Mother Knows Death Presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy.
Hi everyone, welcome the Mother Knows Death. On this week's External Exam, we are going to talk to a real CSI who was a CSI before CSI was cool, and her name is Alena Burrows. Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Alena is a former CSI as well as a forensic consultant and host of Crime Scene Confidential on the ID Channel, which is super cool and we'll talk about a little bit later, but before we get into that, can you please tell us how you got into this field.
Yeah, So I didn't really even know that crime sated investigation was a thing because I started crime Scene a little bit previous to all of the shows, which is I think how the world was really introduced to crime scene being an actual job. You know, before that, everybody thought it was just part of what detectives did or what police did. Nobody really knew crime scene investigation was a field in its own right. Sorry, if you can
hear sirens, like right on queue. So I was actually in college working on my undergrad degree and my family business. My father is an industrial organizational psychologist and that's kind of a fancy term for the psychology of how big business operates, how they select the right people for the job, how they hire people, how they fire people, and how business operates in general. And he was doing basically looking at how police agencies selected the appropriate people for the job.
And I went to work for him, and I started reading all the general operating procedures and standard operating procedures for law enforcement, and I kind of always gravitated to the crime scene procedures and I just thought, you know, I think this is this is what I want to do. And I called the local sheriff's office for you know, the town kind of where I lived, and I said, well, what do you need to do? What do you need to have? Education background, you know, what do you need
to have to basically be able to work there? And they said, you need four years basically of either crime scene experience or a four year degree in a hard science. Well, I already had a four year degree, but it was in communication, which is not a hard science. So I said, okay, but looking at like all my background in the science classes I had in the four year degree, what if
I got a master's degree in a science. So with that two years of you know, the master's degree plus what I already had, you know, would that be enough? And they said, yeah, as long as you've got four year combination. So lacking any experience in crime scene, it's kind of like the old catch twenty two. How do you get a job without experience? How do you get experience without a job. A master's degree was really going to be my only way to get my foot in the door. So I went and I got my master's
degree in nine months. I did it in three semesters, which was, you know, kind of how I do everything, which is just throw myself all in. And I came back and I said, all right, I got my master's Can I can I apply for the job?
Now? That's so cool. I love that. I love these stories of like back in the day when there was no Internet and we actually had to make phone calls and talk to real people to get answers. There wasn't just Google. So I love that because I feel like when you work really hard to get where you're at, it's it just it just says something. So that's pretty cool. So did you have to do? You have to so for my job, for instance, you have to go to college, but then after you graduate, you also have to get
a certification to do the job. Is there any kind of certification to be a crime scene investigator?
Yeah, So you can't learn what you need to know about being a crime scene investigator from a book. Right, there are some traits I think that will assist you in the job, right, being detail oriented. You know, we write a lot of reports, so you know, written communication skills are great to have. We testify court, Oral communication skills are great to have, presentation skills, but a lot of what we do you have to learn. You know, you have to learn on the job. So there's a
field training program when you get into it. But there are an incredible amount of schools that crime scene investigators go to because so much of the learning is very niche to the job. You know, we have to understand bullet trajectory, blood stained pattern analysis. There are schools for how to recover buried bodies. There's schools for how to deal with surface skeletons, you know, skeletal remains that are on the surface that may be spread out, Forensic anthropology schools.
There's schools for botany, there are schools for insets. There are so many different little kind of intricate areas of forensics for forensic specialties that when you are a CSI, you very much need to be a jack of all trades.
It's interesting because when I first I didn't really know anything about the field either. Obviously when I started and when I interned at the Medical Examiner, they have actual investigators that work at the Medical Examiner's office that I just thought there was one such thing as a crime scene person and I thought they did it, and no,
they just do it relating to the body itself. So they go and take pictures and then they try to interview the family to see like if the person was on any medications or if they left a suicide note or something like that. And then there's like this whole other department which is what you do, which is doing ballistics and blood spatter and all that to actually work
on the investigation of the crime itself. So I know that you've definitely have had your hands in all this just doing this for so many years, But do you have a specific thing that you're like, that's my favorite part of all of this.
Yeah, I think every crime scene investigator kind of gravitates towards one particular arena and they find something that they really love and then they find something that they find, you know, more tedious. And the IAI, which to answer your previous question, certifies crime scene investigators. So there is kind of like a governing body and that's the International Association for Identification. So it's kind of like how attorneys
have the bar exam. Crime scene investigators have the IAI, So there is an overall and then each state has their state kind of IAI, and they provide training to crime scene investigators. They also provide certifications, so even a crime scene investigator that gets training through their agency can also get certifications through the IAI, so you can kind of come in green and then you can become a
certified crime scene investigator. You can become a certified crime scene analyst, you can become a certified Senior crime Scene Analyst, and those are the kind of certifications that a crime scene investigator can obtain. And you know that that works really well when you go to court and you can testify and say that you hold those certifications and those you can also get specialty certifications through the IAI. So if there's something that you really find interesting, you can
seek certification. But you know, I think I always gravitated towards forensic anthropology, Like I loved that aspect of it, and I love the aspect of blood stained pattern analysis because to me, it reads like a book. If you know what you're looking for, if you know what you're looking at, you can you can look at the blood and it tells you somebody has been traveling through here, or what direction somebody is going, And I just I find that so incredibly interesting.
