Page 49 - Aug Sept 2016

A Personal and Indepth Interview with Dennis Hillard
the state fire marshal and a prosecutor for the RI attorney general’s office. It also

provided funds to train those hired under the grant and to train fire investigators
from police and fire departments.I received training at the Bureau of Alcohol, To-

bacco and Firearms (ATF) and at an Ohio State Laboratory. I participated in the
training of the investigators. the training worked in terms of how samples were now
collected and now were submitted in clean new paint cans. It also worked in terms

of an increase in the number of cases that were being submitted to the laboratory.
This demonstrated how important training is to the field of crime scene investiga-

tion.

My experience with law enforcement and fire investigators was that they received
very little training in the scientific method necessary to collect and preserve eviden-
tiary items for processing by a crime or forensic laboratory. in the 1980’s most had

only a high school education or perhaps an associate degree in criminal justice. My
observation was that most avoided science and math courses. Over the past thirty-

five years that has changed, many of the investigators that attend our Criminal In-
vestigation course have B.A. or B.S. degrees and have an increased appreciation of
the sciences. They are eager to learn the scientific method of crime scene investiga-

tion to include the use of digital cameras and computer software, to become famil-
iar with the science of developing and comparing latent prints. The overall scores

of the individuals attending this course has increased each year. The introduction
of advances in latent print development, DNA analysis and computer technology
makes the job of a crime scene investigator more complex, but I am confident that

today’s investigator with the proper training will be capable of assessing the situa-
tion and will know if they can process the scene or if they will need to call in others

to assist in the process.

Sonya Trippett: Tell me about a case that you have worked on that was challeng-
ing. What was the case about? Tell me about the evidence collected and what was

the result of the case after all of the forensic evidence was processed?

Dennis Hilliard: There have been several challenging cases. One that stands out is
the case of a store owner who was stabbed to death by an assailant. It occurred in

a small town in Rhode Island in a low crime area, one of the detectives on the case
had recently graduated from our Criminal Investigation course at the university.

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