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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