To Halve and to Hold: For better or for much, much worse

Now THAT's some dedication.

The crew finds a buttload of bones in the middle of the Nevada desert. They reassemble the skeleton back in the lab and they realize there are marks from an electric saw on the bones, meaning, of course, that they were chopped up. They run some tests and learn that the bones belonged to a 70-year-old man who was never reported missing. They learn that he was dead before he was chopped up, and he had a bunch of heart medicine in his system. After badgering his widow for a while, they finally get her to admit that it was intentional suicide, and she chopped him up because they couldn't afford a funeral. But the real reason is this: SHE WAS COMMITTING SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUD!

I'm shaking in my boots.

Great use of forensic osteology in this episode. Through this study, they were able to figure out everything about the victim that the widow wouldn't tell them. Real forensics, real studies, hauntingly realistic case. Great stuff.

Too Tough to Die: Like a $3 steak; only, you know, still alive

Halo 'round my head, too tough to *gunshot*

TOO TOUGH TO DIE. A chick got shot in the head, raped, and left for dead. BUT SHE LIVED! Oh, snap! The crew finds a bunch of bullet casings as well as a belt loop from a pair of jeans at the apparent crime scene. They take the casings into the lab and compare them to all of the casings in their database. They found a match from a gang-related shooting, so they go into the BAD neighborhood. They make an imprint of the belt loop on a scent pad and give it to scent dogs to run through the 'hood. They find a kid with a missing belt loop and they have a match! Turns out, the victim is going to live, so he's not going to be tried for murder. Sara ain't happy.

Not bad.

The stuff on scent pads is good, and scent dogs are always a good tool for finding people. But are we REALLY supposed to believe that there's a human scent on a BELT LOOP that has been sitting there for HOURS?!?!?!?! I think that's a bit of a stretch.

I-15 Murders: Highway to hell

"Don't worry, you'll have company."

This week's episode is fittingly entitled "I-15 Murders", in which there are murders along I-15 (go figure). The crew learns that a woman was kidnapped from a grocery store and that there was a message from the captor on a bathroom wall stating that five women were killed, and they soon learn that four other women were kidnapped in different grocery stores in three states, and there was a message at each one. They soon find the body of one who went missing, and autopsy showed that the body had been refrigerated shortly before it was dumped off.

Because of this, they realize that the bodies were being kept in a refrigerated truck that was on a route on I-15. They research all truck routes for I-15 and narrow it down until they have only one truck, and voila, they find the murderer.

I'm getting chills, and I'm pretty sure it's not from the fridge.

I especially liked how they managed to find out that a girl had written the notes by enlisting the help of a graphologist, who determined from the handwriting that it was a fairly uneducated woman. Turns out, it was the trucker's girlfriend, who lured the women into the trucker's grasp. Graphology certainly is real and it's definitely useful for forensics. Why can't criminals learn to just make ransom notes anymore?

My only real problem, though, is their process of elimination in the truck research. I know that woman works there, but how does she know the commands for eliminating trucks that aren't refrigerated, ones that weren't in Utah last Thursday, and stuff like that? Especially in the year 2000? It just doesn't make much sense.

Another part of the team finds a man dead in his own house by gunshot wounds. His distraught brother is also there, and he claims that a man broke into the house (a window just by the crime scene was broken) and shot him. However, they notice that all of the money and valuables are still in the house, so something was obviously up. Sara searches the brother's pants and notices a shard of glass caught in them. They take the shard as well as part of the busted window and they soon learn that the glass was broken from the INSIDE!

However, they needed more evidence. Why would the dude just shoot his brother like that? They try to look into his computer for clues, but it won't boot up. Warrick opens up the box to see what's wrong, and he finds out soon enough: THERE'S A GUN LODGED IN THERE! What's better, they find a shard of glass in the butt of the gun, and tests show that it matches glass from the bro's pants and from the window. GUILTY!

Hot damn, the evidence just piles up.

Great forensics here. The best evidence they found (other than the gun in the computer, of course) was a result of their window research. They knew that on broken glass, there is a right angle opposite the broken edge, and they found it on the outside of the window, which of course means it was broken on the inside.

Good episode, great ideas, awesome forensics. Keep it up!

Sex, Lies and Larvae: Nothing clever this time, that's just gross

Not quite as sexy as videotape.

This week's episode was called "Sex, Lies, and Larvae". The CSI team finds a dead girl in the mountains with a bullet hole in her head and insects all over her body. Before they take the body in, Grissom, a forensic entomologist, collects the critters for his own studies. He soon realizes that the bugs on the victim's body can only be found in urban areas, which leads him to conclude that the victim was taken to the mountains after being killed.

They learn that the victim was missing for five days, which didn't seem to faze the victim's husband, who seemed to have a history of an abusive relationship. They notice that his gun was nicely polished and that several bullets were missing. After noticing a suspicious smell of bleach, Sara sprays luminol on the walls and find bloodstains that the husband had clearly tried to wash away.

Grissom tries to figure out how long the victim had actually been dead by examining the insects' development. To his surprise, the insects had progressed for only three days since appearing on the victim's corpse.

