Interview with Bill Haynes, Part 5
Posted by Kristine Huntley on
Sep 4, 2009
Level 26ers,
In the conclusion to our five-part interview with former criminalist Bill Haynes, Bill shares two of the cases that really stand out in his memory with us....
Level 26: Is there any one case that you worked or scene that you processed that really sticks out in your mind?
Haynes: I had this one where it was a guy that was hopped up on meth. He was on the hunt for some money to find more meth. He broke into this guy's house without realizing that the homeowner was home. The homeowner was a martial arts expert--an older guy, though, and the perp was a much younger guy. The older guy was a martial arts expert, but the younger guy had youth on his side. So anyways, he goes in there and burglarizes the home and gets surprised by the homeowner. They start fighting and the perp ends up grabbing a hold of a heavy vase and ended up beating the homeowner to death. So then this guy, who was all drugged up on meth, was trying to decide, "Well, what do I do now?"
He first tried to clean up the blood by using cleaning products and paper towels, so he smears all the blood all over the place. And then on the drywall, it's not going to clean off, so he goes into the victim's garage and gets a circular saw, and he starts trying to saw this blood off the wall. It was really bizarre. He doesn't get anywhere with that, so he decides to take the victim and put him in the bathtub and light the guy on fire. He gets some gasoline from the lawnmower and pours that on the victim in the bathtub and lights that on fire and then runs out of there naked or half-naked. So then the neighbors call in a house fire, the victim is partially burned in the bathtub, and then [the police] pick up this guy half-naked and covered in blood running down the street. Crazy.
It wasn't premeditated, so you go in to burglarize somebody, it takes a turn for the worse, now you're in a situation where you've killed somebody. What do you do? You get people acting in very bizarre ways. That's another thing people don't realize is that getting rid of a body is not easy. Covering up a murder is not easy to do.
Level 26: Wow! That must have been quite a crime scene!
Haynes: Yeah, it was just very bizarre. Another one I had was when I was training under Liz Devine. I'll never forget, I was driving into work and on the news I heard about a body in a duffel bag that had been discovered in an ivy embankment off the side of the road. I heard about that driving into work, and then sure enough when I got into work, Liz was like, '"Okay, come on, we're going over to the coroner's office. They found this body." So we go to the corner's office and it's this duffel bag that is literally like oozing out decomp juice. This was August or September. The corner's people estimated that based on the degree of decomp, this thing had been sitting out in the summer heat for like three months. We called it Liquid Man.
Literally, the decomp process was so far along that he basically liquefied. We open this bag up and there's nothing but this green, split pea soup-like liquid and skeletonized remains. The visual is bad enough, but it's the smell. It initiates an uncontrollable gag reflex. That's the only crime scene I ever went to with Liz Devine where I saw her react to the smell. Even a pro like her reacted. It was so bad!
Level 26: Did that murder get solved?
Haynes: I remember we put the body through something called a fluoroscope, which is basically an x-ray machine, and there was evidence of fragmented bullets in there, so the belief was that this guy was involved in some kind of a drug deal gone bad, and that he was shot and stuffed in this bad and left by the side of the road. But I never did hear back from the detectives on it.
That's another reality of it. The crime scene personnel are not there with the detectives all the way through, so sometimes they go cold and you never really hear about them. Or they pick somebody up and [that person] pleads out, so the evidence never really comes into play and you never really hear about it. So that was one of those ones for me. It just kind of fell off the radar.
Level 26: So if the evidence isn't needed, your part is done.
Haynes: Yeah, sometimes they just go cold, or they do pick somebody up and they plead out and you never really hear about it. You're already on to the next one.
In the conclusion to our five-part interview with former criminalist Bill Haynes, Bill shares two of the cases that really stand out in his memory with us....
Level 26: Is there any one case that you worked or scene that you processed that really sticks out in your mind?
Haynes: I had this one where it was a guy that was hopped up on meth. He was on the hunt for some money to find more meth. He broke into this guy's house without realizing that the homeowner was home. The homeowner was a martial arts expert--an older guy, though, and the perp was a much younger guy. The older guy was a martial arts expert, but the younger guy had youth on his side. So anyways, he goes in there and burglarizes the home and gets surprised by the homeowner. They start fighting and the perp ends up grabbing a hold of a heavy vase and ended up beating the homeowner to death. So then this guy, who was all drugged up on meth, was trying to decide, "Well, what do I do now?"
