By BRANDON LOWREY blowrey@nctimes.com
In a warehouse in Oceanside, thousands of objects await their day in court.
A white, wicker baby bassinet rests on its side atop a stack of yellowing homicide evidence boxes. A few feet away lies a tiny mattress.
These and hundreds of thousands of other items dating to the 1960s like fingerprint cards, stolen goods, samples of bodily fluids, weapons and drugs are stored in the Oceanside Police Department's evidence warehouse. So far this year alone, about 16,000 items have been moved into the warehouse.
And much of it was collected and handled by specially trained field evidence technicians, civilians tasked with collecting, analyzing and preserving evidence.
On a recent Monday, Marissa McLain, one of Oceanside's 12 technicians, paced through the aisles of coded boxes in the cavernous warehouse. She stopped at a particularly odd assortment of items in one corner: a broom, a sword, an ax and a Boogie Board.
"A Boogie Board," McLain said. "What could that have meant to a case? But it must have meant something at the time."
McLain, 35, has collected countless pieces of evidence over her 13 years with the Oceanside Police Department. She shepherds them to the laboratory areas inside police headquarters, where she examines it and preserves it.
All the while, she and others keep a clear record of who has handled it and where it is ---- a critical part of keeping it usable in court.
Searching a dump
McLain goes wherever crimes are committed ---- homes, businesses, streets. Once, she spent a week searching for a murder victim's body in a Santee dump.
It was in 2005, during the investigation into the death of Janina Hardoy. Last year Joaquin Murrietta Martinez, a gang member with Mexican Mafia ties who was living at Hardoy's home, was convicted of murdering her and abandoning her body in an Escondido dumpster.
The contents of the dumpster were trucked to the Santee landfill. The body was never found, though her severed hands and feet were found in a Vista trash bin.
McLain said sifting through mountains of rotting waste was the most disgusting thing she has ever had to do.
"The stink got into your clothes and into your car," she said.
A large part of her job isn't quite so hands-on. She takes a lot of photographs of crime scenes, exactly how they were found.
Black charcoal powder and some other special chemicals can reveal fingerprints on some surfaces. Other compounds can make even trace amounts of blood visible to the naked eye.
Blood preserved
Of course, there's often enough blood to see.
"I've collected comforters with globs and globs of blood on them," McLain said.
If technicians aren't careful, the blood could degrade and begin to rot, making it useless as evidence. So the bloody objects are placed in special dryers.
They look much more like tiny motel showers than clothes dryers. The air inside is gently circulated and kept dry. The machine does not apply any heat.
It might not speed the drying process much, but it keeps the blood viable, McLain said.
Those blood-soaked comforters?
"It could take a month to dry," she said.
Back at the warehouse, a set of freezers contain blood, urine and other bodily fluid samples collected for investigations. Most involve drunken driving or sexual assault.
From guns to DVDs
A highly secure area housed guns and drugs. A cage in another corner contained rows of pink, anti-static bags full of computers and DVD players seized in child pornography investigations.
McLain walked through the homicide case evidence section. It's where the oldest pieces of evidence still live, rarely discarded because murder has no statute of limitations.
The grated-metal floor clinked beneath her shoes in the quiet warehouse as she passed the baby bassinet with its white paint chipping away; the musty boxes filled with photographs of old gore and fingerprints of killers, known or unknown.
"It creeps me out here sometimes," she said.
The rest of the stuff can't stay there forever.
So the department has enlisted retired Sgt. Rich Crevoiserat to put his detective skills to use once more (on a part-time basis).
He tracks down owners of stolen items and figures out which pieces of evidence have passed their expiration date ---- the statute of limitations for the crime.
Police seek rightful owners
Nothing could come of evidence related to a petty theft from 1990, for instance.
He's often able to track down an owner. Home Depot just recently picked up loads of shoplifted merchandise, Crevoiserat said.
If no owner exists or can be found, then the items are either destroyed or given to a private auction company, which will sell it and give the city a share of the proceeds.
