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Karen Scullin ReportingMaking sense of a crime scene can be crucial to getting a conviction. That's why experts from the Utah State Crime Lab are teaching their skills to other forensic specialists from Utah and surrounding states. The latest lesson … blood spattering.
Blood on the walls, on the bathroom floor, and a bloody knife on the bed. Does it all tell a story? A group of crime lab trainees hope to find out.
The scene mimics evidence in an actual 1995 murder where the victim's throat was slashed and blood scattered around the room. The students will examine the evidence laid out in the hotel room and start piecing together what likely happened.
Kevin Patrick, Utah Department of Public Safety: “We're going to look at the individual blood stains on the walls, on the carpet, and we're going to look at the size and the shape of those stains. And they may be able to determine how much force was used."
In the actual case it was the blood spattering that helped convict the primary suspect in 1995 .
Kevin Patrick: “Through the patterning on them and the patterning at the crime scene we were able to get that individual and tell him what happened. And as a result he ended up turning over and turning state's evidence against the other individual."
As the trainees document everything and take it back to the lab to figure out what it all means, they know one thing for sure--- it's not a quick process.
Josh Williams: “Not everything you see on the dramatic TV shows are the way it really is in real life."
In other words, it takes time to solve a crime.