He first tried to clean up the blood by using cleaning products and paper towels, so he smears all the blood all over the place. And then on the drywall, it's not going to clean off, so he goes into the victim's garage and gets a circular saw, and he starts trying to saw this blood off the wall. It was really bizarre. He doesn't get anywhere with that, so he decides to take the victim and put him in the bathtub and light the guy on fire. He gets some gasoline from the lawnmower and pours that on the victim in the bathtub and lights that on fire and then runs out of there naked or half-naked. So then the neighbors call in a house fire, the victim is partially burned in the bathtub, and then [the police] pick up this guy half-naked and covered in blood running down the street. Crazy.
It wasn't premeditated, so you go in to burglarize somebody, it takes a turn for the worse, now you're in a situation where you've killed somebody. What do you do? You get people acting in very bizarre ways. That's another thing people don't realize is that getting rid of a body is not easy. Covering up a murder is not easy to do.
Level 26: Wow! That must have been quite a crime scene!
Haynes: Yeah, it was just very bizarre. Another one I had was when I was training under Liz Devine. I'll never forget, I was driving into work and on the news I heard about a body in a duffel bag that had been discovered in an ivy embankment off the side of the road. I heard about that driving into work, and then sure enough when I got into work, Liz was like, '"Okay, come on, we're going over to the coroner's office. They found this body." So we go to the corner's office and it's this duffel bag that is literally like oozing out decomp juice. This was August or September. The corner's people estimated that based on the degree of decomp, this thing had been sitting out in the summer heat for like three months. We called it Liquid Man.
Literally, the decomp process was so far along that he basically liquefied. We open this bag up and there's nothing but this green, split pea soup-like liquid and skeletonized remains. The visual is bad enough, but it's the smell. It initiates an uncontrollable gag reflex. That's the only crime scene I ever went to with Liz Devine where I saw her react to the smell. Even a pro like her reacted. It was so bad!
Level 26: Did that murder get solved?
Haynes: I remember we put the body through something called a fluoroscope, which is basically an x-ray machine, and there was evidence of fragmented bullets in there, so the belief was that this guy was involved in some kind of a drug deal gone bad, and that he was shot and stuffed in this bad and left by the side of the road. But I never did hear back from the detectives on it.
That's another reality of it. The crime scene personnel are not there with the detectives all the way through, so sometimes they go cold and you never really hear about them. Or they pick somebody up and [that person] pleads out, so the evidence never really comes into play and you never really hear about it. So that was one of those ones for me. It just kind of fell off the radar.
Level 26: So if the evidence isn't needed, your part is done.
Haynes: Yeah, sometimes they just go cold, or they do pick somebody up and they plead out and you never really hear about it. You're already on to the next one.
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Interview with Bill Haynes, Part 4
Posted by Kristine Huntley on
Sep 3, 2009
Level 26ers,
Reading about serial killers is one thing, but can you imagine what it’s like to be in the same room as one? Or to testify against someone who has committed multiple murders? Bill Haynes did just that when he took the stand to testify against California’s “60 Slayer.” Read his account below…
Level 26: What serial killer did you testify against?
Haynes: Ivan Hill. He was known as the 60 Slayer--he was active along the 60, the Pomona freeway. It was the late 80s, pre-DNA and definitely before CODIS. It might even have been a little earlier. He was picking up prostitutes, and he'd have sex with them and then he'd strangle them. All the sudden, the crimes stopped. For the most part [when that happens], you know either the guy died or he's in jail for something else. Nobody knew, but behind the scenes he'd gotten picked up on an armed robbery. He was convicted on that and was in prison.
While he was in prison, DNA analysis evolved, CODIS came into being, all this legislation was passed that you can take reference samples from people that have been convicted of violent felonies. So he's about to get out of prison on this armed robbery charge, and they pulled up his reference sample. Also in the meantime all this grant money comes in for all these different law enforcement agencies to go back to old cases and start doing DNA analysis on evidence from old cases and entering that into CODIS.
