How TV CSI compares to reality

By Vicky Wicks, Journal Staff Writer | Sunday, August 28, 2005

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The following scenario is a hodgepodge of plot lines from selected episodes of all three CSI shows (set in Las Vegas, Miami and New York); NCIS on CBS; and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit on NBC.

The information comparing TV Land action with real-life procedure comes from professionals at the State Forensic Laboratory in Pierre, the Rapid City Police Department Crime Lab, Rapid City's forensic pathologist and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

A typical crime investigation scenario in TV land

1. A murder victim, often an impossibly beautiful young woman with a super-model body, is found dead. The crime occurred at a strip club, massage parlor, singles bar, hotel room or party where young attractive rich people show up in designer clothes.

2. Crime scene investigators, or CSIs, show up. There is the attractively mature patriarch of the group, the Man in Charge; at least one svelte female CSI in tight pants and tall heels with big hair and big cleavage; a young, attractive male CSI who (especially during sweeps week) finds some reason to strip off his shirt; and the forensic pathologist, who is either an attractive, svelte woman or a crusty but compassionate older man.

3. The CSIs process the scene, photographing blood spatter, collecting trace evidence and rubbing swabs over surfaces, after which they squirt on a solution to see if the swab turns pink. (If it does, eureka, there's blood!) They use flashlights to look at everything, even when the light is good (or would be if they'd turn on the lights). They run blue or green light over surfaces, pick up fingerprints with clear tape, and put dirt and lint in Ziploc bags. It is not unusual to have a serendipitous find, such as a wrapper from a custom-made condom printed with the name and address of a massage parlor stuck to a $100 bill that, having never been in circulation, has two clear fingerprints on it. The forensic pathologist determines the time of death by taking the temperature of the liver or observing how much blood clotting has occurred.

4. The victim's body is transported to the morgue, where it is autopsied by the forensic pathologist who carries on a conversation with a less learned sidekick and, with a tinge of exasperation, explains every finding and how it is relevant, a conceit devised to keep the at-home viewers in the loop. In one show, the pathologist, annoyed with the sidekick who is hanging over the table asking questions, cuts into the skull of the victim and allows blood to spatter on the sidekick's unprotected face. The victim has no fatal wounds, so cause of death could have been disease or infection.

5. The pathologist says that sex, if it occurred, was consensual because there are no signs of tearing or bruising in the victim's vaginal area.

6. Meanwhile, back at the lab, CSIs (the same ones who were on the scene) are testing fibers, hairs, blood and unknown substances. They put substances into machines that then analyze composition and give a printout of findings. DNA is analyzed immediately and run through CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) and fingerprints are run through AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System). Both services work within seconds and pop up a photograph of the one-and-only person the DNA or print could belong to, complete with name, current address and current phone number.

7. CSIs go out and find the people identified by the processing of evidence and bring them back to headquarters for questioning. They deter these people in interview rooms while they process more evidence that leads to more questions.

8. A CSI comes into an interview room and confronts a suspect with a piece of information. In one show, the CSI throws a document down on the table and identifies it as a copy of the suspect's trust fund that contains a morals clause.

9. Another victim dies. The second murder contains clues that fill in gaps in information in the first murder.

10. The new victim's body is placed in a clear container, like a big aquarium, and super glue fumes are released into the tank. The CSI explains to the conveniently ever-present clueless sidekick that the glue is attracted to the proteins and fat in a fingerprint, which can then be peeled off the body like a sticker.

11. The fingerprint found on the body is run through AFIS. On the screen within seconds is the picture, address, etc., of a suspect who is a bouncer at a bar, or a district court judge, or a blackjack dealer or an attorney who (the CSI explains to Clueless) was fingerprinted when he became a member of the state bar.

12. The CSI goes to the new suspect to collect a DNA sample with a buccal swab and says, "Open wide." The attorney or judge tells the CSI to buzz off, but the blackjack dealer or bouncer complies and opens his mouth for swabbing.

