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Death and Injury Investigations – AFI-LLC – June 2024 3 of 7

Not all death scenes – or any scene – is a crime scene. They are places where an event took place – an incident scene. At
all scenes there are actually at least two scenes: location(s) of the incident; and the injured or deceased person. If a
crime is suspected (and all suspicious death investigations are treated as such) the incident will belong to the
investigating law enforcement agency; and the body, together with all items on or about it, will belong to the medical
examiner’s office. In cases of SBI the second ‘investigation’ is the medical treatment of the injured person.
• SBI involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious
disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.
• Bodily injury is less substantial than SBI and a fatal injury is an SBI that has resulted in death. In some jurisdictions,
such as Colorado, an injury involving a break or fracture is also classified as SBI, regardless of how minor or severe
(i.e. finger or nose fracture).
• Traumatic injuries are best defined as those which require urgent medical attention and are caused by the actions of
the victim, another person or environment within which the victim is (outdoors, indoors, vehicle, etc.).

We conduct all medicolegal investigations and expert consultations through a process. This process is from Dean’s text
book – Practical Methods for Legal Investigations (www.PracticalMethodsForLegalInvestigations.com – CRC Press 2010)*
is conducted and completed by following five basic steps: 1) Prepare; 2) Inquire; 3) Analyze; 4) Document; and 5) Report.
(*Please note – this book is no longer available from our agency due to the publisher’s $180 cost. This is unfair to our
nd
colleagues and we are in the process of self-publishing a revised and expanded 2 edition by the end of this summer.

Depending on the investigation and other factors, these may be within one assignment task (i.e. scene investigation), or
multiple tasks (multiple witness interviews). Was any transient evidence overlooked, altered or destroyed by the
environment or scene investigation? Evidence must be documented before it is moved, inspected, analyzed, collected or
tested. What was the official or adverse party investigation – including by insurance adjusters? Too common is the
“Tunnel Investigation” – determining the outcome of the investigation before completed, is a ‘fatal’ error in death and
personal injury investigation. Consider the objective and subjective information and evidence. Evidence does not lie –
but it can be misunderstood, misinterpreted, altered or have false results. People lie – the truth may not be in their
favor or acceptable to them. Document lack of evidence (no suicide notes, no prior illness, no skid marks), mitigating and
supporting evidence. As an example, a bloodstain pattern on a shirt may reveal if, and how, the decedent was holding a
firearm during a suicide. Negative evidence – contradictory – should be noted. If it is expected to be seen and is not (or
the reverse), it must be explained.

Legal investigations involve finding, reviewing, analyzing, documenting and reporting evidence. Evidence is any factual
information that tends to prove or disprove an assertion.
• Evidence can be both insignificant or a key component of a case – review and analysis is important;
• It is easily destroyed, lost, overlooked, altered, even contaminated. Look for indications of this;
• Verify the chain of evidence. The integrity of the evidence is unyielding. This includes ethics – information without
integrity is not evidence, and only evidence is admissible and considered by the attorney and trier-of-fact;
• Consider if evidence may have been overlooked or discarded as being unrelated, insignificant or unimportant. A
shoe lying in the hallway, although belonging to the decedent, may be as important as if it belonged to the killer;
• Look in the overlooked and less obvious places. Evidence can be transient in itself, can be moved or hidden, or can
be influenced by the environment.

Connecting the trace evidence to the person(s), scene(s) and instrument(s), together with additional direct and
circumstantial evidence, will develop a picture of the incident under investigation. Following this evidence may eliminate
persons, scenes and instruments from any involvement in the incident.

As a legal investigator, you may not be closely involved in the detailed aspects of fatal and non-fatal event
investigations. Perhaps your primary role involves interviews, background investigations, documentary photographs and
videos – all very common and very important. You may ask – and many do – how is this understanding important to my
interviews, or my methods of photographing scenes, or reviewing the photographs, records and reports from law
enforcement and adverse party investigations?

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