Search Result: DNA Evidence

Every investigation is a process of elimination. When a crime has been committed it is an investigator’s job to narrow the field of possible suspects until he or she can build a case against an individual or a group of individuals.

Every crime scene, like every picture, tells a story. There are times when an obvious piece of evidence, complete with its own documented history, stares us right in the face, and we pass it by.

If police take someone from one location and transport him or her involuntarily to a police facility for investigation, this will be considered a de facto arrest. Without probable cause, that arrest will be unlawful, with predictable consequences for both evidence suppression and civil liability.

A few months ago, newspapers around the country covered the arrest of Gerald Mason for a murder that happened when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House. Mason was rousted out of a comfortable life in South Carolina and charged with killing two police officers in the Los Angeles suburb of El Segundo, Calif. In 1957.

DNA testing is a complicated thing. But it’s nowhere near as complicated as it used to be.

Any officer who has been involved in a search for a missing victim knows that law enforcement needs every possible break. Cadaver dogs, though not likely to become widely known or ever be the subject of a television series, give cops just the break they need when searching for human remains.