Det. Melissa “Mo” Phillips, with the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, places a phone into a Farraday bag to secure it from being remotely wiped by its owner. This allows detectives the time to gain a warrant before opening the phone for investigative purposes. Melonie Roberts/mroberts@cherryroad.com

Techniques, aspects of evidence main focuses of training

The Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office has set a new jewel in its crown by having all detectives certified through Missouri Southern State University (MSSU) in the field of Crime Scene Detection (CSI).

“We are one of very few offices throughout the state, if not the only office, that has the entire detective’s unit certified in CSI protocols,” said Sheriff Brad DeLay. “Although this is a small department, with only five detectives, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

And it’s a valuable skill that will stand up to scrutiny by defense lawyers looking to get a client off the hook by casting doubt on an officer’s capabilities or credentials.

Although officers took the specialized classes in different years, they cover the same techniques and protocols, and are taught by the same three instructors at MSSU, with the only changes being the updated chemicals used for collection purposes.

“I think my favorite class was photography,” said Det. Melissa “Mo” Phillips. “You don’t need a ginormous camera with special lenses and all that. I can take a regular camera a sheet of white paper and trace a laser beam to show trajectory. That eliminates having to tape up string, which is time consuming.”

Another favorite was using newer chemicals to lift fingerprints from surfaces.

“If you have ever seen fingerprint dust, it is extremely fine and it gets everywhere,” she said. “I never have been able to lift a print using fingerprint dust without getting a smear across my face or getting it all over my clothes. And if you use too much dust, you can obliterate the print. There is a chemical that you just spray on the surface and boom! The print is right there.”

And for those who doubt an investigator’s ability to lift prints from duct tape – doubt no more. Not only can it be done, the detectives were able to keep the souvenirs from their hands-on training that includes a duct tape scenario. There are even resources to obtain prints from porous surfaces, such as paper, wooden doors and cardboard.

And television shows and crime dramas typically show their lead characters wandering about a room with a spray bottle in hand, searching for blood evidence. These detectives now have resources for detecting, for instance, even microscopic droplets on an aggressor’s clothing.

“It’s pretty exciting to have the spray and the evidence just pops up,” Phillips said.

While Phillips was trained in proper collection protocols by her boss, Lt. Chris Berry, who completed his CSI training in December 2008, she said classes were very informational in providing the “whys” as to the methodology, along with the proper names and terminology.

“They explain why the processing is done in certain ways,” she said.

While television detectives seem to solve the crime and capture the bad guys anywhere between 30-60 minutes, in real life, processing evidence doesn’t work that quickly.

“We can go into a case and pretty quickly figure out what happened,” Phillips said. “But, the court doesn’t care what we know. It wants evidence. So, once we submit our evidence to the Missouri Crime Lab, we are dependent on their time frame for getting it processed. Fingerprints can take six months, dope may take three to six months, but DNA? That can take up to three years. They are really backlogged, so much so that they are no longer taking evidence on property crimes.”

Not only is the state lab backlogged, so are available seats for someone to take the highly coveted classes.

“I’ve been signed up four times to go, and my name always got dropped off the list,” she said. “I told them this time, if my name wasn’t on the list they had just better make room, because I wasn’t leaving.”

In her class, there were two representatives each from Greene County, Newton County and Lawrence County, and eight single representatives from other agencies, one of which was a Missouri State Highway Patrolman.

“This is not a course that is required by the state,” Phillips said. “But, I would highly recommend that investigators take it because it is extremely beneficial to not only the individual, but the entity they represent.

“There is a waiting list to get into these classes. But they are well worth the time and effort.”

While the certification may just seem like another piece of paper to some, it is a genuine asset to investigators.

“I feel extremely fortunate to have been sent,” she said. “A lot of times, when we go to court, the defense will attack our collection methods and processes, even when we do it right. This piece of paper documents that I have received the training and my skills are not something the defense can attack. Every one of us has been given the same training by the same three instructors. That’s it.”

Since receiving her certification, Phillips has worked a burglary case and processed a stolen 4-wheeler.

“The class gave me a boost of confidence,” she said. “Before, I knew what I was doing and that I was doing it right. But now, I’m not nervous about that kind of processing. That boost of confidence and that reassurance that I’m doing things right is priceless.”

Berry, who supervises the detective’s unit, is all for encouraging his employees to seek out that training.

“I wanted everyone to be certified,” he said. “We are members of several task forces, and when we are called out, I want our people to be able to assist in processing the evidence.”

A national award winner in the field of archery, Berry is somewhat an expert in determining trajectory, a process that can prove where an individual was located at a crime scene, depending on the location of a body, a pattern of blood spray or other indicators he has been trained to look at when analyzing the evidence.

“This is something we touched on at CSI school, but we have to go beyond that,” he said. “Each week, detectives are trained in another aspect of evidence, whether it is high impact velocity blood stain analysis, body fluid identification, or voids in splatter patterns. We have to be able to look at something and tell what happened and then try to prove the hypothesis. It’s a huge benefit to have all our detectives have that next level training.” Berry has also taken classes on computer hacking, which he said was eyeopening, and interviewing techniques, of which there are many. “I use a read technique when I interview,” he said. “I look for fidgets, twitches and patterns of manner and speech. I look at written statements.

“The amazing thing is, a suspect will give you clues. It’s kind of crazy. Your brain will not allow you to continue a lie. You may be good at it the first two or three sentences, but people start telling on themselves. It just leaks out. And they don’t even know it.” He pointed out a recent case in which he was interviewing a suspect, but felt there were gaps in the story. “I’ve been doing this for 32 years,” he said. “I had a victim the other day give me a statement and thought, ‘There’s got to be more.’ I wondered what would cause such a reaction from the suspect, and it turns out the crime was fueled by alcohol and pornography.”

These types of crimes cross all religions, class, race and socio-economic barriers. “The availability of porn probably helps heighten the sexualization of children,” Berry said. “Society tries to normalize the sexualizing of young people through advertisements, movies, television and porn. With the technology we have available today, we can work these cases. And we do. The number of investigative tools we have available to us is amazing.”

The first thing Berry has detectives do after completing a class it to teach others in the department.

“Training is important,” he said. “Sharing what they have learned with others results in that information helping us all. It’s exciting having a sheriff that is supportive of our unit and allows us to get the training and supplies we need in order to do our jobs.”

Jim Kotlarz, the newest detective to join the unit, has only been in law enforcement for three years, and also completed CSI training in August.

“This is something I have dreamed of doing since I was young,” he said. “I enjoy problem solving, and solving crimes is like putting a big puzzle together,” he said. “As a kid, I would read books on investigations. I took Criminal Justice in college, but at that time, for every

CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 position open there were 100 applicants. It’s not like that today.”

While Kotlarz said he enjoyed learning about the tools and processes available to investigators now, along with the different uses for chemicals used to collect fingerprints or blood, his puzzle-solving brain is leaning toward additional training in cyber crimes and electronic forensics.

“There is so much benefit in knowing how to pick a part electronics,” he said. “I’m definitely open to getting more training and learning as much as possible. It’s great that Chris [Berry] and the department both support that goal. In looking at my professional training and lifelong learning, I’m all for it, especially as interesting as this field is. There are new ways of doing things that come pout all the time.”

Sgts. Jeff Romine and James Hammond were both working at the time of the interview and unavailable for comment.