so I continue on with my photos move the shower curtains photograph the shower there's a closet in the bathroom I opened the closet I was like oh there's her rug not thinking of anything of it I moved said rug there's a lady hiding there with the knife Ah that's a fur and now I'm trapped I have no way out Sheriff's Office podcast I'm Ricky Butler joined by my curious and well-informed colleagues Laura Sullivan and Ashley Cooley and we are excited to bring you another episode but first we have officially become a podcast that gets things done what have we gotten done Ricky well if you remember last episode we were talking to Deputy constant with a marine unit and she was we were kind of having a pretty light-hearted conversation about some of the Perils of being a woman and Marine being out on the water and needing to use the restroom we were talking about the incredible device that is the Shewee guess who is now getting an agency issued she-wee I can't guess tell me Deputy constant oh my gosh um all right so today we have a great show planned because we are finally going to talk about something that people have been requesting something I think that even when we do Citizens Academy it's always a highlight of everyone's on the schedule because everyone is obsessed with forensics so there is of course only a handful of people that can truly come in I'm kidding there are plenty of great people out of forensics but somebody that we have harassed for a very long time is assistant supervisor Rona Klein with our forensic science division who is our next guest uh on 56. uh but before we do that Ashley has a question uh she asks a question of all of us so Rhonda is not singled out we're all going to answer the question and Laura and I have not heard the question so Ashley this is your time Rhonda neither does Rhonda yes I try really hard to get this information ahead of time and nobody will ever tell me if someone tried to get it out of me at lunch today didn't happen can't can't discuss I can't discuss can't get it all right Ashley all right so this one starts off with a couple of like parameters okay first off it's a big word boundaries boundaries parameters good okay all right so you have to choose one you can't say you can't say no to both you have to choose one and the second is our second rule I suppose is that you will live through whichever situation you will live you are safe you will not die okay okay well living and being with all my levels like you will be fine you're you're not going to the hospital after this okay I mean you could have mental trauma physically yeah you're you will be fine okay so you have to choose okay okay you want to explore the depths of the ocean or explore the vastness of space in the ocean 100 sorry one you cannot ever do the other so you're not going to get to do both and you can't say no to both like I would want to do and I'm not going to die you're not gonna die you're not gonna die I want to go with a really cool squid R I'm definitely gonna go into the depth of the ocean of the ocean not the depths the height yeah yeah definitely an ocean girl okay I'm going to space if I'm not gonna die because you're not gonna die yeah I I mean the ocean is cool and stuff but I like rockets and stuff I'm going yeah I'm not shocked by that yeah at all I think I'm going to space too if I'm not gonna die okay I'd like to see what's up there okay maybe meet an alien oh there you go like I said I would rather say no to both because they're both extremely terrifying to me but there is no way that I'm gonna go up in a spaceship I'm just now over my fear of flying and I can't imagine the G's to make it to space even if I live even if I live I'm gonna be in an institution for the rest of my life I'm not concerned at all about going in a submersible no because I'm totally safe and and that's going to be a slow descent okay it's not going to be like you know my skin isn't going to fall off from going to space like it's just gonna I'm just I can handle that and you know I think it'd be cool so that's my answer also space is like a long-term commitment I mean unless you're just going to go up after and come down if you're gonna go to like Mars or something it's a long time that is a good point yeah that is a good point because yeah yeah I didn't think about that who's gonna do your job if you guys go to space I mean yeah I have no boundaries only parameters you're too far on the weeds Laura I see that wasn't too bad no there you go see no big words parameters all right so now we got that out of our system uh as I was saying forensics is something that everyone is just inherently interested in it's of course A lot of it is attributed to the CSI effect and all of the the stuff that maybe isn't so accurate but uh it's still a fascinating uh world that you live in Ronda so we're excited to talk all about that but first tell us did you as when you were a kid and I was like what do you want to be when you grow up was your answer to be in forensics how did you get where you are so when I was a kid growing up I wanted to be a veterinarian every kid wants to be a veterinarian so I started out school for that and then I kept switching and switching and one day when I was in college my mom goes you know what you're always curious about everything you always want to figure out all your Christmas gifts and everything maybe you should try something like forensics so I researched it saw that the Allstate Center had a program so I went to the Allstate Center and got my degree in crime scene so you're local then like you were born and raised in this area I was I was born and raised in Florida same here unite um so you mentioned figuring out your Christmas gifts like what what do you mean what did your mom mean by that so every year I would feel the boxes shake the boxes she would try to hide what was in it and I always figured it out so I was never surprised she used to get angry at me she figured out good thing she never got you a puppy I know oh so spoilers like that's not a thing for you no me either so you like to figure it out you don't I do yeah I don't like surprises all right so so crime crime scene I'm sure you've had some surprises on crime scenes but so you go get your degree in forensics and what or in crime scene I'm sorry what are the different because there's a lot of different degrees right related to forensics what are and I know things have changed over the years too so what are some of the degrees you need for forensics so now you need a bachelor's degree in the forensics related field okay any forensic related film so that's like crime scene what is that I didn't even really need the degree when I started here you just needed the certificate program down there because the test was based off of the crime scene program at the college because when I went through that program down there it was uh St Pete junior college and everybody that worked in forensics was actually the instructors at the college okay so but you got you got this you got the degree not the certificate though I did because I already had my core classes okay so then what happens so I tried to get a job in forensics I interviewed and they wanted experience so I don't have experience and then uh I got a job in property and evidence started working in property and evidence I was 22 at the time living on my own and I was on midnight shift and back then property barely made any money so I tried for forensics again didn't get it they wanted experience So I self-put myself through the Law Enforcement Academy because back then they did not sponsor for the roadside they only sponsor for corrections I didn't want to do it in the I didn't want to be in the jail so I worked midnight shift at property put myself through the academy at the same time yes when did you sleep uh well I took um night the like the evening Academy I didn't do the full day time so back then they had the full daytime one and then they had evening classes okay that's right and then I went to go put in for to be a deputy and another spot came open for forensics and I got it so I accepted it and I mean up until I would say the last six seven years I mean forensics used to be extremely competitive so I mean you basically you got the job at proper evidence to get your foot in the door so that it's an easy you know kind of a transfer because forensics was always a a really hard place to get so even back then correct and it was also hard to get in the agency back then because everybody that walked in the door on midnight shift they always asked myself and another member that's a captain with us now who are you guys related to and we're like nobody and they're like wow and you got a job here because back then it was everybody was related everybody's family was working here and stuff like that so the family business yes all right so you you make it in so was there any yeah I want to talk about the Law Enforcement Academy yeah so so you were almost a deputy he was what it would appeal to you about that and what was the academy like when I went through the academy it's different now but when I went through it was rough it was a mind game basically it was like pure like military style uh I didn't like the Running part I hate running I thought I couldn't breathe I would always get yelled at if you're talking your breathing run um but I survived it I liked everything about it um but I just chose forensics first because that's somebody I went to school for I bet that gives you a really unique perspective on on what the what the deputies do haven't gone through all that yourself yeah yeah and I I didn't know that about you actually and we've worked together for a long time that's really cool so there was no no part of you at all when you just wrapped up you just went through all that in the academy when that forensic spot like there was no hesitation correct just because what you'd gone to school for correct interesting good stuff all right so you get the forensics job there's obviously what does that process look like back then as far as getting like is there fto how does that work so back then uh we did a three-week in-house Academy so I was inside the building learning about all the techniques and everything and then we did the full-on fto program the same one we have now to today what phase one through four okay do you remember like