It is really cool when you when you say it like that, it is. It's really interesting, and it's cool when you can look at something and tell something and when everybody else looks at it, they're just like, well, it's just a bunch of blood on the ground, exactly like.
And you can you can tell to a degree how many blows or what type of instrument in there's patterns, right, shoe tracks certainly in blood. But if somebody you know, used say a hammer, and then they laid that down and they took it with them, you could see potentially the imprint of that weapon that was left behind in blood. So even if they took the weapon with them, you might see what that weapon was, even if it weren't at the scene, you could see it. If it was
a screwdriver, if it was a hammer. There are all kinds of clues that can be left behind about the weapon, the victim, and the suspect through blood. So I always liked bloodstained pattern analysis.
That's that's so cool. It's really really cool. So you did say that you have testified it. You guys have to testify at court. That's that's normal part of your job. Have you ever been involved in any high profile cases that you're allowed to talk about or can maybe give us kind of some of an example of something that you did at the job and then you later went to court to testify on.
Yeah, you know, certainly a court testimony is a huge part of what the crime scene investigator does because that is, you know, the ultimate reason that we do what we do. You know, the crimescene investigator documents the scene through notes, through photographs, through observations. If it doesn't get translated to a report, it in a way it didn't happen. Because if you get there on the stand and they can only question you through the photographs that you took, the
notes that you took, that become ultimately your report. You know if they ask you, oh, well, you know, did such and such happen and you go, yeah, actually it did, and they say, well, I don't see it in your report where you documented that. Oh well I didn't document, but I remember it. Well, if you haven't notated that, it didn't happen. So your job is to create that report. You are testifying to a report. So courtroom testimony, in
the end, is everything. That is your ultimate job is that you are a witness to a crime for the state. That is your job as an investigator. So in the end, your courtroom testimony is actually everything. So testimony is a huge part of what an investigator does. It is our job to become a voice for the victim as a witness for them on their behalf, and to speak and translate what we saw and to translate the evidence in
a way that the jury will understand it. Right. So I can't just get up on the stand and say well I saw this, and you know I took DNA swabs or I did this or that. That's not my job. My job is to translate physically what I did in a way that the jury understands it. That's their job. Their job is to make a decision about somebody's guilt or innocence potentially. So my job is, yes to say what I did in an impartial method or in a partial manner, but they have to understand what I did.
I went to court a couple times with the medical Examiner when I was in school, and I don't like, do they do they train you and how to be on the stand and what it's like to have a really aggressive lawyer in your face because one of the cases I went on, it was clear that this guy strangled this woman to death with his hands, and I couldn't believe the lawyer on his side how they were grilling the medical Examiner's office as if they did something wrong. And I was like, oh my god. If I was
up there, I think I would be really intimidated. Do they do they kind of grill you before you do stuff like that?
I think it probably depends on the agency, you know. You know, I think part of my field training program was that you did go to court and watch another crime scene investigator testify. But it largely depends on what you observe. You know, were they grilled, you know, was it an easy case or a difficult case, Was it a burglary or a homicide? You know, kind of is luck of the draw. It also depends on your own
personality type. You have to understand in court that that is the job of you know, defense attorneys or cross examination is their job ultimate job is to make you look like you did not do your job right. I've been asked ridiculous questions on this stand right if I you know, I took aerial photographs and a helicopter and I was asked if I was flying the helicopter while
I was taking the photographs. And you know what kind of training in I'm a very sarcastic person, and you know, in my head, my first instinct is to be funnier, to say, yeah, you know, I was flying the helicopter with my knees while I leaned out into So, you know, they ask questions like did you take an air sample to prove that a battery had occurred? And the thing that I know is that that doesn't occur. That's not valid forensic science. The thing that the jury doesn't know
is that that's not valid forensic science. The defense attorney's job is to make me look bad and to ask me as many questions in a row as possible that I have to say no to so that in the end the jury goes, gosh, is she very good at her job? Like did she she didn't even take an air sample? The jury doesn't know that that's not valid forensic science. We don't do that. Like would I be running through the scene with a ziploc bag trying to collect how does that even occur? So it's it's a challenge.
You just have to stay calm and answer the questions as calmly as possible and not make yourself look worse by being combative or sarcastic on the stand, even though in the head you're going, what the actual.
So you're like, I dated a dude like this before. This guy's a tool. I want to just like that's yeah.
Actually, And I mean I have you know before just said uh, I've turned to the jury and just said that's not a thing.
I love that. That's so great. So I guess a lot of this. You started working as a CSI before we said like before it was cool. You have a T shirt that says that, which I love that. But so CSI show comes out, and so I guess I was in my twenties when it came out. I remember I was still living at my mom's house and I would come home from school and my parents would be sitting on the couch watching this stupid show, and I would just get so annoyed of how it makes it
look so glamorous. Their lab is beautiful, They're all beautiful. They solve a crime in an hour. They have unlimited resources, and as you and I know, like when a person dies, there's no money. They don't care to spend money to help you out investigating this kind of stuff. So what kind of an impact have you seen over the course of your career? And also, just like teaching forensic students, do they come in thinking that that's legit, what it's going to be.
