics you might expect like British History and Middle Ages Religion, as well as many that are more unusual, but just as important (or perhaps more so) to someone writing about daily life in a mystery novel set in the past. For instance, there's a link to toys in the Victorian era, another to advertising in the 19th century, one to exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and British pound between 1791 and 2000, and articles on various clothing styles through the years, medicine and surgery, even historic fire engines. So take a step back into history and spend some time catching up on all those things you were never taught in history class.

The Thin Blue Line

If you're interested in writing police procedurals, or are a fan and can't get enough of the police life, there are many interesting Web resources out there, everything from blogs to case reports to sites with law enforcment gear catalogs. It might help to start with a site like Officer.com, a treasure trove of information including daily news recaps, articles from Law Enforcement Technology magazine, career news, public discussion forums (where you can ask questions of police officers), even a video section. The most helpful area might be Features, where there are articles divided into sections on Operations and Tactics, Police Life, Investigation, and Technology, with RSS feeds for each.

Crime Radius is another good one for an overview of the types of crimes officers are facing each and every day, with crime news grouped according to various categories. There's also a state-by-state section where you can focus on crime news from a particular area.

With the media often focused on the small percentage of officers who are dishonest, it's often easy to forget about the hundreds of thousands who go to work in the morning to keep us safe and often put their lives on the line in the process. If you want to be reminded of that, take a look at the "Officer Down" section at the Officer.com link above.

A Virtual Exhibit on Forensic Science

Here's a neat site from a consortium of Canadian law enforcement officials, the Virtual Forensic Science Museum which includes a nice assortment of brief overview articles on alcohol analysis, anthropology, biology, chemistry, document identification and forgery, entomology, fingerprints, firearms, odontology, pathology, toxicology, and trace evidence. After you've read those, try your hand at the Interactive Investigator, a game in which you play the part of a forensic detective looking for clues at a crime scene.

Ridges and Furrows

In working through the various Internet sites on forensics, there are so many that have useful information, it's hard to pinpoint a favorite. Many crime fiction writers, though, will have to deal with the subject of fingerprints at one time or another, so it's helpful to have a few handy resources bookmarked which can help. One of these is The World of Fingerprints, a site put together by a forensics investigator who works in the Netherlands. He includes photographic illustrations so you can see the different types of patterns, such as arch, right loop, and whorl. He also discusses things like incipient ridges on fingerprints, which only occur in 45% of all people, and which get more visible the older a person gets. There's also an FAQ section where he answers questions like "Do twins have identical fingerprints?" and he talks about rare cases where people have no fingerprints. It's a good place to get ideas for future crime scene scenarios. By the way -- did you know that many animals have fingerprints, too? Even tailprints? 

It's a Crime

Crime Scene Investigation can be a bit of a mystery in and of itself for crime fiction authors who haven't worked in the field. There are several good sites out there that can help, such as the following Crime Scene Investigation resource. It includes a good overview, personnel duties and responsibilities, documentation procedures, and a wealth of articles on topics such as "Stringing a Crime Scene to Determine Trajectories," "Dead Body Evidence Checklist," "Proper Tagging and Labeling of Evidence for Later Identification," "Simple Crime Scene Sketching," and much more.  There are separate areas for fingerprints, footwear and tire tracks, computer forensics, human remains, and other grisly details not for the faint of heart. Even if you writing (or prefer reading) cozies, this can be a great way to learn more about what real law enforcement enforcement officers have to deal with at a crime scene, and not just what they show you on TV.

What's in a Name?

For writers looking for character names in their stories, there are many fun sites on the Web that can help. Take, for instance, Behind the Name, a random name generator where you can select first name, middle name (or more than one middle name), gender, and optional surname from dropdown menus and then check the box for the ethnic origin of the first name, everything from African to Icelandic to Welsh. Or, select the first name from categories like mythology, the Bible, witch, rapper, or hillbilly.

If you don't want to think that hard, you can try something like the Random Name Generator which uses data from the US Census to randomly generate male and female names.

Finally, of course, google the finished result you get to see if anyone famous (who might sue you) has that name and you've got yourself a character for your next novel.

Dictionaries are Up!

Well, I got through the Dictionaries and Encyclopedias and they're online. They may not be very "sexy" resources, but some of them are kind of fun. For instance, take the   Blood Alcohol Content Calculator. You can input the number of drinks you (or your story's character) have had, say 3, then choose the type of alcohol you (or your character) have been drinking, for instance a whiskey sour, input your weight, 120 (in my dreams!), how many hours you've been drinking, two hours, then calculate. According to the calculator, I'd be somewhat impaired by now. Change the drinks to double on the rocks, and suddenly I'd find myself with a blood alcohol content of .15, illegal in all states. So, if you have a story where you want to know what it would take to get your character drunk, give this a try.

And of course, y'all know not to drink and drive, right? Your characters on the other hand...

Slogging Away

While my husband is home with the flu today, I'm getting a chance to slog away through my references, as I keep adding sources to the The List. It's amazingly slow going, and I'm finding that those nice long annotations I'd hoped to include have been whittled down to mini-blurbs instead.

I'm struck yet again, as I sift through The List, at how many helpful sites there are out in Webville these days. Ten years ago, I would have been compiling a list of library books, not web sites, and even then your local public library might only have stocked a few of them, the rest having to arrive by interlibrary loan. If you're a writer, then you know as I do how wonderful it is to be in the middle of a story, realize you need a description of a certain forensics technique, say, how a bloodstain pattern analysis would affect where a murderer and the victim should be placed, and voila! You can go to a web site and find out that very thing.

I guess I've had the most fun with the Crime Scene Investigation part of The List thus far. I have to try and not get too side-tracked or I'll get lost in there for hours, but there's a lot of fascinating information available. I'll try to hold on to that thought as I get ready to slog through the Dictionary and Encyclopedia category. Some of those are pretty eccentric, some esoteric, but hopefully all of them will come in handy to folks out there. Still to come -- Forensics, yay! I may have to leave a trail of bread crumbs when I start working in there...

Anyway, The List and links over to the left will lead you to the web site where they're being archived, so you can stop on by and check out the progress. Hopefully, you'll find something new in there.

Happy reading, writing, and researching!