your first week or your first big call I do it was week one uh and my first fto he was on the major case response team which we still have today and we were working day shift and I had been on midnight shift for years at property so I was already nervous about not getting up in the morning to my alarm clock he called me and he's like where are you at and I was like oh my God oh my God I'm sorry I overslept I overslept I was freaking out and happening in half asleep and he's like it's okay you can calm down it's like 2 30 or 3 o'clock in the morning I'm like oh let's go going on and he goes we're getting called in for a homicide and I'm like oh okay and then he says some guy shot in the house so I was like oh boy here we go so I'm getting dressed the whole time I've never seen a dead body in my life before let alone someone being shot I am so scared going to this crime scene but we showed up and I'm like oh it's really not that bad so I worked the crime scene never had an issue and I remember when we were walking in he's like okay the important thing here is if you're gonna puke don't puke in the scene run outside and puke because you know back then we did like all vacuum traces and everything back then so talk to us a little bit about how forensics is set up today because I want to get into the nuances of how things have changed and all the technology and technique but how is forensic set up today as far as Staffing how the shifts work and all that stuff so forensics today we're assigned a 12-hour shifts so we have nine supervisors in our building um for assistance five supervisors one of that being the photo lab supervisor and each shift has five to six people on it on per shift and we've been by seniority to bid your shift do you guys do a b like Patrol we do we're set up exactly like Patrol we have a major case response team that consists of 10 members and they are placed a certain spot is placed on each shift for the major case response team to bid um and then they bid buy seniority for that shift and that concept is in place so not all of them end up on one side so not all of them are a days and a nights because then there's no one to call in if we need people to call in got it and then um so just the the forensics lab itself which is a is it's an older building but it's got a lot of great technology and stuff in it what are some of the different labs and capabilities in that building so we have several labs in our building and one of them is our chemical processing lab that's where we bring items back that we collect from scenes that we want to process using chemicals instead of just black powder then we have just a designated black powder lab and that's where all the black powder processing takes place we have a drying chamber lab where we bring back wet evidence we hang it into the drying Chambers we have a packaging lab and that's where we bring back all our evidence and package it and now that we're accredited we also build our own evidence so property and evidence does not build any of our evidence anymore so it's all done in that packaging room and then we also have a Narcotics processing lab that came into play when fentanyl came around so everything in that lab is everything narcotics related is processed in that lab and then we have a clean lab and that's where we do all our photographs of clothing and bedding and stuff no chemicals no processing of any type is done in that lab and that also is the lab that houses our mpac machine and then obviously with evidence it's all very sensitive which I know we're going to get all into and talk about but where you like the chain that it moves through some of the different labs and things is important to or is that because I know like the the county forensics science centers across parking lot here from us at the Sab where they do a lot of the toxicology stuff there's like a certain sequence that you're allowed to kind of move through those labs for cross-contamination is that a big issue with some of the stuff you all work on or not really so for cross-contamination issues I can't be in the same room as someone else work in the same case if I have uh victims items and they have suspect items got it because we can't cross contaminate that makes sense a lot simpler than the real technical stuff across apparently you said you guys package your own evidence what like what does that mean so like we put it inside the evidence bags like the plastic bags to turn it into property or paper bags but that's like new we've always packaged our evidence back in the day and then we would just walk it over to property we would hand write a label put a label on it and property and evidence would build it into Asus okay we're actually building our items into the property report on Asus and our labels print out now and they have the barcode already attached to it so property picks our evidence up from our building and all they have to do is scan our barcode and put it into a location okay so they no longer physically type out our stuff gotcha okay it is a very complex like like intense I like everything about what you guys do is intense it's always been fun to me because some of the most fun people we have in the entire agency are in forensics but they are just like when they're on they're on so so detail-oriented yeah super as it should be which is another uh point because there are out of the 28 Specialists you have three of them are men the rest are women is that right correct so I always tell everyone I think my philosophy is the men want to carry the gun in the handcuffs and also the other reason is women are more detail-oriented than men and more organized so you have to be very organized and detailed oriented is that something is that pretty much how it is with forensics everywhere it seems to be a common pattern yes all right so go ahead I was gonna say I I've heard stories that uh it's also because women have a better better smell tolerances we can stand disgusting things I'm not going to argue that point I don't want to smell those things remind me to tell you a story later on of uh how a whole bunch of deputies abandoned me when I was going to arrest somebody and they pooped their pants and they all ran away and left me to it's kind of like I feel like you've told us the story that is the story okay that is the story yeah um all right so so let's let's backtrack again so now that we kind of have some context for today back then um because the process is just super detailed depending on the crime scene depending what you have going on so your first crime scene with your first dead body you know what are you all doing to to process that scene so it kind of tell us a little bit more about the case if you remember like what the deal was I remember it being drug related a guy was found shot to death in the bedroom of his house um I started trying to think about the case more after I spoke with Laura already I want to say he may have been a tattoo artist also but I can't confirm that uh back then we did digital photography 35 millimeter photography and we did full Trace which by full Trace I mean looking with your own eyes picking up the little pieces of visible hairs and fibers that we see then using the blue light doing the same thing hairs and fibers and then vacuuming on top of it and you did that in the whole entire house no matter how big it was wow tell me about the photography you did both digital and 35 millimeter then yes why wasn't it uh back in the day um they wanted to have 35 millimeter because they said digital could be altered um so they also they always wanted 35 and everything that was for comparison purposes we used 35 millimeter photography for we've gotten away from 35s and we just used digital now the SLR cameras you can tell if it's altered or anything we shoot in jpeg enroll so the raw photo can't be altered yeah and even if yeah I mean you can see anything that's been doing the photo so that makes that makes sense though uh back then it was a new technology used to be super time consuming because you used to have to do the three different f-stops right oh yeah for 35 millimeters for 35 millimeter because you couldn't see your pictures on the back of the camera we had a bracket and you had a bracket three f-stops one below one in the middle and one above so you're going to over Expose underexposed and take a normal one and you look at your picture and you decide which one came out good another thing that was time consuming on it uh we used to wear different bdus back in the day the baggier ones with the huge pockets on the side the old school version and you would always see I always got chosen to do 35 so I always got like a new girl hazing thing no my supervisor loved my pictures so I always got chosen so on my right pocket it was bulging out with brand new 35 millimeter rolls of film and my left pocket was the used ones because you constantly had to change your your roles how things change so yeah how have they changed as far as photography yeah yeah or Imaging in general so now we have that the uh digital camera so it's easy we could see all of our pictures right on scene that we take um and then we even really got away from videotaping too at crime scenes now um because we have pharaoh and we have Oscar 360. so the state the state attorney's office we had to work with them and they go okay we don't need video but if people request it still we'll bring it out we still bring out the video camera for all reenactments because it has to be recorded live stuff like that so you used to have to actually draw a sketch of the crime scene right like hand draw we did and I always got chosen for that well you're a good artist uh no I am not a good artist um so yes we used to have to hand draw the scene measure it and write the measurements in now the Pharaoh does that it scans and it takes measurements at the same time and that wasn't like I don't think people realize what that measuring looked like like it wasn't like oh yeah the table is you know this far away from the wall it was like it's this far away here it's this far away here like there's so like you measured everything correct you had to use triangulation if it was a key piece of evidence and then you would measure the whole wall and then you would need a measure from the corner of the wall to the start of the window yeah then just the window