Like, Yeah, there's been both good and bad. I think impacts. I think, you know, to start off with the good, I will say that it got an entire generation of people interested in forensic science. And if it gets people invigorated and interested in the real science behind it, that's fantastic. Right. If it gets people interested in stems then you know, and gets them interested in pursuing a career in the
real forensic science, then that's fantastic. You know, maybe there were a lot of people that ordinarily would not have pursued a science career but thought, hey, maybe this might be for me. Then I think that's fantastic.
And do these people though, then some because I've had this happen to like the students will start and then they're like, oh my god, I can't really handle the reality of what this is. This is really a hard job to do.
Some Yeah, I think there's a natural weeding out process though, of anybody that goes into a career, you know, like that some are going to continue on, they'll push themselves, and then some will say I don't think I can do this. I've seen that in the career in general. When it comes to dealing with deceased individuals. There are a lot of people that go and they think crime scene is cool, they go into it, and then they say,
I don't think I can do this. I have nightmares, I'm afraid to be alone in my home or whatever. You know, crime scene is not for everybody.
So speaking of that, have you ever had any I mean, I know the answer to this, I'm sure, but do you ever have any emotions attached to the case or like I know, for example, people ask me, when you would do an autopsy on a baby, do you cry? And I'm like, no, why would I cry? That's ridiculous, Like I'm doing my job. Yeah, if I cried, that wouldn't be effective. So I'm sure you're the same way. But do you ever go home and get bothered by shit?
Sure? Yeah, I learned very early on. I'm an mpath and I learned very early on that I had to shut it off. And it was a very beneficial skill for me just in life in general. I think learning how it was hard for me, I think to learn how to turn things on and off, and crime scene actually taught me that skill of learning how to shut
it off. And because I think I remember in the very beginning, I had the emotions right, you'd feel it, and then you'd be like, oh, not the place right, not the place, not the time, you know, just being at a crime you know, I think in your field, you're you're removed. It's very clinical, they're gone, right, and that helps a bit. And I would be standing in the living room of a house where the family is saying goodbye, right, and you know, brothers and mothers are
saying goodbye to their loved ones. They're crying, and I felt very out of place, like this is intrusive. I shouldn't be here, and I have to be right, it's my job. But now I'm standing in somebody's living room and somebody has, you know, maybe committed suicide. And I see all the signs of struggle that they were really trying to not get to that point.
You know.
You see the self help books, you see prescription meds, you see maybe notes that they had written to themselves. You see the struggle that they had gone through for so long that they didn't want this and to just kind of get to that. And then having like a wife laying over her husband pray, crying and reading a suicide note out loud, and I'm just standing there like.
Eh no, And You're like, what am I supposed to do right now? Like should I hold their hands? Should I just it here? And like act like and I try to figure.
I try to be invisible, you know, because, as you know, a law enforcement I have to be there to ensure, you know, that the body is not hampered with in any way, but also as a human, I'm trying to allow her that time to grieve and say goodbye, and so it's just you have to figure out how to be both human and an investigator. And I think a lot of my journey just in life and the TV show and everything, is understanding that you can be both, because I think a lot of investigators end up deciding
you can't be both. And I think that's how we have some problematic investigations, is people just go, no, can't be human anymore, shut it off.
Yeah, exactly, when there's always so much more to the story. It's you see that all the time, both in medicine and forensics. I remember when I was a student, I went on a suicide scene and it was crazy that the guy was the husband, had shot himself upstairs in the bedroom and the wife was downstairs and met us at the door crying. It just was so awkward, and that what the investigator that I was with went upstairs and kind of left me downstairs with the wife, and
it was the same thing. I was just like sitting there, like, what do I say, Am I supposed to talk to this lady?
Like?
It just was so awkward. And when we went upstairs and took all the pictures and everything, then we said Okay, we're going to take the body to the medical examiners. Now, his brains and pieces of his skull were all over the pillow in the wall, and I was like, well, are we gonna clean this up? And they're like, no, she's got to call somebody that And I thought how upsetting that was for her, that she had to go up there and see her husband's brain on her linens.
You know, yeah, it is hard to disassociate from that because you're a real person that has family and friends and everything, and it's just it's really cool. But it's cool that there's people like you that can turn it off but also keep it on a little bit to help investigate things. So let's talk about your your TV show. How how'd you get that gig? Because it sounds it sounds so cool you get to host your own TV show.
Yeah, So you know my background obviously with crime scene. I taught forensic science, so I did a lot of public speaking where I would teach and I was at a you know, a public speaking event and I did not know, but I guess there was a there was a scout in the audience. And I came back from that event and got a message and said, you know, would you be interested in, uh, you know, in putting together something a pitch for a television show, you know,
And I thought about it. You know, this wasn't anything that I had ever, This wasn't the goal. I wasn't you know, out trying to get a television show. But teaching, I think has always been my passion and having people understand, you know, how crime scene work and getting people interested in the science. And I thought about it, and like, the path that I have taken has always been trying to get more and more people to understand and help, you know, help people, help victims, be that voice, and
get a larger audience. And I thought, well, you know, this is a way to teach a larger audience potentially, right if I had this a show, I think maybe more people would understand forensic science, maybe more people would get interested in it, and you know, potentially have more victims get their stories out there. So I thought about it, and it was a it was a long process. It took about eighteen months of developing a show, and we developed it together with me in mind, you know, the
concept for crime Scene Confidential. And yeah, then one day it happened and I got the phone call and said congratulations, you have a TV show. And then immediately set in and I was like, oh my god, how do I know I can actually, you know, make a TV show. But yeah, two seasons later we made a couple of seasons of television.