So this guy is sitting in prison, all the while all this DNA evidence from these serial rape-murders he committed was sitting in CODIS now, waiting to hit on a reference sample. So he's about to get out prison, they send us a reference sample, [I] process that--and I had done some of the work on the work on old evidence from the old cases--so his reference sample gets processed, entered into CODIS, and all the sudden, bing, bing, bing. So I was one of the people that did the DNA work on the old evidence and went and testified against him.
Level 26: What was it like sitting across from him in the courtroom?
Haynes: Again, I think the best term is surreal. For me, that's my worst nightmare, to be in that courtroom as the defendant, knowing not only is my liberty at stake here, but my life. And you realize that, here I am sitting on the witness standing, giving all this damning testimony, and here's this serial killer looking at me, probably thinking, "I just need to get that guy to shut the hell up."
Level 26: Is he still on death row or has he been executed?
Haynes: That process takes so long, that I can't imagine that it's already happened. Immediate the appeals process kicks in. I testified against him two years. I can't imagine that that will happen for twenty years.
Tomorrow: Bill shares some of his most unusual cases. And don’t forget to check out the CSI Files interview with Bill about his writing career!
Reading about serial killers is one thing, but can you imagine what it’s like to be in the same room as one? Or to testify against someone who has committed multiple murders? Bill Haynes did just that when he took the stand to testify against California’s “60 Slayer.” Read his account below…
Level 26: What serial killer did you testify against?
Haynes: Ivan Hill. He was known as the 60 Slayer--he was active along the 60, the Pomona freeway. It was the late 80s, pre-DNA and definitely before CODIS. It might even have been a little earlier. He was picking up prostitutes, and he'd have sex with them and then he'd strangle them. All the sudden, the crimes stopped. For the most part [when that happens], you know either the guy died or he's in jail for something else. Nobody knew, but behind the scenes he'd gotten picked up on an armed robbery. He was convicted on that and was in prison.
While he was in prison, DNA analysis evolved, CODIS came into being, all this legislation was passed that you can take reference samples from people that have been convicted of violent felonies. So he's about to get out of prison on this armed robbery charge, and they pulled up his reference sample. Also in the meantime all this grant money comes in for all these different law enforcement agencies to go back to old cases and start doing DNA analysis on evidence from old cases and entering that into CODIS.
So this guy is sitting in prison, all the while all this DNA evidence from these serial rape-murders he committed was sitting in CODIS now, waiting to hit on a reference sample. So he's about to get out prison, they send us a reference sample, [I] process that--and I had done some of the work on the work on old evidence from the old cases--so his reference sample gets processed, entered into CODIS, and all the sudden, bing, bing, bing. So I was one of the people that did the DNA work on the old evidence and went and testified against him.
Level 26: What was it like sitting across from him in the courtroom?
Haynes: Again, I think the best term is surreal. For me, that's my worst nightmare, to be in that courtroom as the defendant, knowing not only is my liberty at stake here, but my life. And you realize that, here I am sitting on the witness standing, giving all this damning testimony, and here's this serial killer looking at me, probably thinking, "I just need to get that guy to shut the hell up."
Level 26: Is he still on death row or has he been executed?
Haynes: That process takes so long, that I can't imagine that it's already happened. Immediate the appeals process kicks in. I testified against him two years. I can't imagine that that will happen for twenty years.
Tomorrow: Bill shares some of his most unusual cases. And don’t forget to check out the CSI Files interview with Bill about his writing career!
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Interview with Bill Haynes, Part 3
Posted by Kristine Huntley on
Sep 2, 2009
Level 26ers,
Being a criminalist can be a tough job at times, especially when faced with truly tragic cases. It also sometimes means getting evidence directly from a killer. In part three of our interview with Bill Haynes, Bill talks about the tough side of being a criminalist, and a jarring encounter with a killer…
Level 26: What was the most difficult part of your job as a crime scene investigator?
Haynes: The most difficult part on an emotional level was if you had a crime scene where there were children involved, by far. A lot of crimes--not to sound cold--but the grim reality is that a lot of your victims in one case were your suspects in a previous case. But every so often, you get a case where the victims truly were innocent, and they were victimized by savage individuals. A lot of times the victims are children. By far, crimes against children are the worst.