13. It would not be unusual at this point for a suspect to be still wearing the same clothes he had on when the crime occurred, allowing the CSI to notice blood on a shirt or jacket and take the clothing into evidence. It would also not be unusual for the CSI to be wearing the same clothing as he/she was at the crime scene, indicating the action has all taken place on the same day.

14. The CSIs figure out who the bad guy is and go en masse to where he can be found. There is never any doubt of the address, and the bad guy is always at home and sometimes doing something suspenseful, such as holding a gun to the head of a hostage. This necessitates the Patriarchal Man in Charge to shoot the suspect, thus freeing the female hostage who shows a lot of cleavage and, in spite of being held captive by a gun-wielding maniac, has managed not to lose her mascara to sweat, tears or nervous picking.

The myths, the truths

1. About three-fourths of murder victims are male. It is true that murder victims are more likely to be young adults than middle-aged or elderly, but victims come in all shapes and sizes.

2. Traffic at a murder scene would be tightly controlled, and criminalists collecting evidence would wear lab coats or, if the scene is bloody, protective clothing; gloves that are changed frequently to avoid cross contamination; and booties over shoes. Professionals take measures to prevent contaminating the scene by shedding big hair all over it. The forensic pathologist will go to the crime scene if the lead detective asks him to be there.

3. Much of this is true. Local law officers field testing for the presence of human blood don't use a swab but instead use a device that shows one line for negative and two lines for positive, much like a pregnancy test. State criminalists use phenolphthalein, which does turn pink if certain substances, including blood, are present, but they still must test further to determine conclusively that the substance is blood. Crime-scene investigators do use flashlights to examine a scene because the light brings out details such as fibers or the outline of stains. But state criminalists turn on lights in buildings instead of walking through in the dark. The pathologist does not determine time of death; there are too many variables to make a "guesstimate" reliable.

4. Yes, there is an autopsy assistant, and the assistant and the pathologist converse during the autopsy. No, spattering blood on someone's face is not funny, nor is it safe.

5. Rape is not ruled out by the absence of physical trauma. Any pathologist would know that.

6. To get testable DNA material takes time, and getting a DNA identification can take weeks or months, especially at a lab as busy as South Dakota's, which processes DNA for the entire state. A CODIS search takes several minutes. Getting a reading on fingerprints through AFIS takes 20 minutes to five hours, and a search of IAFIS can take from five hours to three days on average. No pictures pop up.

7. Questioning of suspects is done by police or sheriff's investigators, not criminalists or prosecutors. And suspects have constitutional rights, one of which is not to be unreasonably detained. Keeping a suspect in an interview room while a DNA sample is tested (in real time, not TV time) would be torture under anyone's definition.

8. Investigators might think of getting copies of a suspect's trust fund, but probably not on Day One, Hour Four of the investigation.

9. A handy development, but real life doesn't work this way.

10. Vaporized super glue really is used to lift fingerprints, but it is attracted to the moisture left by the fingertip, which is water from perspiration and oil picked up by the fingers.

11. A local fingerprint database would contain fingerprints of people who have been arrested in the local jurisdiction and fingerprints of law enforcement officers. IAFIS is the national FBI database, which contains prints of adults who have been arrested. So unless the bouncer, card dealer, attorney or judge had been arrested or were law enforcement officers, their prints wouldn't be in the system. Fingerprints taken for background checks are not in databases.

12. State criminalists do not ask people for buccal swab samples. Local law enforcement officers do, but they can't collect DNA samples without permission of the subject unless they get a search warrant, and judges won't issue a search warrant without probable cause that one is necessary. The process requires an investigator to write an affidavit and complete paperwork. However, when investigators ask for a sample, most people voluntarily provide one.

13. This illustrates the time warp that exists on television, where action is condensed to fit inside an hour.

14. Bad guys, needing to go out for groceries like everybody else, are not so reliably at home. Crime lab people don't go out and shoot people. Anyone who knows of mascara that stands up under hostage-situation conditions should buy stock in the company that manufactures it.