Anatomy of a murder investigation by APG-West (Idaho Press)

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February 8, 2015

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By JOHN FUNK

jfunk@idahopress.com

ANATOMY OF A MURDER INVESTIGATION

Police and other local authorities discuss how they catch killers and put them behind bars TREASURE VALLEY — Detectives on TV shows can find a body and close the case in about an hour — even less if you take commercial breaks into account. In real life, it’s not that easy. It’s a long, meticulous process involving dozens of people and multiple agencies

at various levels of government. That doesn’t mean fictional murder investigations are entirely unrealistic, though. Nampa Police Department persons crimes detective Sgt. Don Peck said the process and techniques seen on TV and in movies are often pretty accurate.

“They just do it a lot faster than we can. But there very much are things that are correct in some movies,” Peck said. “We’re excited when we get them solved within two or three days.”

Please see Murder, A4

THE THE STEPS STEPS

STEP THEBODY BODY STEP 1:1:THE

2:STEP THE2:CAUSE THE CAUSE

3:STEP THE3:CLUES THE CLUES

Everybody involved in the process agrees: There’s no such thing as a typical murder. Or as Nampa Police detective Don Peck puts it, “If you’ve seen one body, that’s all you’ve really seen — one body.”There’s also no textbook, stepby-step guide to solving a murder case. Different factors require different approaches, and investigators sometimes have to think fast on their feet to figure out the next step. Nonetheless, here’s a rough breakdown of the order in which the process might play out:

A body is discovered that appears to have died from nonnatural causes. It may or may not be a murder, Peck said, but law enforcement investigates if the apparent cause is anything not health-related. The coroner or one of her deputies is called in at the same time to oversee the body, and someone from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office also arrives on scene as soon as possible to legally advise detectives and to begin building a case.

Was it really a homicide? Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris said they always begin with that assumption, then work to eliminate and narrow down possibilities. The evidence may eventually show that it was a suicide or an accident, but when they start the process, they assume the worst. If the case for calling it a murder holds up, Peck said, detectives start building a narrative: Who were the people involved, and what circumstances led up to the crime?

There’s a lot that detectives can tell from the crime scene, Peck said: If a house is spotless and meticulously organized, but the room where the murder occurred is in complete disarray, that tells investigators something about what happened. They key, he said, is to look for things that are out of place, and that can mean different things in different contexts.

4: STEP 4: THE THE AUTOPSY AUTOPSY Meanwhile, the coroner’s office conducts its own parallel investigation on the body itself, performing an autopsy, ordering toxicology tests and sharing its findings with detectives at every step along the way.

 Deaths Bill Bailey Jim Ball

THE WITNESSES 5:STEP THE5:WITNESSES

6:STEP THE6:SUSPECT THE SUSPECT

7:STEP THE7: CHARGES THE CHARGES

Somebody out there knows something, and part of a detective’s job is to find out who. They might knock on doors in the neighborhood, or they might issue a press release to local media. In any case, community members themselves play an important role to help investigators piece together the story.

Once they have a suspect in mind, it’s time to make contact — and just like every murder case is different, every murder suspect is different. Depending on how dangerous the suspect might be, detectives might do anything from a simple, direct approach to a slow, cautious operation with lots of back-up.

Up until this point, investigators from law enforcement and the coroner’s office have taken a lead role in the investigation, while the prosecuting attorney’s office provided support and advice from a professionally appropriate distance. Once a suspect is in custody and charges are filed, the roles reverse: it’s now the prosecuting attorney’s case. Detectives and coroner’s office officials take a back seat at this point, although they’ll still have a role to play as the case moves forward. They’ll continue to examine evidence and refine the story of what they think happened, and they’ll appear as witnesses to testify in court.

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