and then from the window side to the door then just the door like it was like a long pun and how long would that take it like a typical scene it used to take a long time yeah yeah yeah because I can't imagine them once you guys showed Pharaoh in the way that it does all of that is it's mind-blowing correct and when you're drawing it you just have a image on a piece of paper Pharaoh it's a 3D image and you're like walking through the crime scene and everything and I'm not part of the Pharaoh team but they could even take it into the court now and put VR headsets on and they can walk through it and just for probably the best way to describe Pharaoh is it looks very similar to some of the tools you see out for surveyors in fact it's the same thing in some cases but this essentially uh you can put it in any room and it will do a scan catch there's an outside too oh yeah outside too anywhere but I mean it catches an insane number of of points and then it overlays images and you can pretty much recreate anything correct and then the Oscar 360 camera is the same as Pharaoh it just does not take the measurements it's like it it can walk you through the whole scene too like the Realtors where you click the little arrow it brings you to where you placed your thing before it takes 360 degree photographs all around the scene and we're and I this I knew this was gonna be all over the place because there's just so many things to talk about but where when when you're going to court when you have this evidence I have to imagine the Pharaoh you know it's indisputable because this is this is where it was that night it's because I mean you have a situation where they're they're like oh they're trying to dispute this was here and there and it's like well no it wasn't because this was the night of the crime and we have it we've we've replicated it completely and preserved that which is just it's insane technology to see I know that when we have um public groups and things in forensics and if we do the whole presentation like we do for Citizens Academy or obviously for Citizens Academy like that is the thing that they're like wow it's incredible and I wish I could like showcase it on social media but there's no way to to show unless literally put on your VR headset I'm going to take you through a crime scene like but the ability to go back is just yeah it just it blows my mind we have used it in the past but not in the courtroom it came about prior to getting to court where it was a case when we were working for St Pete PD um where a shooting happened and it involved some witnesses seeing it they said they saw it so they were able to put the people back in the scene they had to get the height and stuff of the people that saw it and they were able to take the overlay pictures put them back in the scene and it determined there's no way they could have saw it they would only hear everything right so that put the fire out before it went to court so it has been used with that but in the actual courtroom I'm not aware and it's not like new really I mean before that it was like there's a Leica scanner but I mean when I started here 10 years ago we had the Leica scanner or something close to it it blew my mind then but it's just gives you figure the entire point of forensics for ever right has been to preserve the crime scene and to make sure that we have as much data as we can and you can literally take the crime scene anywhere it's it's their friend that's just that's my favorite thing I love that same um all right so let's back up a bit you were talking about Gathering hairs Gathering whatever so this scene your first scene uh gunshot victim in their house what are you Gathering these fibers and stuff for what are we what's that process it's to send to the lab for DNA purposes to try to develop suspects or anything just based on hairs whatever you got correct and then how do you eliminate like potential like because obviously you're going to have the victim you other people are potentially in their house because I mean back then DNA isn't what it is today so how much of that like did you need to be successful so that we would take elimination status so if that so on that kind of case the body goes to the MEO and then they collect head hair samples pubic hair samples all that stuff but I I've heard you're not you're not a hair girl you don't I hate hair I hate hearing dreams head hair I hate my own hair in the shower it's disgusting wouldn't we have to go in dreams at scenes and all that hairs in it it gags you so why do you have to go in drains like uh so we'll have to like blind swab for blood and stuff if someone cleaned up we have to pull pee traps too on certain scenes like under the sink that yes keeps the gases yeah smells um you talk about smells that's a smell nasty so that's that's worse than like the blood and the organs and things of the oh yeah disgusting I never would have thought that it's very gross because that's the little u-shape so it holds all that water constantly and it doesn't breathe okay yikes so tell me about some other disgusting smells in forensics D comps okay D comps are very disgusting smelling so you don't always get there when the body's fresh oh no no no especially now now it's hot outside everyone's deep composing fast you have like a mask or something you guys wear we do now so we have a decot mask that you can wear and you cannot smell anything in that thing it it rocks but when you take it off you smell yourself the rest of the night because it sticks on you it's on you oh yeah you come back to the office if someone work at dcom you would walk in from the outside in our office and you'd be like holy Moses and you know how big our office is yeah you would smell it because you're not used to wow so then you just work the rest of your day like that yep you just work the recipe they don't give you a break to take a shower and wash the I mean we have a shower in there so you can but you probably just get a call to another call and don't forget yeah so you're obviously using hairs and DNA to try to identify individuals and so forth what other kind of evidence do you collect uh on a scene like Beyond DNA obviously fingerprint stuff things they might have grabbed like when you go on a house obviously you're not going to take everything in the house but like in that case or in a case you have a homicide like that like what what is the how do you decide what is evidence what you're going to check and and what you're not going to so we get briefed on the situation so if the story's told to us properly and stuff you could clearly tell what becomes evidence and whatnot so you start looking for stuff like that at a hummus I seen anything that looks out of place obviously we're taking and collecting anything in the immediate area of the deceased that's gonna be collected and or processed there and do you have do you have the like the ability to decide like obviously detectives will tell you what they want but then if you guys are are free to pretty much take what you think is appropriate correct so we'll converse with the detective and say hey do you mind if we take this because we feel that it could become something and we could do several other steps at the office and for the most part all detectives agree with that okay as long as it's written within the scope of the warrant right so you have to go within the scope of the warrant right so then you take these items back and you're just trying to get whatever you can out of them like how do you decide how to process this like how to process them what process to use whether you're going to do chemicals or black powder like what dictates that so it depends on the type of surface um it it I I always try to do chemicals also um because you could do black powder first and then if you don't get results you can move on to your chemical processing because chemical processing can permanently damage evidence correct so chemical is that is that when you use the um super glue type so super glue you can use also with black powder okay so you can process a super glue you could process with black and then process it with black powder afterwards and then you can move into the chemicals so super glue is just to make the print more evident it's to fix the print you can then Dust it okay correct and or put a chemical on it okay gotcha so yeah and that's not just like taking nail glue and rubbing it on the surface like what people normally think of when they think of super glue no it goes in big fancy machines that have humidity and Heat and the fumes attached to the surface of the item okay so in the because chemical processing that's I mean there's a lot of stuff a lot of options there so just talk to us about the different types of chemicals and well you let's talk about the the whatever the the super glue whatever that is how does that work like there's and there's a machine that goes in what is that called it's called one it's called the PSI vac machine and then our new ones are called to save fume okay so the cyvac machine is a long machine so it can hold long guns in it and you load your evidence into a tray inside the machine and we call it the lasagna layer machine because you can lay items on top of each other and it will process everywhere so underneath the basket is a heat bar and it runs the length of the machine and you put two drops of super glue inside foil cups that's in the bar thing that slides onto the heat bar and then you start the machine and it uses outside humidity to add the moisture into it and once the heat bar heats up it emits the super glue fumes out of the little foil cups and that attaches to the product the safe fumes do the same thing but it has a humidifier inside the machine so and what again do you put on the evidence for that to happen are you just or it adheres to it's whatever's on the surface so it's going to stick to anything okay which will give you a print or or whatever correct okay and how long does that process take the cyvac takes 40 minutes in the safe fumes take about 20. okay why did I think that was a long time is there something that takes longer or no no okay the cyvac is the one where we can leave our evidence in all day you probably heard us say that oh that's worse that might be and that won't over process you can just leave it in for days and it will be fine okay the other