That's so cool. I went through a similar thing that they, you know, when I when my Instagram started blowing up, all these people were like, do you want a TV show in this? And then same thing, like I had never thought about it. And then I went through the process and they would come up to me and say, all right, well, what do you want your show to be about? And then I would tell them my ideas
because I don't do all forensics. I do all pathology, so they just think that there's no interest for medical pathology at all. It's just all true crime right now.
Well I got a little bit of that too. So they they did say that the hardest shows to be successful are science based, you know, science based and talent driven, and so you know that and those are the two things that my show, you know, was my big thing was when it comes to the true crime genre. You know, when you look at true crime, we've we've heard a lot of true crime from typically men and typically like detectives, and I wanted to introduce a new story right from
somebody from you know, a different angle. We hadn't heard about it from a crime scene investigator, who I will argue is closest to the evidence, and we haven't heard from it from a female. So I felt like that women were a little bit underrepresented in that true crime genre. We hadn't heard from it from a stronger female, and we hadn't heard from it from somebody that looked like me,
And I wanted, you know, that out there. I just wanted it to be a new face, a new look, not not to knock, you know, older white men, but kind of heard enough of from older white men.
It's funny that you say that, because for those of you who are listening that aren't watching the video, you're you're around my age, you have this really cool pink hair, and you just don't look like the typical like woman that works in office, you know. So I was going to ask you that because I've had horrible experiences with my profession and my appearance.
Have you had the same, Well, So when I was in law enforcement, you know, I could not have any kind of colored hair. They have policies against that. I couldn't have visible tattoos and couldn't have you know, piercings that weren't you know, in your ears, So in that time period, I didn't have any of that. It's very restrictive. So you know, I've always been kind of a push the envelope type of person. And you know, when I started out in my career, I wanted to be an
art history major. I've just always been more of an artistic type of person. And so when I left law enforcement, when I retired from formal law enforcement from being a CSI in twenty fifteen, I was like, all right, yeah, like gayme on right, I can do what I want with my apparits. So when I was in when I was a CSI, I had a faux hawk, right, and you know, I was on call pretty much twenty four
to seven. I had to have a hairstyle that I could like roll out of bed and go to the crime scene, and a fauxhok kind of fit that because didn't really matter how I slept, I just woke up and went and it looked good. So I had a faux hawk. And even then like when I rolled up to a crime scene, if the deputy didn't remember my name, they would always be like, you know, the the one with the and they kind of like pointed to the hair,
and so they would. I kind of was known for my hair back then, and so I always when I got I went to get my hair done at this really cool salon and this kind of up and coming like a hair guy was, you know, next to the station next to me, and he was doing all these like vivid colors, and I was just that, looks so cool. That would be so cool out of fohaks. But I
couldn't do that, you know, being in law enforcement. And so I found out about like hair modeling where all these girls got their hair done and they basically didn't even pay for it. All they had to do was just get it done for the photos for social media, and they just didn't really have a say in what got done to their hair, but they got it done for free. They got you know, they took photos for social media, and you know, it was good, and so I was like, yeah, where do I sign up for that?
So as soon as I got out of law enforcement, I started doing that. And so my hair has been probably twenty five different colors. I've had extensions. It's been glowing the dark. It's been blue, it's been green, it's been striped, it's been pastals, it's been vibrants. And I kind of it had landed on pink when I did the public speaking event where I got scouted, and so it's been pink ever since then. But it's been like
so many colors and people. So when I was in law enforcement, I never had any issue with it, even though I still kind of had funky hair, it was pink. When I entered the corporate world, nobody gave a damn. I don't think now, you know, I was in corporate meetings, I was in senior management, you know, in the corporate world, and I think more than anything, people kind of rolled
their eyes because it was always a different culf. It would be like a different color like every six weeks, because it would change, and you know, I'd be like, you know, getting a drink at the fountain, and you know, like Carol would be like, oh, I see your hair is a different color. But like, aside from that, I think people got used to it. They kind of just
roll their eyes. I think you have to fight. You have to be really competent, you have to be really good at what you do, and people really probably don't
care about your hair. But I will say that, you know, since the show it Is, it has been my hair color has been the number one thing that I've gotten the most negative feedback about, And it's been the most the number one thing I've gotten the most positive feedback about, which therefore proves to just live your life and do what you want to do because somebody's gonna say something no matter what.
Yeah, you're one hundred percent right. I just don't I don't understand. Even when you were talking about your law enforcement job, it's like they just arbitrally decided that ear rings are cool, Like you could put an earring through your ear, but you can't put one through your nose. Like how ridiculous is that that they put these limitations on things.
Yeah, I think it's ridiculous. If you're competent, you're knowledgeable, you're skilled, you know. I don't think any family would have any issue if I came in and solved a homicide about what color my hair was, right exactly. Really
don't think that would be the case. And I do think it's funny that that's been, you know, the thing that I've gotten, it's been very polarizing when it comes to, you know, my social media, that people are just like, oh my god, we love your hair, and then oh my god, I can't even listen to anything that comes out of your mouth because you have pink hair. You know, like there's a color wheel, right, and pink is on the color wheel, and it's like two ticks over from red.