Among detectives and field evidence technicians, a wry grin accompanies references to the "CSI" television shows.
It's a grin that says, "yeah, like it's that easy."
In the television show, civilian evidence technicians pack heat and run around in fashionable pant-suits in high heels. They hunt bad guys down, then interrogate them alongside police detectives.
In real life, field evidence technicians don't carry guns. They don't join in police pursuits, and they definitely don't interview suspects.
Not as seen on TV
McLain and her colleagues dress in simple, dark uniforms. She wears black shoes comfortable enough for a full day on her feet.
Cases aren't opened and closed within an hour, and crime lab specialists with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department ---- which handles the more intensive evidence analysis ---- could take weeks to analyze DNA evidence.
But the show's influence persists.
Crime victims sometimes demand that evidence techs try to lift fingerprints from clothing or rocks. Once, a victim gave McLain a partially eaten sandwich, convinced that the distinctive teeth marks left in the last bite would lead police right to the criminal.
Fingerprints can't be lifted from most clothing and rocks, and there's no national database of teeth impressions.
"I really believe this is the 'CSI' effect," McLain said. "They watch 'CSI' and they think anything is possible."
Long hours worked
If only life imitated art a little better.
Former "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" star William Petersen earned about $600,000 an episode, according to entertainment media reports.
The national average salary for real technicians: about $50,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Oceanside pays its field evidence technicians $50,000 to $63,000.
The hours can be tough, too. In Oceanside, the technicians work 10- to 12-hour shifts. There are always some on duty.
McLain, however, said she has always been fascinated by law enforcement and is in love with her job.
"I like rules. I like order. I like things being right," she said.
And McLain never knows what she'll be called out to examine next.
"I can guarantee you," she said, "that tomorrow will be different than today."
Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/oceanside-telltales-of-crime-stack-up/article_1fae82e2-654a-51e0-a8e4-b4700dbdd32e.html#ixzz1evTLTCdW
A white, wicker baby bassinet rests on its side atop a stack of yellowing homicide evidence boxes. A few feet away lies a tiny mattress.
These and hundreds of thousands of other items dating to the 1960s like fingerprint cards, stolen goods, samples of bodily fluids, weapons and drugs are stored in the Oceanside Police Department's evidence warehouse. So far this year alone, about 16,000 items have been moved into the warehouse.
And much of it was collected and handled by specially trained field evidence technicians, civilians tasked with collecting, analyzing and preserving evidence.
On a recent Monday, Marissa McLain, one of Oceanside's 12 technicians, paced through the aisles of coded boxes in the cavernous warehouse. She stopped at a particularly odd assortment of items in one corner: a broom, a sword, an ax and a Boogie Board.
"A Boogie Board," McLain said. "What could that have meant to a case? But it must have meant something at the time."
McLain, 35, has collected countless pieces of evidence over her 13 years with the Oceanside Police Department. She shepherds them to the laboratory areas inside police headquarters, where she examines it and preserves it.
All the while, she and others keep a clear record of who has handled it and where it is ---- a critical part of keeping it usable in court.
Searching a dump
McLain goes wherever crimes are committed ---- homes, businesses, streets. Once, she spent a week searching for a murder victim's body in a Santee dump.
It was in 2005, during the investigation into the death of Janina Hardoy. Last year Joaquin Murrietta Martinez, a gang member with Mexican Mafia ties who was living at Hardoy's home, was convicted of murdering her and abandoning her body in an Escondido dumpster.
The contents of the dumpster were trucked to the Santee landfill. The body was never found, though her severed hands and feet were found in a Vista trash bin.
McLain said sifting through mountains of rotting waste was the most disgusting thing she has ever had to do.
"The stink got into your clothes and into your car," she said.
A large part of her job isn't quite so hands-on. She takes a lot of photographs of crime scenes, exactly how they were found.
