Page 29 - CFDI Guide

THE CERTIFIED FORENSIC DEATH INVESTIGATOR (CFDI)

Welcome to this new program, developed by Associates in Forensic Investigations in exclusive partnership

with the Criminal Defense Investigation Training Council (CDITC). Death and Serious Bodily Injury (SBI)
investigations are Catastrophic Events, and for the Criminal Defense Investigator as a forensic specialty.

Thank You for taking this Certified Forensic Death Investigator (CFDI) course! We are dedicated to further

our profession by sharing our experiences and expertise. Our education and training never stops - and we
congratulate you for elevating your experience with this CFDI Board Certification developed by our agency

exclusively with the Criminal Defense Investigation Training Council (CDITC). Having completed and passed
the prerequisite program, and once earning your CFDI, you will enhance all CDITC, and other preeminent,

certifications and experiences to bring you as a criminal defense investigator to a new level of advanced
knowledge and skills for the most common defense areas – criminal defense involving death and serious

bodily injury incidents. You will also have unique access to collegial networking and continuing education.

What is ‘Forensics’?

It truly depends on who you ask – but here is an easy basis:
Facts Or Reasonable Evidence Necessitating Systematic Investigative & Critical Solutions
Forensics is simply the application of [specialty - fill in the blank] to the law. It is finding the evidence,

analyzing the evidence and reporting the evidence – evidentiary fact finders, a very important component

to the Criminal Defense Investigator. You, as the CFDI, will be demonstrating the ability to find and analyze
Facts Or Reasonable Evidence Necessitating Systematic Investigative and Critical Solutions in Criminal

Defense Investigations. Death is the cessation of life as determined by the absence of respiration, pulse
and brain activity. SBI is a potentially fatal injury which did not result in death – Catastrophic Events; we

will use ‘Death’ and ‘SBI’ interchangeably or simply as Catastrophic Events, unless noted as specific (i.e. no
exhumations of SBI victims). If a Catastrophic Event involves a crime – usually any medical Manner of

Death (MOD) of Accident, Homicide, or Undetermined, there is a corresponding criminal statute in which
you may become involved as the CFDI.

This CFDI Program includes the prerequisite Equivocal Death / SBI Investigations for Professional

Investigators Program. As a refresher, prior to watching the accompanying videos, we encourage you to
review the text Reference Guide provided with the program and accompanying PowerPoints PDF. This will

emphasize important points, and reduce time needed for this Certified Program Guide. We also highly
recommend any of several investigative certification credentials from CDITC, state and national

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