So I don't understand why anybody feels that, you know, red is an acceptable color and pink is not, and brown is cool. But it just seems very arbitrary to me. And I want to know where do they feel about being bald on that spectrum, because.
I just don't. It's it's so funny, like what, what would your hair color have anything to do with how good you are at your job. It's just the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
It doesn't And the and really what I've come down to is that I'm comfortable with who I am, right, I don't really care. I forget that my hair is pink. I go out in public, It's just it's hair, right, it doesn't matter. It's really unimportant. In the grand scheme
of things. But I think that when people feel comfortable with themselves, people that are not comfortable with themselves are very I don't want to use the word triggered, but you know, I think they're very like, why did they feel okay being expressive or being who they are when I'm not okay with that? I think it's very like it pokes the bear a little bit with people that don't feel okay with being who they are.
Yeah, I agree with you one hundred percent. It's just it's funny because I even see the transition. Like when I worked in the hospital when I was younger. I worked in the city and like nobody cared. I worked for top surgeons, top doctors, and they came in and knew that I was good, and they just they didn't They like looked right past it, right. And then I went to work in the Burbs and this was about eleven years ago, and it was like a freak of
nature walked into building. They they didn't know how to handle it, and they didn't handle it well at all. And despite all my history and them even knowing how good I work and everything, it just was completely ridiculous. This episode is brought to you by my book, Nicole and Jemmy's Anatomy. Do you have my book yet? If not, you better get it because it's really awesome. It is an A through Z journey of the human body and everything that could go wrong with it. Get it now
at thedorramodern dot com slash book. So that's really cool. With your TV show and you you're still are you working on another season or are planning on another one coming out?
So unfortunately Warner Brothers Discovery decided not to renew Crime Scene Confidential, so it is going to live with the two seasons. Uh, but you know, I'm gonna see where my journey takes me next and hopefully it takes me on to another television show.
Yeah, I'm sure it will. It's it's like, now you have your foot kind of in the door, and you know, they people know who you are now, and I think you won't have a problem.
With that at all. Yeah, And it was it was really you know, people ask, you know, I don't have children, but I have two seasons of television and they're kind of the same. To me. That was my you know, firstborn, and it was really important to me. Because that was my that's my heart and soul, it always will be. And it did something that I didn't anticipate. Right when I came out, I thought it's going to be a television show. But it's so much more than entertainment to me.
I met so many victims' families that never got to tell their piece of the story. You know, I think a lot with true crime, it ends up being the focus on the murder or the aspects of somebody's death, and what never gets told are the, you know, the pieces of that person's life. We never get to meet that person through the details of them as a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, you know, the fun bits of their lives, the things that they loved to do, who they were as a person. You know, we tell
the true crime story and it's horrible. It's the headlines, it's how many times they were stabbed, it's you know, it's these horrific details that live on in memory, and the family never gets to say, that was my dad who came and picked me up from softball. And every time I was up at that I looked over and they were in the stands and we barbecued on Sundays, and that was my sister, and she loved Doctor Pepper and we would get ready and she would steal my
lip gloss. And these little moments that mean everything to the family members, those are the moments that don't get told. And that's what the show enabled the family to do.
Yeah, and I love that, and I'm actually mad that they're not continuing it because they really there's like this fine line of exploiting people and a crime and your kind of giving these people. I mean, think about how horrible it is for one of your especially immediate family members, for something terrible like that to happen, and how their entire life is is different. You would almost say it's over in a way, their life before this thing happens.
And then how it's not just the person that lost their life, but it's everyone in the family and friends that lost a part of their life too. And to have their whole entire life be like around this particular crime instead, you have to make them be themselves again
and have a purpose to want to live longer. Because if you think about especially like a child dying or something, or a parent dying, it almost it almost makes you think, like, how are these people even living on after this and when everything in their life is constantly about, Oh, your daughter was murdered, your daughter was murdered, then yeah, you it's cool that you're giving them a voice to let them talk about because they had a whole life with
this person before this happened, and it's not cool that you're just talking about them getting stabbed to death and everything else without really getting like an educational lesson out of it somehow at least like that, and it's good for the families, and there's not enough of that, honestly, Yeah, I was.
It was very important to me that this was not exploitative true crime that there was, that it was empathy was always at the core that we really never mentioned. You know. I think there were a lot of people that said, well, how come you didn't talk about the suspect or what happened to them because the suspect is not important in this this.
Is It's true they and they do go heavy on on that, which is I mean, I do understand that there's a level of interest because I every person has a normal level of interest in it, because you almost want to think, do I have a person in my life that would do this to me, like, what are the warning signs? What happened? How can I prevent that from happening?
To me?
I think that's a huge thing. But you in order to learn those things, you have to also think about the other side of the coin. And we'll get into that a little bit later, because I do want to talk to you for a moment about the Idaho murders and everything like that, but let's talk about crime Con. What Like, what's what is crime Con? I know you've been there a couple of times and actually I'm going there this year too with my daughter Maria. Are you going to be there this year? I will not be
there this year, Emmer. I was hoping I get to hang out with you for a little bit. I'm actually not going to have my kids for a day or two, so.
Interact with people.