With one case I had, the victims were an older couple. They were probably in their 80s. They had befriended a homeless guy who they were giving money to to try to help get him on his feet, and he ended up breaking into their home and killing both of them and stealing all of their jewelry and their money. Stuff like that, it gets to you.
Level 26: Have you ever been face to face with a killer?
Haynes: Yeah, I have. There was one time I got called down to process this woman who had killed her husband. They had her in a holding cell. And they wanted me to check under her fingernails for blood because she stabbed her husband. A lot of these cases aren't whodunit cases. A lot of them, it's very obvious from early on who the killer is. It's just a matter of making sure you get all your t's crossed and your i's dotted before you go to trial. Because people's stories change. Once they lawyer up, they start changing their story.
So I get called and I go down to the sheriff's station and she's in this holding cell. The problem was that she'd washed her hands. The detective had told me, "You might not get a positive." What he asked me to do was if I got a negative, to pretend that I got a positive so that he could use that against her to get her to confess. You can use tactics like that to get people to confess. So that's what happened. I got a negative, so I went ahead and ran my positive control, and that came up, so they used that as leverage on her.
Level 26: What was it like being in the room with her, knowing she'd just killed someone?
Haynes: It's very surreal. It's also very surreal whenever you're testifying against somebody, especially if they're looking at life without parole or if one case, I testifying against a serial killer and he ended up getting the death penalty. So it's very surreal, especially in close quarters with somebody like that. These thoughts are going through your head like, "This woman, four hours ago, stabbed her husband to death." I think surreal is best way to put it.
Tomorrow: Bill testifies against a serial killer!
Being a criminalist can be a tough job at times, especially when faced with truly tragic cases. It also sometimes means getting evidence directly from a killer. In part three of our interview with Bill Haynes, Bill talks about the tough side of being a criminalist, and a jarring encounter with a killer…
Level 26: What was the most difficult part of your job as a crime scene investigator?
Haynes: The most difficult part on an emotional level was if you had a crime scene where there were children involved, by far. A lot of crimes--not to sound cold--but the grim reality is that a lot of your victims in one case were your suspects in a previous case. But every so often, you get a case where the victims truly were innocent, and they were victimized by savage individuals. A lot of times the victims are children. By far, crimes against children are the worst.
With one case I had, the victims were an older couple. They were probably in their 80s. They had befriended a homeless guy who they were giving money to to try to help get him on his feet, and he ended up breaking into their home and killing both of them and stealing all of their jewelry and their money. Stuff like that, it gets to you.
Level 26: Have you ever been face to face with a killer?
Haynes: Yeah, I have. There was one time I got called down to process this woman who had killed her husband. They had her in a holding cell. And they wanted me to check under her fingernails for blood because she stabbed her husband. A lot of these cases aren't whodunit cases. A lot of them, it's very obvious from early on who the killer is. It's just a matter of making sure you get all your t's crossed and your i's dotted before you go to trial. Because people's stories change. Once they lawyer up, they start changing their story.
So I get called and I go down to the sheriff's station and she's in this holding cell. The problem was that she'd washed her hands. The detective had told me, "You might not get a positive." What he asked me to do was if I got a negative, to pretend that I got a positive so that he could use that against her to get her to confess. You can use tactics like that to get people to confess. So that's what happened. I got a negative, so I went ahead and ran my positive control, and that came up, so they used that as leverage on her.
Level 26: What was it like being in the room with her, knowing she'd just killed someone?
Haynes: It's very surreal. It's also very surreal whenever you're testifying against somebody, especially if they're looking at life without parole or if one case, I testifying against a serial killer and he ended up getting the death penalty. So it's very surreal, especially in close quarters with somebody like that. These thoughts are going through your head like, "This woman, four hours ago, stabbed her husband to death." I think surreal is best way to put it.
Tomorrow: Bill testifies against a serial killer!
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Interview with Bill Haynes, Part 2
Posted by Kristine Huntley on
Sep 1, 2009
Level 26ers,
Ever wonder what it’s actually like to work a crime scene? Former criminalist Bill Haynes takes you behind the crime scene tape in the second part of our exclusive interview, to give you the scoop on what actually happens once a forensic specialist arrives at the scene of a crime:
Level 26: What about your job as a forensic specialist would most surprise people? What is it we don't see in CSI?
