When I made the decision to pursue writing my murder mystery story I’d been kicking around for a few years, I knew that I wanted to take the time to make sure everything was written correctly. I’ve spent so many hours watching detective procedurals on TV, but I’ve also heard about instances were said shows got things wrong or they were sped up in an effort to tie things up neatly in twenty-one or forty-two minutes. (No one really wants to watch a bunch of detectives sitting around and waiting for weeks for reports to come back.)
I am not an expert on being a detective or forensics science or any of that. But I do love research. My first step was to take an Intro to Investigation course through the college where I teach. (We only used the first part of the textbook, so I thankfully had access to info beyond the ‘intro’ class.) I’m also hoping to dip my toes into a Forensics course once it fits into my schedule.
One of the things I learned in that class is that there is literally something called the CSI effect – which refers to the impact these sorts of shows have on public perception regarding forensics evidence. Studies have been done on this – finding that jurors who watch these shows place a higher “emphasis on forensic science in case,” believing such evidence to be “100% and that it should be produced in every criminal case.” These jurors are often reluctant to convict without such evidence. (CSI Effect)
I also reached out to a kind detective in the South Madison precinct (Madison, WI, USA) to ask some questions – and, yes, I was a little terrified she might not believe I was a writer. She was kind enough to respond. Whether or not she put me on any sort of list has yet to be discovered. 👀
Another perk of teaching at a college is the access this affords me to databases like EBSCOhost because I do love a good research rabbit hole. (I don’t so much appreciate some of the photos I’ve had to endure in some of these studies – like when I was trying to discover if burns appear differently on skin pre- and post-mortem. They do. Also, I absolutely do not have the stomach to be an actual homicide detective.)
What’s your oddest research rabbit hole?
Ami Maxine 