But what so when you like, what is crime con? Exactly?
So crime Con is like like any of the cons, it's a conference of all things true crime. So you'll get an opportunity to meet any of your favorite podcasters and then a lot of television folks and just anything true crime. Basically.
Oh that's cool. So did you get to meet some people that you wanted you were interested in meeting because I guess once you have a TV show and you're really in this field, you get to know who's who's on TV, who'se podcasting?
Yeah, yeah, you know there's Paul Holes is likely going to be there. He's always the fan favorite. The last crime Con event I did was the crime Cruise that went to the Bahamas.
Oh that's cool.
Yeah, that was super fun. Yeah, and what was that like?
Was it the whole entire cruise was was the crime Con event?
It wasn't the whole ship, but it was a good number of people, and so you know, there was a portion of the dining room was set off for all the crime cruise folks. And then we did different criming Cruise like events. So I did, uh. I think I
did like three different speaking engagements. You know, it's you get your little brochure and it's like, Okay, I'm going to go to this event at this time, and then I'm going to go over to this event at this time, and you know, you still get your days to go off into the Bahamas and do you know Bahamas events as well, but then you get to go to all the different lectures from your favorite, you know, crime coned speakers, and then they do meet and greets for everybody so
you can meet, get autographs and yeah, it's all it's good times. Oh.
I love that. That sounds really fun. I've just I'd never been and I'm like, I mean it sounds good on paper, you know, but I just wanted to hear from someone that actually was there. So that's cool. All right. So let's talk about the Idaho murders because I know that you've talked about that a little bit on your social media, right, yeah.
I would did the Idaho college murder doc as well's oh.
Yeah last year, right, that came out around March last year. That to me has been at least this year anyway, has been the most impactful case that's happened. I I was really upset when I heard about it, just because I have my older daughter is you know, she's already past college age, so I had a kid that was in college and I just felt so terrible for the
parents and the whole entire situation of it. And then once the investigation started taking place and how that all went down, that it was just kind of like, oh, not really talking about it much on the news who it was, and then all of a sudden, it went down really fast in one day that they had arrested a guy. And then when I saw the guy they arrested that, he just scared the shit out of me. His eyes are just crazy, Like I just he was scary looking to me, and the whole thing bothered me.
So I've been really kind of immersed in this case. Do you have any theories about do you think like all the evidence that was presented on Brian Koberg or do you think that it is at face value or do you think there's going to be other stuff that comes out? Well, I think certainly we don't know everything. We don't need to know everything.
And that's how investigations work, that's how we ensure that we get fair trials. So you know, certainly early on, when I was, you know, on CNN and doing the news venues, I was making sure that the public understands, right, I think, you know, the public kind of has this immediate outcry to say, we want more information, we want
to know what's going on, And I get that. I get that people want to know all of that information, and that's not in the best interest of the victims, right, Yeah, And I have.
A question about that actually, because there's a case this week that I'm going to talk about on a Mother Knows Death about this Georgia college another college student that just got got killed. And I noticed the same thing in the news story on both cases of that and the Idaho one, which was that they didn't think that there was a threat to the public before they caught
the person. And as a parent that sends her child the way to college, I want to know that if this guy, I mean, that's the public interest from my perspective, this guy that killed four students, or this guy that killed the woman the other day at college, why is that not a public threat if that guy hasn't been found yet, Because if he's capable of doing that to one person, why wouldn't he be capable of doing that to other people?
To me, that says the police think that they targeted a specific individual.
Oh okay, that's right.
You're stalking somebody and targeting them, So that means that the general public is not at risk. That he was specifically targeting somebody, Okay, And do you.
Think that at that point they had those particular people
on their radar? Because they were kind of like watching them a little bit, that they knew that if they really went out of their view that they were kind of in control of what those people were doing at that point in the coburger case, or yeah, just just in general, Well, I just feel like maybe if they said it's not it's not a public because there's other girls that go to college there and stuff, right, So there has to be a reason why they think that
he wasn't capable of doing it to somebody else. And the only thing I could assume is that he was under surveillance and they were watching where he was going all the time.
Yeah, it could mean that, or it could mean that they just had very specific information that this person was enthralled with and stalking one specific individual for them to say, look, we think this was a very focused, targeted event. This wasn't somebody that was just a random attack. Right. If it was a random attack, then that I think police would be like, hey, we could potentially have a problem.
This is somebody randomly going around. Then they couldn't say, well, we don't know what the risk is to the general public because this is random. But if this person was you know, specifically targeting one person, and they carried out
the attack on one person. You know, law enforcement would potentially be saying we don't think there's a risk for anybody else at this point, or like you say, they already have this guide under surveillance, they're watching their following, and they don't want to be like, it's okay, it's cool, everybody, we're watching him, because then they're telling that person that they're being washed.
No, yeah, exactly, get that. I get that. He The interesting part of this is that he is a criminal justice major in a PhD program, so pretty high level criminal justice major. And I just wonder if he no, obviously he knows a little bit more about the procedure than the average person, like even someone like me knows about how something like that would go down. And I
just I feel like, I don't know why. I just feel like like some bombshells speaking like Nancy Grace or something, some bombshell is going to come out that that is that we're not expecting. I just feel like it's just a little too sloppy for a person that knows how things go kind of.