However, Grissom isn't too sure. He remembers that the victim was found wrapped in a blanket, and he hypothesizes that the blanket could have slowed the insects' growth or just kept them off for a couple days longer. He experiments by wrapping a recently-deceased pig in the blanket (not the hors d'oeuvre variety; this is actually a pig in a blanket) and leaving it there for five days. At the end of the experiment that it does indeed take five days for insects to undergo three days' worth of growth once the blanket is factored in.

Bravo once again, CSI writers. This one had me on the edge of my seat.

According to this article, forensic entomology is indeed used in criminal investigations in terms of insect infestation. In this case, Grissom figured that larvae appeared on the victim's body shortly after the victim was killed, and he studied their growth to figure out how long they had been there. I'd figure that's as accurate a timekeeping method as any.

As for the luminol, I believe it entirely. Sara wasn't kidding when she told the suspect that bleach doesn't remove completely get rid of blood. Trace amounts were left behind (according to this explanation, tiny blood particles can stay in place unless you scrub REALLY hard), and the luminol picked it right up.

Awesome episode with a great glimpse into some of the techniques used by forensics. Highly recommended.

Unfriendly Skies: Thanks for flying, now get lost

Welcome to your doom.

The most recent CSI we watched was "Unfriendly Skies" (man, I'm starting to love these titles), in which a man was found dead on an airplane in what appeared to be a murder. Already, this one starts to sound interesting.

Right out of the gate (pun unintentional), they found an apparent self-defense wound on his hand and scrapes on his knuckles, so those obviously came from a struggle with another passenger. Everyone in First Class tells the CSI crew that the guy just went berserk and that they all tried to quell the mini-revolution going on on the plane. After a quick autopsy they discover the guy had undiagnosed encephalitis (an inflammation of the brain, according to eMedicineHealth), and the pressure from the cabin and the altitude (in addition to the medicine he had taken for the pain) caused his brain to swell, and in the process he started acting weird. He kept kicking the seat in front of him, he sliced open the cheek of someone who confronted him, and he tried ripping open the emergency exit door in the middle of the flight.

The evidence piled up quickly. The CSI crew found different shoe prints on the guy's jacket, as well as scars on several different passengers. After a ton of interrogation and a re-enactment of the crazy saga, they discovered that it wasn't the swollen noggin that killed the poor so-and-so... IT WAS THE PASSENGERS! As in, MORE THAN ONE! IT WAS A MOB SCENE!

Boy, do I love a good mystery.

Good work by the writers. This was a great mystery with a very good explanation from every direction. HOWEVER, I do have a couple minor problems with a bit of the evidence. First of all (and this is a minor quibble), how do you cut a guy's face open with a CD? Last I checked, CDs were made of plastic and have flat sides. But that really has no bearing on the plot, so I'll move on to my next question: How in the name of science do you get MULTIPLE footprints on your jacket ON AN AIRPLANE? I'd figure that on a flight from Atlanta to Vegas, people wouldn't have all that much dust on their feet. I guess they wrote it to be a suede jacket so that there would be more of an imprint, but how much of an imprint can you leave when you're stomping on a guy in self-defense? The writers really do like to leave improbable prints when it comes to incriminating evidence, as it appears.

Either way, though, an all-around good episode. Highly recommended.

Crate 'n Burial: A furniture store for the emo kid in you

LET ME OUT OF HERE! THIS IS SO FAKE!

So the first episode of CSI we're analyzing is one of the earliest in the series, "Crate 'n Burial" (real cute, I know). The CSI team hears a suspicious buzzing sound in the desert after receiving a report that someone had gone missing. While surveying the desert via helicopter, they find a girl thrashing around underground through an infrared thermographic camera, and upon digging they find her buried in a wine crate under the surface of the desert.

That's adorable, guys, but that isn't going to cut it.

For starters, the girl was found in the box during the night, and it was revealed that she was put there during the day. I don't care how big the crate is, and I don't care that she was there with a lighter; there's no way in the world that she would've stayed alive that long underground. That box would've filled with carbon dioxide within two hours (especially if all she did the whole time was scream and thrash around). From what I can tell after reading this article on thermographic cameras, it's pretty apparent that even though they can see heat through solid walls, they can't see underground, especially from a helicopter. They still don't make them of that magnitude, and they can't work for unlimited distances. Hokey at best.

In addition, there is another case in which a girl is hit by a car and killed as the perpetrator drives off. Typical hit and run. They discover that it was a car that hit her by the car paint scraped off on her scooter. Typical forensic deduction. When they find this clue, they take the girl's body in for an autopsy, they discover on her leg a pair of bruises that look like imprints of a car's license plate.

Yeah, wonderful.

Granted, to die from being hit by a car, the car would obviously have to be moving at a fairly high velocity, which is a given. But somehow I get the feeling that when the car hits you, the part that bruises you isn't the license plate. License plates are made of fairly malleable metal, and if it hits a little girl and her scooter, chances are better that the license plate folds on you instead of leaving a giant J-shaped bruise on your corpse.

Fun stuff to watch, really, but I know you can do better, guys.

Mission statement

So just to clarify, this blog has been created for the purposes of Biotech class. Every Friday is "CSI Friday", in which we watch CSI and try to figure out whether the forensic sciences used on the show are real biotechnical procedures or just a bunch of Hollywood hooey.

Every week I'll be updating the blog to try to figure out whether or not what we're watching in class is real CSI or just a silly way to keep audiences interested.

Looks like it's gonna be a good year.