Haynes: I'd have to say the amount of meticulous note taking that goes on. From the moment you set foot into that crime scene, you immediately start documenting. The minute you get the phone call that there's a homicide--[you write down that] the call came in at such-and-such time, you get to the scene, you document when you got there, you're documenting names of everybody that's there, the detectives you're going to be working with, you're documenting ambient temperature, you name it. Everything you touch, everything you plan on collecting, you have to write that down. You have to draw a sketch of the crime scene, you have to take measurements. If you're going to collect a bloody knife that's in the living room, you have to take two measurements, from the north wall and from the east or west wall, so that you can reconstruct the crime scene.
It's all preparation for when you go to court. And most cases don't even go to court! Most cases are pled out. You're doing all of this meticulous note taking and documentation that, most likely, you'll never even refer back to. But every so often, you'll be on the witness stand, and the defense attorney will be asking you, "Where in the house did you collect that knife?" And this is usually like two or three years down the road. You were at the crime scene a few years ago and now you're on the witness stand. You're not going to remember it was five feet from the north wall and three feet from the east wall. You have to refer back to your notes to answer that question.
And then once you get all the evidence into the lab, you have that bloody knife. You want to collect the bloody stain off the knife for DNA testing. The stain that you chose to collect, was it from the handle or was it from the tip of the blade? You have to document all of that. You have to photograph it, you have to sketch it, you have to describe it. It's insane the amount of note taking that goes on.
Level 26: What kind of evidence is the most common to find at a crime scene? What kind is the most helpful?
Haynes: In terms of murders, the thing that people probably don't realize is that [during a] murder, if you're using something other than a gun--like if you're going to beat somebody to death or stab somebody to death--the victims usually fight back. Most people think, if I'm going to kill somebody, I'm just going to stab them once and they're going to drop dead and then that's it. Everything's real clean. And that's not the way it really happens. You start stabbing somebody, they're not going to just immediately drop dead. They're going to fight back and a lot of times, the killers themselves end up getting cut or injured somehow. That's really where blood splatter interpretation comes into play--you're looking for that errant bloodstain, the one that doesn't make sense given the injuries of the victim. And then that's the one you want to do DNA on, that's the one that's going to be from your killer.
Level 26: Are there people who specialize just in reading blood splatter?
Haynes: Yeah. At my lab, there were several of us in the forensic biology section who got specialized training in that. There are definitely people who are considered the end all, be all experts in blood splatter analysis. The name that comes to mind is Tom Bevel. He's one the guys you could say wrote the book on blood splatter interpretation. He has several books out there on that. There are many, many others at many different crime labs who have training and experience in blood splatter interpretation. Liz Devine is a good example also. She has a lot of training and experience in that.
It is very helpful. A lot of crime scenes you go to, there could be literally thousands of bloodstains and smears at the crime scene. Yeah, sure, you want to have a sample of the victim's blood, but that's easy to find. Just check the blood pool right next to the victim. The one you want to find out of the five hundred stains that are there [is the killer's]. The first question is, is it possible that any of these were left by the killer? And if so, which one? You have to identify that.
Tomorrow: Bill tells you what it's like to process a killer for evidence!
Ever wonder what it’s actually like to work a crime scene? Former criminalist Bill Haynes takes you behind the crime scene tape in the second part of our exclusive interview, to give you the scoop on what actually happens once a forensic specialist arrives at the scene of a crime:
Level 26: What about your job as a forensic specialist would most surprise people? What is it we don't see in CSI?
Haynes: I'd have to say the amount of meticulous note taking that goes on. From the moment you set foot into that crime scene, you immediately start documenting. The minute you get the phone call that there's a homicide--[you write down that] the call came in at such-and-such time, you get to the scene, you document when you got there, you're documenting names of everybody that's there, the detectives you're going to be working with, you're documenting ambient temperature, you name it. Everything you touch, everything you plan on collecting, you have to write that down. You have to draw a sketch of the crime scene, you have to take measurements. If you're going to collect a bloody knife that's in the living room, you have to take two measurements, from the north wall and from the east or west wall, so that you can reconstruct the crime scene.