I don't know, it's just well, you know, certainly we don't know all the evidence that's been collected. So we're gonna have to wait and see what electronic evidence that they have off of any computers and cell phones. You know, I'm waiting to see there was a dog in the house, so my you know, big thing was I was waiting to see if they've collected any dog fur that matches back to that dog off of his clothing or in
his car. You know, that trace evidence transfer is that's always going to get you, you know, because you can't say you weren't in that home. If you've got evidence like that. You know, certainly any hair off of any of these girls is transferred back. You know, I know that there are those crime scene investigators are collecting his vacuum cleaners, you know, his bed sheets, his clothing, right if you know, if he's smart, we know he's trying to get rid of his clothing and whatnot. But there
are other things that you can't you know. I'm sure you're like me. I've got pink hair all over my house. Every time I sweep, it's just like plethora of pink hair. So think about the amount of hair that he could have in his clothing or his you know, just anywhere that's transferred back. Even if he got rid of the clothing, it doesn't mean that hairs aren't shedding off of those you know, the gear shift, you know, the pedals of his car, his floor mats, you know, just the transportation
to and from. And that's physical evidence, not even electronic evidence. Now, the thing that we that I'm really keeping up with here is that this is going to become a it's going to become a constitutional rights challenge. They know that the DNA on the snap of that knife sheath is
really really critical in this case. We're going to be looking at I think the defense team attacking that forensic genetic genealogy because they're going to say, certainly, he doesn't have a right to if his DNA is abandoned on a crime scene, on that knife sheath, doesn't have a constitutional right to his DNA. If his DNA was a in our familial DNA was abandoned on the trash on
the street, there's no right to that. But I think what they're looking at now is if the FBI or if law enforcement used any types of databases, what right do you have as a citizen to your DNA once you have volunteered it into one of those databases. So is this going to become some Fourth Amendment right, constitutional right if law enforcement utilized databases like that. We know they searched codis and they didn't get a hit. So did they utilize any other databases? You know, my heritage
or twenty three in me, ancestry dot com. Do not all of use the word cooperate in ear quotes because they don't just freely share DNA information with law enforcement. But there are some others. You can download your raw genome from a twenty three and me site. Anybody can do that, and then they can personally take that information and then upload it into another site for other information. And he could have done that into a different site
that law enforcement could access that is more cooperative. So at what point now do you own the rights to your DNA that you have voluntarily provided one of those sources or sites. And I think we're going to see the defense challenging that because we know that that DNA information is going to be very critical here. And last I heard they're looking at trying to defense is trying to push this case back to summer of twenty twenty five.
Oh my gosh, And this is what sucks for the families because they they just have to sit here on edge. And I guess there's always I mean, even though it's all signs are pointing to it with this guy and everything, there's always that possibility that he either didn't do it or he's not going to get in trouble for it. I mean, like look at OJ right, Yeah, it's it's possible.
And think about like living through that trauma of your child being murdered in such a in that way and then so public and then having to live for years after that on edge kind of and not having any kind of closure. It's just terrible.
Yeah, And mark my words, I think right now, if if they get all of those constitutional rights challenges through and the DNA on the knife on the snap of that knife sheath does make it into trial, I think what will what we'll hear from the defense is just because his DNA is on the night, on that snap of that knife sheath, doesn't mean that he was physically at the crime scene. Right He kept his office you know at the college unlocked. Somebody could have taken it,
you know, taken that knife sheath from his office. They could have planted it at the crime scene. We're going to see all kinds of stories from the defense side saying, yes, his DNA is on the knife. She However, it doesn't mean that he stabbed these people. Just means that that was taken from somewhere, you know, maybe that's his night sheaf. Doesn't mean he stabbed him. It could have been placed
there by anybody. You know, we're going to start to seek theories like this that come about from the defense team once it does come to trial. And this is why when I talk to family members who are grieving, I have said in the past that it's dangerous to wait to grieve on a specific thing because I see a lot of times family members say, well, I'll be okay, I'll get peace when this thing happens, right when it goes to trial, when somebody is found guilty, when there's accountability,
because sometimes that doesn't come. You know what happens when it comes to trial, you know, and you've pinned your waiting to grieve on his being found guilty. What if he doesn't get found guilty.
And it's a possibility. It happens people all the time. It's which is terrible, but right, yeah, what are you doing your piece somewhere. So I guess they only had to tell us about the DNA that they found because that was enough, along with the other stuff with the phone records and everything to just get him in jail and then they'll present the rest of this stuff at
court when the child happens. Yeah, so you're saying that there's a possibility that there's a ton more things that they found, like you said, dogcrees or whatever, and that's just not released because we don't need to know that yet.
Well, I think so, And I think certainly they have to release all that information. The prosecution and the defense both have to share that information with each other, but they don't have to share that information with the general public.
And how do you feel about the house being destroyed?
Yeah, you know, I would always rather have it there because of that. What if now, I think it's fairly rare that a jury would take a trip to the house. You know, I know that they've they've scanned the house or they use the laser scanner to scan and recreate that house, so with mot you know, they can model it, so measurement capability is no issue. And I'd rather have
it than not need it. And while I understand the argument that you know, people have to still look at it and that it's causing you know, emotional harm, just because you take the house down doesn't mean that space isn't still there. People still have to look at that space and know what's occurred. So, you know, I don't know I would have Perford.