machines you have to shut up and over processing okay okay so what other what other chemicals um the main chemical we use is a chemical called M Star okay it's a fluorescent chemical so it's orange in color so we spray it on the item and then we look at it underneath a blue light source and then we photograph our prints on paper we use a chemical called ninhydrin or in dandium an anhydrin it sits in your locker for a day or you can heat press it to accelerate it and in dandium it has to be heat accelerated work and then that becomes ALS chemical too and then that's still just revealing whatever is on it correct so that reacts with the amino acids inside your fingerprints and you now have a way of using uh gold to find the real fingerprints right correct we have a vacuum metal disposition chamber and it uses precious metals to process for fingerprints it uses gold silver copper and it always uses zinc so we can put items in that machine and process it with that but that's the last step to do to it because it puts all of the product onto this and the really cool thing about that is that you you can get things off a material that you couldn't usually get fingerprints off of like like fabric correct right because you there's there's no real way to get that off any other way correct and like old things too old things too so we've done a lot of cold cases in it um a lot of outside agencies come to us to use it for spent casings um to process because there aren't a lot of those around right there are not okay the sheriff takes care of forensics yeah he does like there's only like a handful of them in Florida I think less than that actually and then uh we're one of the only uh agencies other than Largo PD now that have liquid nitrogen in our building that we use to separate duct tape if duct tape stuck to the Sticky Side to Sticky Side we have to freeze the tape to be able to peel it apart to process the sticky side of the tape where the prints are going to be oh wow and we have had several outside agencies also come up if somebody does tapes a victim they can get the fingerprints off them and the liquid nitrogen doesn't impact it at all no wow so what what are like back to some of those chemicals and processes because you you talked about that's the last thing we can do with it because like do you continue to use chemicals until you get what you need or do you try to get as much like what what is the goal there with using the different chemicals like is it we didn't get what we want here so we're going to keep going or we're just gonna do it just because or so there's a certain sequency chart that you need to look at when you're processing it but for the most part if I'm going to use M Star I'm going to just super glue it and go to the M Star okay um then hydrant is just an anhydrine for the most part so forth and then like what are some of the like what are some examples of evidence that may be better to use like you mentioned long guns for the so that would be something for like a long gun or handgun whatever um are there other you know where you can only use this on like X on y or or anything like that no it's just uh the safe fumes won't fit a long gun so that's why you would use a cyback got it okay but like as far as like how are you going to process because you also have which isn't a chemical thing but you've got that Imaging system I think that can that can spot so like why wouldn't you just use that on everything the full spectrum Imaging system that uses UV light to see untreated print on the surface of an item so we could take like a water bottle and we could put it underneath the light and the camera will see a print on the surface if it's there and we would take a picture of it that way but then we would follow that step with the processing also okay so you have to do all that regardless you have to still process okay so that might be something where if you you know perhaps it was a I think you mentioned at one point we were talking you talked about how there's been times that you all have processed something but you use the Imaging because you didn't want the person to know you processed it that's what was said in the last thing I've never done that um but it could be like an important document that has to go backwards that's what I have done yeah I've used that on uh delicate documents um back in the day we used to have iodine fuming um and that was what we always used on like birth certificates and stuff because you don't want to ruin anyone's birth certificate because the iodine fuming will fade off the item it won't ever stay on it we had to take that out of commission because there's too many shellfish allergies because with iodine fuming you're actually hooking it into a little plastic tube and you're putting a straw on the end and you're like blowing with your own breath through to blow the smoke out the other end oh shellfish allergies yeah what does that have to do with that because if you're allergic to eye if you're allergic to shellfish you're allergic to the iodine in the show okay gotcha yeah yeah but so what I was getting at though is that there are you do you still use those processes and everything for the most part not iodine right but everything else like if we didn't have to it's one of the chemicals amido black yes and that's specifically for when you suspect there's blood yes yeah so that wouldn't be used on like everything no that would just it's only if you suspect blood okay the rest I have is mostly like fingerprints yeah yeah okay so basically all the regular fingerprint uh stuff is everyone just uses M Star basically and then there's also DNA there's DNA also so we used to have to have like a lot of like blood or whatever to get DNA right back in the day we used to have a need a large sample of blood to submit to the lab for the DNA nowadays we can just swab an area where you could the the blind swab if it comes back positive where you're just they think someone touched right here with a bloody hand and you can't see the blood so I blind swab it test it with my phenolphthaleine and it comes back positive that is going to the lab and they can potentially get a DNA match so it's come a long way because like for touch DNA you could literally just rub your fingers along the table leave DNA that you could conceivably find yeah you don't even need to be rubbing your fingers he's Ricky's leaving DNA uh with his arm right there so I just come along with my swab swab it turn it into the lab and if he's in the system it's going to come back with a match so it's improved we do touch DNA on all calls and we also um swab mouth DNA too like on drinking items okay and then if they're not in the system eventually they possibly will get in the system so it will get caught then continually so just like a fingerprint our fingerprints if we don't make them the first time I just got a reverse hit from three years ago sent into my email so they got arrested finally and it came in as a reverse hit because it hit on that case yeah I was uh was that same group we had the other day we were talking about how because the sheriff is so good in forensics and we have a lot of great new technology there's always something new there's always some new equipment process something and we have it we always kind of go back where we can and and deliberately run evidence through it to see if there's something something new we can get um now back to the the DNA piece when we had uh detector Chalmers in here we're talking about the genetic genealogy piece is that like do you and you may not know the the databases that the DNA runs through is it the same where like because when you're doing ancestry or 23 and me or 27 of us or whatever it is is that the same is that all the same database I don't I don't know that okay sir I don't know if it I I I know for the genetic genealogy it's it goes from the like the 23andMe into a different Clearinghouse and people have to opt out often yeah I just didn't know I don't think law enforcement and general access is that yeah I think it has to be through like the other company whatever I was talking I was curious yeah um yeah because it is like how do you get away with anything um and people have gotten away with things 20 years ago or think they think of their Skies like I'm knocking at their door eventually that's good stuff it is so the the photo lab is another thing that's that's pretty cool because it it always kind of struck me different because everything you do involves photography correct you know you're taking photos in the chemical lab you're taking photos in the black powder lab you're doing all that but what what does the photo lab do so the photo lab is there to upload our pictures into the picture system we use called video and then they also when we photograph our fingerprints in the back lab they also put them on a system and they turn them into a grayscale for us and then they submit them to our fingerprint section okay so then it's just they just basically process the photos so they're the best they can be correct and then they also handle giving all the copies of photos out to State Attorneys and case agents and and then because I do remember you know a lot of times they do go to court you'll you have to include the information of you know how the photo was modified there's usually the original that's available as well but it's all I mean it's all just documented there and it's just impressive because there's again so many details even with sharing a photo to make sure all the bases are covered correct um what else would the fun the nuts and bolts of forensics black powder is pretty straightforward but we do have that magnetic powder now is that what we primarily use we it just depends on who you are so we have a lot of people that primarily use that um I you I do not use it on cars I'll be there forever because I don't want to accidentally hit the car with the magnetic wand so I still old school black powder and then I'm covered from head to toe in it from slinging my brush but if I'm inside a house I try to use my bag powder because it's cleaner and you're not making a mess inside people's residences inside a car too I try to use the mag powder to not make as much of a mess and when you use the powder so say the exterior of a car or you get you develop a print there how do you cap you obviously take a