It's all preparation for when you go to court. And most cases don't even go to court! Most cases are pled out. You're doing all of this meticulous note taking and documentation that, most likely, you'll never even refer back to. But every so often, you'll be on the witness stand, and the defense attorney will be asking you, "Where in the house did you collect that knife?" And this is usually like two or three years down the road. You were at the crime scene a few years ago and now you're on the witness stand. You're not going to remember it was five feet from the north wall and three feet from the east wall. You have to refer back to your notes to answer that question.
And then once you get all the evidence into the lab, you have that bloody knife. You want to collect the bloody stain off the knife for DNA testing. The stain that you chose to collect, was it from the handle or was it from the tip of the blade? You have to document all of that. You have to photograph it, you have to sketch it, you have to describe it. It's insane the amount of note taking that goes on.
Level 26: What kind of evidence is the most common to find at a crime scene? What kind is the most helpful?
Haynes: In terms of murders, the thing that people probably don't realize is that [during a] murder, if you're using something other than a gun--like if you're going to beat somebody to death or stab somebody to death--the victims usually fight back. Most people think, if I'm going to kill somebody, I'm just going to stab them once and they're going to drop dead and then that's it. Everything's real clean. And that's not the way it really happens. You start stabbing somebody, they're not going to just immediately drop dead. They're going to fight back and a lot of times, the killers themselves end up getting cut or injured somehow. That's really where blood splatter interpretation comes into play--you're looking for that errant bloodstain, the one that doesn't make sense given the injuries of the victim. And then that's the one you want to do DNA on, that's the one that's going to be from your killer.
Level 26: Are there people who specialize just in reading blood splatter?
Haynes: Yeah. At my lab, there were several of us in the forensic biology section who got specialized training in that. There are definitely people who are considered the end all, be all experts in blood splatter analysis. The name that comes to mind is Tom Bevel. He's one the guys you could say wrote the book on blood splatter interpretation. He has several books out there on that. There are many, many others at many different crime labs who have training and experience in blood splatter interpretation. Liz Devine is a good example also. She has a lot of training and experience in that.
It is very helpful. A lot of crime scenes you go to, there could be literally thousands of bloodstains and smears at the crime scene. Yeah, sure, you want to have a sample of the victim's blood, but that's easy to find. Just check the blood pool right next to the victim. The one you want to find out of the five hundred stains that are there [is the killer's]. The first question is, is it possible that any of these were left by the killer? And if so, which one? You have to identify that.
Tomorrow: Bill tells you what it's like to process a killer for evidence!
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Interview with Bill Haynes, Part 1
Posted by Kristine Huntley on
Aug 31, 2009
Level 26ers,
If any of you are CSI: NY fans, you might already be familiar with Bill Haynes' work—he’s been a technical advisor on the show since its first season, and has penned numerous episodes for it. But what you probably don’t know is that Bill worked for several years as a criminalist in the LA County Sheriff’s department, processing evidence and going to crime scenes like the CSIs we see on television. In an exclusive five-part interview with Level26.com, Bill discusses his career, the details of crime scene investigating you might not know about and some truly memorable cases he’s worked on. In part one, Bill tells us how he got his start as a criminalist:
Level 26: What did you do for LA County, and how did you get into the field of forensics?
Bill Haynes: Back in my undergrad days, I was pre-med. I kind of had a reality check with myself, realizing that I'm not really the hospital type. And while I have a lot of respect for doctors and people who work in that industry, I realized it wasn't for me. I was already several years into pre-med, and I recalled reading about forensic DNA analysis, which was pretty much still in its infancy at that time (in the early 90s). I had read about that in one of my bio classes and thought that sounded fascinating. I pretty much just glommed on to that and ran with that. I still ended up getting that pre-med degree--I got a bachelors in Biology with a minor in Chemistry and then from there I went to Cal State Los Angeles and got a masters degree in forensic science. This was all pre-CSI days--CSI hadn't even launched yet. It was right around the time of the O.J. trial--it was just starting to get on people's radars. While I was getting my masters in forensics, I was also applying for forensic scientist positions and got hired on by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. That was in 1998.
