Crime scene sketching and diagramming
Crime scene sketching and diagramming involves creating visual representations of crucial features and objects at crime scenes. These sketches serve as a complementary form of documentation alongside photographs and written notes, focusing on specific elements relevant to the investigation. Given that crime scenes can often be cluttered and chaotic, sketches help to distill the overwhelming amount of visual information into clear, pertinent images that communicate essential details to investigators, attorneys, and courts.
Typically, a sketch may include annotations and measurements to highlight particular aspects, such as the location of a body in relation to other significant objects. Crime scene examiners may produce multiple sketches to convey different layers of information, enhancing clarity and understanding. While sketches are not always precise scale replicas, they are valuable for their ability to quickly convey information in an accessible manner.
With advancements in technology, crime scene documentation increasingly incorporates modern surveying tools and computer software, facilitating the creation of accurate visual depictions, including 3D recreations. Overall, crime scene sketching plays a critical role in the investigative process, aiding both the recollection of evidence and the communication of findings.
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Subject Terms
Crime scene sketching and diagramming
DEFINITION: Creation of representative depictions of locations and appearances of important and relevant features and objects found at crime scenes.
SIGNIFICANCE: In creating sketches and diagrams of crime scenes, examiners extract from the abundance of background visual information at such scenes only those features that are relevant and portray them in visual form. Such sketches are complementary to the scene notes and photographs that also document crime scenes.
Crime scenes are often very cluttered, jumbled, and confusing. photographs can contain vast amounts of visual information, much of which may not relate to the particular incident being investigated. By making a sketch or diagram, a crime scene examiner can create a document that visually highlights only those aspects of the scene that are considered to be relevant to the crime. Like all crime scene documentation, sketches can be made to aid the recollection of the investigators who make them, but ultimately they serve to convey information to other investigators, attorneys, and courts.
An annotated sketch or diagram, with appropriate measurements marked, can provide a format for focusing the attention on one aspect, or a small number of aspects, of the crime scene that may be particularly relevant. For example, a single sketch of a light switch showing the general appearance and location of a bloodstain and indicating where a sample of the stain was taken from provides a clear, easily understood visual representation of one aspect of the scene examination. Another, more typical, example would be a sketch of the floor plan of a room indicating the location of a body relative to items of furniture and other significant objects, such as the weapon.
Rather than attempting to include a lot of information in a single sketch, which can lead to confusion, a crime scene examiner may create multiple sketches of the same area of interest. One such sketch might indicate the location of a body and other physical items relative to each other, a second might depict the locations of bloodstains, and a third might show the locations of shoe prints. This kind of separation of layers of information allows viewers of the sketches to comprehend the individual points of interest more easily.
Most crime scene sketches are not intended to be perfectly accurate scale recreations of the scenes. Rather, they are nearly always companions to detailed scene photographs. Sketches are valuable because they are simple to create and can readily convey specific information. In addition, crime scene examiners are making use of modern surveying equipment and associated computer software to create accurate visual depictions of crime scenes and the locations of items within them. For example, 3D recreations of crime scenes are increasingly common.
Bibliography
Elliot, Douglas. “Crime Scene Examination.” Expert Evidence: Law, Practice, Procedure, and Advocacy, edited by Ian Freckelton and Hugh Selby, 3rd ed., Lawbook, 2005.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Handbook of Crime Scene Forensics: The Authoritative Guide to Navigating Crime Scenes. Skyhorse, 2015.
Fenoff, Roy, et al. Crime Scene Investigation, 4th ed, Routledge, 2022.
Fisher, Barry A. J., and David R. Fisher. "Documenting the Crime Scene." Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation. 9th ed. CRC Press, 2022, pp. 38-40.
Horswell, John, editor. The Practice of Crime Scene Investigation. CRC Press, 2004.
Robinson, Edward M. Crime Scene Photography. 3rd ed., Academic Press, 2016.
Saferstein, Richard. Criminalistics: An Introduction to forensic Science. 9th ed., Pearson, 2007.