Crime Scene Investigator Network Newsletter

Each method is important in the process of properly documenting the crime scene. The notes and reports should be done in a chronological order and should include no opinions, no analysis, or no conclusions. Just the facts!!!! The crime scene investigator or evidence recovery technician should document what he/she sees, not what he/she thinks. The final report should tell a descriptive story. A general description of the crime scene should be given just as the investigator sees it when he/she does the initial walk through of the scene.

Each department or agency has a method which they use for written documentation of the crime scene. There investigator/technician should follow his/her departments assigned procedures for written documentation. The importance of sharing information can never be over-looked. This article is intended to share ideas in the area of uniform documentation as an example of the format that is used by my department. We use a narrative section of the report divided it into 5 categories. The categories are summary, scene (including a detailed body description if in a death investigation), processing, evidence collected, and pending.

The summary would basically give the details of how we were initiated into the investigation. For an example: " At the request of Robbery Detective J. Doe, this writer was requested to respond to assist in processing the scene of an armed robbery involving 4 unknown masked subjects. Det. J. Doe's preliminary investigation revealed that the subjects startled the victim as she returned home from shopping". For further details of this investigation refer to Det. J. Doe's report.. Our summary is brief and does not include a lot of he said, she said information.

In the scene section of the narrative we give a detailed description of the scene as it is seen upon our approach. The scene description usually includes anything that is unusual and out of place. Any weather or environment conditions are also included. Again this is a description of what we see not what we think. The Evidence observed, its location, condition, or anything remarkable about the item will be included in our scene description section. This

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