photograph of it what else do you do we don't photo prints okay not at all no the only time we would photograph a print if it's on a textured surface and we don't think it's going to lift then we'll take a photo first before we lift it okay so we have fingerprint tape that we use and we put it on top of the fingerprint on the car and then we lift it and we put it on a white fingerprint card okay so all right I didn't okay so there's is that how you I mean you still take photographs of prints that you develop like in the lab though correct All chemical um prints have to get photos because you can't lift black powder in the field black powder yep okay which you for like a dark surface you guys have other colored powders we have uh fluorescent powders yeah yeah I love the hot pink one yeah but like on a on a car though we still use black powder and then we side light stuff okay and then we can lift it so it's a challenge especially if you're on midnight shift and you have a dark car uh it's hard to see it's a challenge on day shift with that new color gray that it just you can't even see our powder on it so you're like I blind lift now so like where I think prints are gonna be I process it like the logical place yeah I lift it off put it on a card is there anything special about fingerprint tape or is it just tape it's really sticky tape um I I don't think it's anything special um just curious wider it's stickier than Scotch tape it's frosted okay probably 10 times more expensive than regular time we just slapped this label on it so it's more expensive stuff you know just like our super glue you know I think it's super glue it's just watered down a little bit so it's got forensics on it so it's expensive it's like Aviation stuff or whatever correct um all right let's let's just talk about maybe some more cool cases or good stories you have then if we come up with other because I just there's so much what any other memorable cases over the years that you've worked or well I I know you're on the uh I've heard you call the Queen of the meth labs I know I know you're you're a Hazmat person and you [Music] I guess where's my hat um so yes I'm on the HazMat Response Team there's two of us in my division that's on it it's for Pinellas County so we're on it with the fire guys um and we go to training every other month for it so I could go two calls from chemical leaks to chemical fires which I just got called out for on Saturday up in Oldsmar oh yeah correct and then also we go out for the clandestine lab team here with the narcotics team so anytime they have a clandestine lab they reach out to her it's a big word yeah that is a big word what does that mean that means a meth lab a Narcotics lab I'm thinking like the horse Clydesdale yep yeah nailed it I was like that can't be right probably some beer there maybe yeah um all right so meth labs yeah is it exactly like Breaking Bad exactly all of it I've never seen one like Breaking Bad yet um but uh so it's not like all the pretty beautiful lab equipment I have not had one yet um my meth labs have consisted of basically one pots basically it's a two liter bottle of soda that has some lithium in it and stuff and that's how they're making their lab I did have one that was a little bit more set up um and I had to go in this was when I first got on the team I had to go in and take overall photographs of the house and I come back outside and the guys go did you get a picture of the generator like generator where was the generator so I was like oh I'll be back so I go back inside the house looking everywhere for a generator should be pretty big pretty big pretty big I know what a generator looks like go back outside I'm like there's no generator in there so they walk in and it was a gatorade bottle with a piece of tubing coming out of it that's called a generator because it generates this to build the product or something I love getting new drug slang how does one make meth I want to make it but we're not allowed well I wonder why so you have all the products in your house I guarantee you okay so you have all the products there's one pot it's like a you know it's like an instapot for meth it's yeah it's in a two liter bottle and that's bad because it's the lithium's in it it can go boom now where do you get lithium from batteries okay lithium ion operator okay so they're taking apart the batteries okay I get them they're resourceful at least does it have to be like a fully charged battery or can it be a dead battery no just the let's see what's efficient that would be green thing right recycling yeah yeah wow what what other you said just common household things yes so I could go home and get things out of my cupboard and make meth now if I could made really bad choices and found out the products you needed what other stuff do you need without giving like recipes and proportions leave that one you can Google people aren't going to be like we're not going to arrest somebody a year from now with no teeth like I listened to it on the podcast I mean man we're gonna ruin so many lives cold packs you need you can use gold the cold pack like like the inside of the cold pack uh things you know like this the bag ones that like you can for to put on your arm if it hurts or whatever okay well it's a promo item yeah we got those yeah we might have another halfway to the Sab to make math Drano Drano okay I know they use that in this building gatorade bottle gatorade bottle all stuff I'm super excited about putting into my body a plastic tree I know right yeah wow how long does it take I don't know I don't know that so why uh while everybody scurries around their house to to find the what is what is special about why do you why is there have to be a special team for this like you just have to be careful around the chemicals you know what's going to happen like what is the specialty there so myself and other only people level a certified meaning that we can go on a SCBA in an inside and encapsulated suit an SCBA self-contained breathing apparatus okay like firewares with the air tank on your back yeah oh that does inside a plastic suit with the big face shield overuse I don't use T-Rex costumes oh yeah so you're inside the mask already breathing the tank air then you're inside a plastic suit which is hot and then with a you can't see because everything fogs up and you're trying to walk and do it sounds dangerous it's fun so how often do you have to actually go into these things whether it's a meth lab or like a um industrial Water Treatment Center leak or something um not much um so like our clandestine Labs I've never went into a full level a suit I've been on air before in a level B suit um and uh for the most part if we don't have to go in the house our guys are pretty good about bringing all the items out to us to process they set up a little tarp and they have certain piles or certain chemicals go over here the other chemicals go over there because we have the disposal trailer here on site that it all comes back and has to go into then it goes up somewhere way far so who are the ones actually going in are those the FD Hazmat people all suited up or are these it's uh our clan our narcotics detectives okay so there's a team of them that go out to it so um but you almost had to go in once tell me about that I did well I went into this chemical fire on Saturday oh okay um in Oldsmar and I had to wear my SCBA and that um but I'd have to do anything other than pictures uh so thank God it was just a little like fan on fire and they were able to get the fire out before the chemicals went up or it would have been a mess so even if there's no like potential crime involved you guys are going out there so I got I got the Hazmat page okay so uh we get the pages that the firefighters get if they do a Hazmat all upgrade so when we get that page we respond to whatever it is regardless regardless and then uh while I was there they determined that it's not going to be a Hazmat call anymore because the product that was leaking was actually the um that that was just a cleaning product before they put the items into the chemical got it but there was one there was a chlorine leak there was a chlorine leak in Dunedin uh at the water treatment plant during the RNC so is that 2012. yes so everyone was activated to the RNC so it was limited people left that could do something so we got that page go up there and uh it was leaking in the chlorine tank and so the first group went in and you can only stay inside for 20 minutes and they pull you up because is your body's under a lot of stress and you're inside that level a suit and stuff so 20 minutes is a Max you got to get out in the suit period regardless of what you're working with correct so then when two people are in two people are halfway suited up to just zip up real fast and go and put their air on to go in and rescue them if needed so those two people came out these two people go in well the next two people were me and one another person and I know it's getting bad if you're next on the list if I'm next on the list to go in like that because I normally do the Decon side at Hazmat teams where I'm scrubbing people that come out doing stuff like that or just helping dress out and stuff but to like go in and fix a chemical leak which these guys do every day just they don't get Hazmat all upgraded because it's normally small like a pinch a penny or something like that so I'm sitting there oh this is the real thing my heart was racing and before you go in a suit they also have to do medical on you so if your blood pressure is too high or anything you're not going in so I was like I'll be fine I'm scared my blood pressure's got to be through the roof I'm not going in they check it it was normal so I said oh my God so they kept saying like 10 minutes left five minutes left and I was like now I'm nervous I was like oh boy and you can't see anything because it's leaking the vapor is everywhere and then you're gonna be in the suit and I'm thinking well I won't even be able to see the wrench you know thank God they fixed it within like a minute or something ago so I never had to go in literally yeah so is that a is that something what makes you say I want to be on the HazMat team so back in the day um one of the supervisors that no longer works here anymore she told us about the team and everything and I said oh that seems