I just went to New York the other day, and I don't go there that often, and it's like every single time I I look at the skyline, I think about nine to eleven. Like, it don't matter that you know, the space is still there.
You can't erasee what's occurred in that space by taking the house down. So I would rather as an investigator have that and not need it.
I mean, is it cause you do this for a living? Like there, they got all the evidence they possibly can. There's like no way that they would ever have to go back and get something else.
Well, here's the thing, even if they really you know, if they release the house and then you know, trial happens in twenty twenty five, they've lost chain of custody on that house, So they would not really be able to go back in the house and collect more evidence
because the house isn't secured. So as far as the evidence collection perspective, you couldn't go back in and collect more evidence down the road because unless it's you know, been sat on with lock and key, if you know it's been secured with evidence tape, somebody's been you know, sitting on and watching it, because they would throw that out in a heartbeat. They'd say, how do you know somebody didn't plant this, you know, tamper with it, et cetera.
So from that chain of custody perspective, you couldn't go back in. This would really strictly be for the viewpoint of the jurors to have them be able to go in and look and get perspectives and say, well, we think so and so drove by and they could see and through a window, okay, great, have them sit in a car and look and see could you peasially see from that point of view or from that perspective that type of thing.
Oh okay, that's interesting.
So now, and that should be capable of being done with the modeling that they've done through three D scanning, and.
So that's that's like, that's something that I just have questions about too, Like, is that is that a powerful thing for the jury to see, or could they they could? Do you think that they took pictures ahead of time to say like, here's from this road what you could see in the window, here's you.
Yes, I mean, I'm sure they took pictures, and but you can't take all the pictures. That's why, you know, three D laser scanning is so important. If you're familiar, They use the three D scanner so that you can literally put yourself in any viewpoint whatsoever, so that when it comes down to trial, you can pop yourself wherever. So pictures are two dimensional, you can't really put yourself
in that viewpoint when it comes down the road. But now that they have that model, you could put yourself anywhere so that it's the defence says, okay, but what if somebody was lying in the driveway right? Nobody's going to take that photograph, no matter how good of a CSI you are. But they could physically put themselves in that three dimensional model and then show that viewpoint.
Oh that's cool. That what and what do you This is kind of a side note, but do you do you know what field of forensics that is?
Uh, the laser scanning Yeah, so that was actually the job I had when I left crime scene as. I went to work for a company that does laser scanning, and I taught crime scene investigators how to do the laser scanning, which is why I know about that.
Oh that's really interesting.
Yeah, it's it's another method of documentation that crime scene investigators do these days, and that's to use laser scanners. Uh, it's it's kind of replacing two D documentation now because
two D isn't enough. We need three D documentation. So it's it's typical now on large scale you know, high profile scenes or comicides or officer and all shootings, that crime scene investigators will three D laser scan a crime scene so they have all perspectives and they can actually do three D fly throughs, recreate models, and then put themselves into any perspective.
Yeah, that's cool. It's almost like a video game like it really airs. But that's good for the jors that they can really because they I mean go into the house and stuff would be traumatizing for them too. I can't even imagine having to see the crime scene photos
from that. So is that typical if there's like let's just use the Idaho House, for example, there's a building where something like that happens, that the police have custody over that building for x amount of time until they get everything they need out of it, and then they just give and then it just goes back to the owner and they're like, here you go, you could have this back.
Yeah, it's up to law enforcement how long they want to retain control over that house, and then they would turn it over to the owners of the building and then you know, like you say, it's up to them usually you know, homeowner's insurance or whatever to clean up whatever has occurred inside. Really yeah, yeah, it's terrible.
Yeah, I know, I've seen some of the things that I've seen. I just can't I do. I have actually have interviewed a crime scene cleaner before, and I've seen photographs of some of the stuff that they clean up, and I can't imagine. I mean, I see why the guy that owns the Idaho House said that he was going to donate it to the school and let them demo it, because why would you want to keep the
house at that point. So that's really interesting to me because I didn't really realize that that's that that's how things went. I so while the police are there collecting the evidence, it's it's secured by police twenty four to seven, so nobody can Oh that's good. Its like, how do they do that? They put up a fence or something or no.
Well, so usually what they do is they can physically secure doors with evidence tape and then usually they'll put an officer to sit and physically guard the property.
Wow, that's really interesting. Okay, so you're doing You're retired from CSI now, correct?
Yep. I have a forensic consulting business, so I can consult with attorneys or you know, businesses that need somebody to review cold cases or or any crime scenes.
That's kind of cool. Actually, I feel like I like on my website, I look at like I love looking at autopsy reports and just trying to reconstruct what I think happens. So you're kind of doing the same thing. It's really cool. All right, Well, thanks so much for being here today. It was really great chatting with you.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for listening to mother nos death. As a reminder, my training is as a pathologist assistant. I have a master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education. I am not a doctor and I have not diagnosed or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based on my experience working in pathology, so they can make
healthier decisions regarding their life and well being. Always remember that science is changing every day and the opinions expressed in this episode are based on my knowledge of those subjects at the time of publication. If you are having a medical problem, have a medical question, or having a medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit an urgent care center, emergency room, or hospital. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Mother Knows Death on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or
anywhere you get podcasts. Thanks the technical have the Jabla