The first two years I was there, I was in the narcotics division of the lab. Basically, doing the standard drug testing. I was also assigned to the clandestine laboratory unit. It was primarily meth labs. Occasionally it was a PCP lab, every once in a while an ecstasy lab. That was really where I got my first introduction into crime scene investigation because you were actually going out in the field and collecting samples from these meth labs, and then taking the samples back to the laboratory and analyzing them.
So I did two years of that, and then I was transferred into the forensic biology section, which encompasses all your standard testing of physiological fluids. You start off by screening for physiological fluids--is the red stain you found in the suspect's car blood or ketchup? After you do that presumptive testing to determine that it is in fact blood, the question becomes, is it human? And if it's human, does it match the DNA profile of the victim? So that obviously encompasses DNA analysis, which I was doing [as well]. I was doing the serology testing, the DNA testing and also crime scene investigation, which is obviously going out into the field, mostly to homicide scenes. Occasionally, you go out on a sexual assault case--a lot of rapes happen in people's cars or in their home. Also assault cases--but for the most part, it was murders. You're collecting shoe prints. We had special photographers who handled all of the fingerprint work, so we really didn't do any of the fingerprint work. As far as any trace evidence, or serology evidence--blood, semen, saliva, anything like that--we would collect that. Murder weapons obviously. And then there's blood splatter interpretation.
Coming up tomorrow: What you might not know about crime scene investigating!
If any of you are CSI: NY fans, you might already be familiar with Bill Haynes' work—he’s been a technical advisor on the show since its first season, and has penned numerous episodes for it. But what you probably don’t know is that Bill worked for several years as a criminalist in the LA County Sheriff’s department, processing evidence and going to crime scenes like the CSIs we see on television. In an exclusive five-part interview with Level26.com, Bill discusses his career, the details of crime scene investigating you might not know about and some truly memorable cases he’s worked on. In part one, Bill tells us how he got his start as a criminalist:
Level 26: What did you do for LA County, and how did you get into the field of forensics?
Bill Haynes: Back in my undergrad days, I was pre-med. I kind of had a reality check with myself, realizing that I'm not really the hospital type. And while I have a lot of respect for doctors and people who work in that industry, I realized it wasn't for me. I was already several years into pre-med, and I recalled reading about forensic DNA analysis, which was pretty much still in its infancy at that time (in the early 90s). I had read about that in one of my bio classes and thought that sounded fascinating. I pretty much just glommed on to that and ran with that. I still ended up getting that pre-med degree--I got a bachelors in Biology with a minor in Chemistry and then from there I went to Cal State Los Angeles and got a masters degree in forensic science. This was all pre-CSI days--CSI hadn't even launched yet. It was right around the time of the O.J. trial--it was just starting to get on people's radars. While I was getting my masters in forensics, I was also applying for forensic scientist positions and got hired on by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. That was in 1998.
The first two years I was there, I was in the narcotics division of the lab. Basically, doing the standard drug testing. I was also assigned to the clandestine laboratory unit. It was primarily meth labs. Occasionally it was a PCP lab, every once in a while an ecstasy lab. That was really where I got my first introduction into crime scene investigation because you were actually going out in the field and collecting samples from these meth labs, and then taking the samples back to the laboratory and analyzing them.
So I did two years of that, and then I was transferred into the forensic biology section, which encompasses all your standard testing of physiological fluids. You start off by screening for physiological fluids--is the red stain you found in the suspect's car blood or ketchup? After you do that presumptive testing to determine that it is in fact blood, the question becomes, is it human? And if it's human, does it match the DNA profile of the victim? So that obviously encompasses DNA analysis, which I was doing [as well]. I was doing the serology testing, the DNA testing and also crime scene investigation, which is obviously going out into the field, mostly to homicide scenes. Occasionally, you go out on a sexual assault case--a lot of rapes happen in people's cars or in their home. Also assault cases--but for the most part, it was murders. You're collecting shoe prints. We had special photographers who handled all of the fingerprint work, so we really didn't do any of the fingerprint work. As far as any trace evidence, or serology evidence--blood, semen, saliva, anything like that--we would collect that. Murder weapons obviously. And then there's blood splatter interpretation.
Coming up tomorrow: What you might not know about crime scene investigating!
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