kind of fun I'll try out for it so I tried out for and I got it so I've been on it since maybe 2005. oh wow all right let's talk about some other fun cases the forensic stuff what you got uh there was one you said was particularly horrible with the three victims and the oh yeah so uh horrible case I worked I can't go into much detail about it because it's still going to go into trial but I could talk about the stuff that's been publicized it was for an outside agency it involved three victims that were beat multiple times um put inside plastic uh Oriental Rugs stuff like that and also covered in paint and multiple chemicals on top of their body before they were rolled in it there was three dogs also deceased inside a black trash bag in the bathroom which that was scary for me because at the time of us working the call it was a for three or four day scene um and being in that call was in January so it wasn't that hot out but being all the chemicals and all the decomp smells we had to wear a full face mask the whole entire scene we could not be inside the house without the full face masks on it had been like 10 10 days of the bodies I've been there before they were discovered correct correct so they were fully decomped and uh the kids were missing at the time it was a married couple he had murdered the wife up in Pasco and the kids were missing so they're like you have to we have to open up the black trash bag oh God I'm like I can't do it because the way it looked it looked like it could have been the size of the kid that was missing I was like I I can't do it and we had several of us on the scene because it was just so much work so one of the members came forward and opened the trash bag for me and it ended up being the three doggies two or two doggies three people two doggies which is probably still pretty traumatic yeah it was just a hard tough case to work so I'm not looking forward to having to relive it so there were uh you mentioned you mentioned there were some chemicals and stuff in there or like they had been painted or whatever he put they poured paint all over the people and chemical products because the person resided in the house with the children after they did this to them so I think because the decomp smell they were trying to mask it with anything they could that didn't work and it didn't work so it finally left the location did that had any of that impact your ability to process evidence on the bodies and things so we still process it exactly like we normally do but um I'm sure some of it could impact it but we still collect it like we would normally do we still do the fingernail scrapings and clippings and swabbings we still do the whole nine yards so why does that K stand out for you just because of how big of a how big it was the all the things you described because you see horrible things all the time so what what makes a case really stand out to you that was one of the worst ones I've seen just because of everything involved that one actually came back and haunted me for a long time I would have trouble sleeping and stuff like that like it bothered me it must be hard all the things you see yeah for the most part like we that's why like when you see us if the media decides to put out of their 10 hours of video of us and they put five minutes and you see us laughing we're not laughing about anything at the scene we are joking around with each other because that's how we cope with stuff you know because we had to stand there looking over these people for hours it's hard it's hard especially when it involves um you know people you know and I've had to deal with that that's oh wow really so dang is that something I talk about or so magaly was the first one um so I've worked the law enforcement desk before uh conduct for Pinellas Park and stuff like that wait or for Tarpon Springs sorry but you're you're not close to them so when the magley call came in I was like oh Lord so I had to work it and I was assigned it was multiple crime scenes because it stretched so long and my assignment was where he was so we we have to stand around him for hours and process him and everything and it's just just hard you know to see someone like that so that mentally messed us up too a little bit because we can't like everyone else that was there um they're able to walk up look stand there a little bit and then they can go walk away we couldn't leave we have to stay right so we were with him until the Emmy got him out so like we couldn't just walk away and then come back to the situation so so how do you how do you deal with the feelings and still do professional jobs it's just compartmentalization you just like put your feelings in this little box and open them later because we're just mindset to get get the best evidence get this job done to get Justice for them you know and then later thanks for him then later that's when you know you sit and break down about it yeah so yeah and then uh Hartwick was the same way I unfortunately had to work tattoo um and I was with him too over him until he got taken away too so it's just and then it brought back a lot of memories standing there to maglee too because you know it's a another vehicle so right it was just hard and then I also just recently had to work the death of trill um and I was close to true so that was rough for me the pictures of you guys together yeah and I did him at the hospital so that must have been yeah I was really nervous about that one because I I didn't know if I would be able to hold myself together seeing his family and the child so I just driving there the whole time I just kept telling myself you have to hold it together you have to hold it together you got to hold it together and thank God the child was not on scene um and the the wife was down the hallway in the chaplain's office so I only dealt with several members of the PD but I was able to hold it together they're not they're not I mean there's really not too much that's glamorous about forensics really but it is something that people have so much um interest in but the most of it is the tough stuff like that I just yeah but but the motivator would have to be to get Justice make sure you have the facts give everything together because uh forensics was recognized obviously for their work on magaly's case uh and uh because you guys did good work you just gotta gotta do it it's got to be easy to not easy but it's easy to get motivated obviously in a situation like that yeah um what else what else we got you got you got 20 plus years of of great stories you're kind of a germaphobe which is oh and a weird thing for your profession um doesn't like hair doesn't like on you I do not like anything on me I don't like touching stuff I am a very big germaphobe so there was somebody who how does that work out you see me in the back laws I'm always put gloves on when I walk back for the Citizens Academy I never touch anything with my bare hands that's true and if I do where do I go immediately to the sink yeah wash your hands so under under certain conditions people will uh will melt yeah decom's disgusting so I had a case back in the day and he died on his couch and to get and he was a hoarder too and to get in his house we had to use the kitchen um sliding glass door so when you enter in the kitchen to the right or into the dining room to the right is the kitchen and straight ahead is the living room where he was at and I was like oh God because I could see the juices going across the tile floor like that that far they would yeah his body was on the sofa and they yeah they just spread yeah because it just keeps melting and I was like this is disgusting so you have to photograph the whole house and there was a cut through from the kitchen to the hallways to get to the back bedroom so of course I take that route so I'm doing my thing did her thing and there's flies everywhere it's really gross so you don't ever want to talk on a decomp scene if you're not wearing a mask because you don't want that fly in your mouth that just ate the body oh my God it's disgusting so many horrible things that I haven't even thought of about yourself and they land on you and they leave the marks of the decant juice on your person it's very it's I don't like d comps so would you ever process a fly just side note to see like what it had touched right like could you get I I think there's people that do that what are they called the people that look at bugs entomologist yeah that word okay big word I don't know like what a fly had eaten The crucial piece of evidence and then you could okay Carry On I'm sorry so I that's a movie right there I did my thing and I thought I was cool I'm like oh I'm gonna stand at the end of this hallway here and zoom in take a picture of them on the couch oh I'm doing this this is cool not stepping in the puddle of person stepping in the puddle person at all right oh boy so the Emmy gets there and he's like so far gone and we couldn't really take overall pictures and stuff like we normally do the eyes and the frenulums and stuff like that and he was just like it would just come off to the point they actually used a spatula to get some pieces into the bag that they take the body in so I get to my van and I clean myself up I spray the bottom of my shoes with our hip spray we call it and I get in my van and I'm sitting there and I'm like smells like the guys in my van and I know I smell but I'm like it smells like he's in my van and I go that person put his gloves in my van because I he knew I didn't like the smell so I get out look in my trash can his gloves aren't in there that means gloves aren't in like a practical joke yeah I thought he was joking with me so I get back in my van start driving I'm like it's in my van where did he hide the gloves so I get out again it was on the bottom of my shoes so I called my supervisor at the time and she's like just get back here we'll soak your boots in Bleach it'll be fine so I do that I could still smell it so I soak again could still smell it brand new boots went straight in the trash because that's disgusting to me all right I think everyone and I always said this is my thing in blood I don't like blood I don't like decant juice or blood like I would never be a blood spider people are blessed by our experts they like to get up in there and do all that not me I don't even like having to take the pic