New Activity: CSI Allen

Since creating the ABC Life Blog, we have found so many interesting things to do or learn about from our local library and libraries in other cities. The Allen Public Library, in particular, is a great source of new experiences and the presentation from the Crime Scene Investigation unit of Allen was no exception.

Of course, the first thing we thought about before the presentation started was wouldn’t this be a great session for a prospective murderer to sit in on and we wondered which person in the room that would be. (We had our eyes on the man in front of us).

The two young women who were in the CSI unit were very informative and gave a great talk. They started it off with an hysterical short video of a squirrel that “staged its own murder” by taking a broomstick and lying down while placing it across his neck. Then they got down to a serious presentation and we learned so much: e.g. even if you go to the trouble of burning off your fingerprints, they can get them from the rest of your hand, even if you clean bloody prints off your car with bleach the prints will show up when sprayed, and it can take 6 mos. to 2 years to get the DNA results back!  Plus, there’s something called the CSI Effect which refers to the fact that jurors can be influenced by those CSI shows and will even occasionally rule someone innocent just because there is no forensic evidence. Really a great little class; now we’re off to watch some CSI episodes and see if they show forensics coming back much faster than in reality.