Black charcoal powder and some other special chemicals can reveal fingerprints on some surfaces. Other compounds can make even trace amounts of blood visible to the naked eye.
Blood preserved
Of course, there's often enough blood to see.
"I've collected comforters with globs and globs of blood on them," McLain said.
If technicians aren't careful, the blood could degrade and begin to rot, making it useless as evidence. So the bloody objects are placed in special dryers.
They look much more like tiny motel showers than clothes dryers. The air inside is gently circulated and kept dry. The machine does not apply any heat.
It might not speed the drying process much, but it keeps the blood viable, McLain said.
Those blood-soaked comforters?
"It could take a month to dry," she said.
Back at the warehouse, a set of freezers contain blood, urine and other bodily fluid samples collected for investigations. Most involve drunken driving or sexual assault.
From guns to DVDs
A highly secure area housed guns and drugs. A cage in another corner contained rows of pink, anti-static bags full of computers and DVD players seized in child pornography investigations.
McLain walked through the homicide case evidence section. It's where the oldest pieces of evidence still live, rarely discarded because murder has no statute of limitations.
The grated-metal floor clinked beneath her shoes in the quiet warehouse as she passed the baby bassinet with its white paint chipping away; the musty boxes filled with photographs of old gore and fingerprints of killers, known or unknown.
"It creeps me out here sometimes," she said.
The rest of the stuff can't stay there forever.
So the department has enlisted retired Sgt. Rich Crevoiserat to put his detective skills to use once more (on a part-time basis).
He tracks down owners of stolen items and figures out which pieces of evidence have passed their expiration date ---- the statute of limitations for the crime.
Police seek rightful owners
Nothing could come of evidence related to a petty theft from 1990, for instance.
He's often able to track down an owner. Home Depot just recently picked up loads of shoplifted merchandise, Crevoiserat said.
If no owner exists or can be found, then the items are either destroyed or given to a private auction company, which will sell it and give the city a share of the proceeds.
Among detectives and field evidence technicians, a wry grin accompanies references to the "CSI" television shows.
It's a grin that says, "yeah, like it's that easy."
In the television show, civilian evidence technicians pack heat and run around in fashionable pant-suits in high heels. They hunt bad guys down, then interrogate them alongside police detectives.
In real life, field evidence technicians don't carry guns. They don't join in police pursuits, and they definitely don't interview suspects.
Not as seen on TV
McLain and her colleagues dress in simple, dark uniforms. She wears black shoes comfortable enough for a full day on her feet.
Cases aren't opened and closed within an hour, and crime lab specialists with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department ---- which handles the more intensive evidence analysis ---- could take weeks to analyze DNA evidence.
But the show's influence persists.
Crime victims sometimes demand that evidence techs try to lift fingerprints from clothing or rocks. Once, a victim gave McLain a partially eaten sandwich, convinced that the distinctive teeth marks left in the last bite would lead police right to the criminal.
Fingerprints can't be lifted from most clothing and rocks, and there's no national database of teeth impressions.
"I really believe this is the 'CSI' effect," McLain said. "They watch 'CSI' and they think anything is possible."
Long hours worked
If only life imitated art a little better.
Former "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" star William Petersen earned about $600,000 an episode, according to entertainment media reports.
The national average salary for real technicians: about $50,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Oceanside pays its field evidence technicians $50,000 to $63,000.
The hours can be tough, too. In Oceanside, the technicians work 10- to 12-hour shifts. There are always some on duty.
McLain, however, said she has always been fascinated by law enforcement and is in love with her job.
"I like rules. I like order. I like things being right," she said.
And McLain never knows what she'll be called out to examine next.
"I can guarantee you," she said, "that tomorrow will be different than today."
Call staff writer Brandon Lowrey at 760-740-3517 or follow him on Twitter @NCTLowrey.
Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/oceanside-telltales-of-crime-stack-up/article_1fae82e2-654a-51e0-a8e4-b4700dbdd32e.html#ixzz1evTLTCdW