I hate blood I just don't like it so I always say if I ever fall in someone's blood or in D comp juice this is all coming off I don't care who's around you're gonna get a show because I am not wearing this just divert your eyes fast I will run to my van and get a tie back suit so you would rather strip down naked in the same room in a crime scene a puddle person then get it on your clothes obviously I would run out the the house the door as fast as it could come off wow because that is not gonna get into through my clothing onto my skin do you guys respond to every like deceased person call for the most part yes yeah except for if it's like a um like um what's it called what's it called sounds like the the nonsense the hospice yeah okay so okay I don't think people realize how often like that is going on in the county oh yeah like when I had more time when I was working downstairs and I was looking at active calls all the time deceased person deceased person dying right and left and it gets constantly it gets a lot around the holidays too because people call try to get a hold of people I can't get a hold of so-and-so yeah you do a welfare check and then they find them disease suicide pick up around holidays gonna be bad what is the there have got to be some cases over the years that you felt like that was you know you you felt accomplished like you felt like that was a favorite case or or you really just it was like the mission moment where you feel good about your job and maybe maybe having to be around some blood or or puddle person juice like that that just that was a good case you're proud of yourself on it or proud of your colleagues or whatever I I made a guy one time from a homicide scene where I didn't actually work the scene but I had to respond there to get a doorknob off of the scene that there was a bloody print on it so I brought it back to the office and I used Amino black on it and I got the ident to the suspect while they were still working the scene wow I I think I that's the year I got forensic Specialists a year okay humble brag I think that was yours the best one ever yeah what about scary stuff so I did have that moment years ago um I was on a burglary scene up in Oldsmar and I was told that the deputies cleared the house and uh it was a like a duplex place and the women the lady that lived there was an elderly female and she planted plants all the time out back and she went to go do her planning in the morning on her porch and she noticed her knife was missing off her plant shelf where she always housed it so then she goes into her bedroom and realizes like the jewelry box is open or something so she's like what's going on well then she realizes her kitchen windows a jar so she called law enforcement uh they could see scratches on the kitchen window so now we're working a burglary so they're like this is what happened we believe someone took the knife used the knife to pry the window open and went and took her jewelry while the woman slept so I'm in there photographing the house her son comes over um because she's elderly and he always comes over whenever there's an issue and I'm in the bedroom which has a bathroom inside of it and he goes oh where's Mom's rug I'm like rug and he's like yeah she keeps a rug in front of the tub she always calls me and says someone steals a rug I always find it in the shower because you know she's older and I was like okay and he went to go look in the shower said no don't look in the shower yet I have to still photograph everything like it is so I continue on with my photos move the shower curtains photograph the shower there's a closet in the bathroom I open the closet I was like oh there's her rug not thinking of anything of it I moved said rug there's the lady hiding there with the knife Ah that's a fur and now I'm trapped I have no way out because there's no door for me to get out from where now she pops out she's between you and the door she's between me and the door there's no Escape in this room so I'm that's the first time I ever call because the deputies aren't with me I called 10 24 on the radio which means help now so it's a nice time is like a regular backup 24 is you're gonna license Sirens this is something serious get here right there now correct and instantly they got there and got her into custody but um did you guys just like stare at each other yeah I because the the sun was screaming at her so I think he had her like she didn't know what was going on and I was just like standing there oh here it is and and we had just got our OC taken from us because the pepper spray because uh everybody went to tasers so they took they took OC off of the and I I get it I get why they took it because it always doesn't work on people it could just make people I learned not an academy it can just make them more angry I would never use it on a person I liked it for the mere fact about dogs like when we're walking in people's backyards or businesses or neighborhoods and a random straight dogs hauling at you you can maybe spray the dog so I could get away from said dog and not get bit because I don't have a taser or gun I can't I'm getting bit if the dogs are running at me okay so throw your your black powder out there yeah I have a I think the heaviest item on my belt is the radio so I could like hit him with the radio but uh yeah so that was my scariest moment yeah could have potentially gone so horribly that could have wow yeah but deputies don't stay on the scene when you guys are processing or so um they they had a call down the street so they left um but now I have them stay on the scene yeah because I'm like what if the person returned like if the person's not in custody right I mean it depends on the nature of what it is too I mean yeah you know but yeah for sure I would yeah I do now because you know we're not paying attention when we're fully processing we don't know our surroundings because we're into doing our work anytime someone can come up behind us so yeah how how are deputies about preserving crime scenes do they go in and mess up your evidence or RFD or uh FD does a lot so on suicides and stuff they like to move the gun oh um which the gun games don't tell a story on a suicide yeah um so that's crime scene 101 the guy's not gonna come or ladies not gonna come back alive and shoot you or will they I always said the day someone comes alive on me also it's gonna be it is the day I'm walking out I will call the sheriff and say everything's in my vehicle at my residence you can come get it is it true people move after they're dead I have heard that story I've never seen it about stories of people like I literally did not just falsely accused of being dead but literally sitting up so we had we had a lady that worked suicide and she was doing 35 millimeter so she had to go get more film and they shot themselves in the bed and so she had to go out to her van out front and she heard noise behind her when she started walking away and the person was walking like they took their final walk and it just fell down to the ground what yeah so they can also sit up too and transport like when they're transforming if they you hit a bump like it's just your gas is like like it's I don't know I'm telling you the day it happens to me I'm done oh yeah I am done speaking of gases bodies um expand some after they die and then and maybe even Paul oh yeah I've had one pop on me like when I was holding the hand how did you not end up naked after that oh well so like that can Okay so yeah it could they couldn't be id'd by their driver's license they were deceased on their couch and their hands were swollen and wet so I was like drying them with the towel and trying to Ink it to bring back to aphis to identify the fingerprint and I'm like lightly doing it just lightly and lightly and I get to the other hand and it popped the one finger on me and the juices went everywhere it's disgusting oh so it's not like the whales on the beach the whole body doesn't the whole body camera again I've seen that but I know something to look forward to when the Emmy moves them and they have a big bubble on it it will pop it's nasty isn't it stinks worse than it already stinks worse than the P drain um it depends on the location you're at cooling the P-trap okay or a P-trap that's what I meant different kind of Sting I need to get all my fluids in places straight where you can get fluids um okay well I I tell you the people the the text that the medical examiner's office I come get the bodies those people are our next level I I don't even uh no yeah exactly that like to be there up in it they're using their spatulas they're driving with them in the oh no I'm just good with it at the scene and bye-bye bye-bye yeah they they need to get more credit than they're given oh they I don't know what does that do that is one job that I would never want mm-hmm I think a lot of people say about your job um yeah yeah they will now that they've heard of us Maybe not maybe not fingerprints yeah yeah what uh what are some things we talked a little bit about how you know Hollywood and CSI and stuff is kind of messed up people's expectations of forensics is there is there anything that is depicted in in pop culture and shows about forensics or or things that may have been depicted in the past that are true now like was there were they depicting technology you know 20 years ago or 15 years ago that this is true now or is there anything at all that they get right well [Music] maybe Forensics Files gets it right well there's other shows shows is it Forensics Files just isn't that like First 48 words it's like actual front right I know okay so yeah we're the drama series they're drama we're not solving a crime in five minutes uh maybe not even a day you don't see me rolling up in a Hummer in a mini skirt right maybe I could write that memo next to the show yeah skirt I will not wear high heels though it's gotta be flat okay no because I live in work boots and off duty it's flip-flops or tennis shoes so um yeah yeah so they don't get anything right then is what you're saying nothing not one thing it's it's all for drama for the TV shows right you know they're using the blue light and broad daylight and everything's glowing but we do have blue lights that we can use in daylight or the lasers the Tracer laser we can use in the broad daylight it's intense it's a full-on laser um and I actually have used it in the broad daylight when we first got it because I was like there is no way this is gonna work it was a car in a field I was told it couldn't be towed because it's in a Woods in a field so I'm envisioning a car on blocks or fully overgrown because why else can it be towed for us to fully process because it was a rape case so we had to go to the scene and process it we roll up there it's a grass field the size of this room with like three trees in it in the cars like right near one of the trees and it's on all Wheels oh I go okay why can't this be towed so long story short we ended up having our regular handheld lights out there you couldn't see anything because there's no shade it's bro no cloud in the sky bright Sun so called the office the Tracer laser is portable we just got it brought it out and I'm like oh we're not gonna see anything that because you're we were always trained we need Darkness it showed so we were able to photograph the ALS on the back seat of the car and be done be done so that's a good point though so you you do have a space at the office where you can process vehicles and you always prefer to do that correct we prefer to process stuff in controlled environments we have an off-site forensics processing garage where we like the vehicles to get towed back to and we can process it take your time to have to worry about the elements correct which is another Point uh fingerprints don't last as long in the heat is that right so the heat could potentially melt them together because your fingerprints made up of 98 water and the rest is lipids solids fats or not solid sodiums fats chlorides so in the heat it can melt together uh rain it can wash it away so but it could still be there soup right you never know till we throw our magical powder on it see if it's still there what's ALS alternate light source oh okay okay it's a lot of things I keep saying Alf that's what Alf yeah I was like that's not it not it that's not it you're saying something else what um what is the part of the job that you just hate besides blood and puddle people that's probably it it's probably it puddle people the most I know there's another smell you don't like oh fires you don't like the smell of food I love working fire scenes I hate the smell of fire so the way it sticks to you yes so I hate in the wintertime not coming to the bonfire no no no so I'm the person that has the gas fire pit now I live way north of here so where I live it still actually gets cold in the winter because I'm not surrounded by concrete if you live in New York they say I live in North Georgia that's what they say and uh so I have my windows open at night it's 40 degrees outside the second I smell that fire coming in like from another neighbor's house the windows are closing the AC is on I can't that smell I cannot stand and it's just from all these years of working multiple fire scenes and just sitting in it all day because all day long you smell it I was telling Laura when you work a fire scene and you wash your hair if you blow dry it it really activates it reactivates the smell correct that makes sense but you like fire scenes I do I love fire scenes so uh there's something wrong with you I just think they're interesting I know but you can't stand fire or smell but you like fire scenes I'm weird we're all weird and friends yeah yeah so don't point at me Ricky we I actually uh had a sapphire call in the beginning of my career so um Amber Camacho when we both worked the road together well she started before me one day like her shift was before mine so I was driving into work and I see her on a fire for Pinellas Park at a horse barn and I know she doesn't like fire and it was going to be extended scene so I went to relieve her and it was really sad I was like oh God I relieved her on the wrong type of fire scene because the horses the lady did her best to try to get them all out but horses don't like change so she had trouble getting a lot out a lot of them ran right back into where they knew so they ran back into the fire and you can it was just strange because you could tell the horses that were in action because they were all just like down right there and it was bad so what do you like about your job I like so let's find the good stuff now please I like my job um I like the fact that uh I I just like getting Justice for victims I like to find that key piece of evidence that will solve the crime for them you know and figure out who did what to them even just from simple burglaries uh the other part of my job I like is you never know what the day is going to bring every day is new like it could just be routine day which routine day would be signal sevens which is dead people or vehicle burglaries or it could be a major call it could be anything from a homicide to a department shooting you just never know what's going to come across the cad When the Call Comes into us another interesting part of the job that I like because I don't like to sit still um is you're basically at a different scene every day you have a different scenery so like if I work 10 vehicle burglaries that week all of them is going to be a different scenery so I I think that people tend to stay longer because you're going to different places versus coming to the same desk doing the same thing seeing the same sites right right you talked about liking to get Justice and stuff victims and help people are there how many cases are there any that are kind of still out there that are that are bugging you like you know you're always wanting to run you know run that again or or let's let's try processes is there any cases unsolved like any unsolved stuff that's kind of sticking with you so our missing Cadet case that I worked oh yeah that one's still like I want to know where is she at Kelly Rothwell yes I work that case um it was an interesting case I can't talk about it much because it's still not closed but I just just where did she go right I have my social theory um but I I don't know um it's just it's all just really strange that one was a little weird so I I mean you gotta have at least one I would imagine so yeah that's that's a good that's the one that one's got a lot of people captivating yeah yeah yeah if you uh if you weren't in forensics what job would you like I know I thought there was I I would probably go be a firefighter yeah yeah because it'd be great climbing up on ladders and being up on roofs no but uh fire calls but uh just like I I learned a lot about the firehouse and stuff because when I got on the HazMat team it was in-person training so I was separated from the agency I was still an employee here but like I had to be in-house training for five weeks or six weeks at the fire department so I got to see a lot of and I was at the Seminole station 29 so it's the big station in Seminole so it has a lot of operations in it and I was like man they they get to come here they get to cook breakfast together cook lunch together eat dinner together at night they get to watch TV and lazy boys and technical jobs yeah yeah they get to take naps and nobody ever gets mad at them I know everyone is always happy to see them in the day it's like I just want to take a five minute cat nap every now and then but we're not allowed yeah you know we should talk to the sheriff about it we should because you know they they have the studies done in other countries where you know take like a 15 minute nap after lunch yeah I mean you rejuvenated your mind [Music] yeah I think it's one or the other and take naps yeah we'll go back to nap time I mean you do it in Like Preschool I know I didn't like it back then because I was a kid you're sleeping on the floor too well too but now no there's yeah I had a car I was on the floor I changed it in the snow um uphill both ways I've never seen snow nope even in your North North oh yeah I saw it here back in whatever years I was in the backyard all freaking out about it my mom was from Pennsylvania so she and then she moved to New York so she's seen plenty of recognize what that stuff was it was falling down yeah a little overrated I think but we have to shovel it was actually maintaining your house in the snow was a bit annoying so people that don't want to be firefighters that actually want to go into forensics um what kind of person do you need to be to be successful in forensics besides somebody that well you can even not like all the smells and whatnot and still do it so apparently yeah germaphobe it's the best to be the germapho because so when they ask you you know what did you do to uh prevent cross-contamination this this and this you know it's always going to be done um just have a degree and want to show up to work and work 12 hour shifts work weekends and holidays birthdays you're really painting us yeah I'm like wow yeah yeah yeah but like you don't work every weekend like you guys know is never going to be assigned to HR 12-hour shifts now [Laughter] 12 hours just gives us every other week and all right now so it's nice people like clubs I think for the most part so yeah so somebody that likes attention to detail correct that likes you know having purpose correct yeah and likes to be like not in a lab setting so a lot of people come to us thinking that we're the forensics lab right where we're testing like the DNA and stuff and we're not we're the actual collecting of all the evidence and stuff out in the field yeah that's a common misconception because people pull in here and we have the Pinellas County forensics lab next door with the medical examiner like oh well forensics I'm like no no that's they're doing they're doing DNA they're doing toxicology and things like that they're doing highly technical stuff but they're they're all indoor cats correct yeah and and a lot of the candidates that put their application in through HR think that too so once you find that out obviously they don't want to do it anymore because they didn't read the job descriptions the job description lays it out right and it says I think it says climbing ladders yeah working in extreme heat conditions we're on a we keep talking about ladders yeah how are you I don't like ladders well okay so I this is Rhonda she doesn't like anything about the issue it's so we're talking about rooftop burglaries so this is a story that I told back in the day I responded to the 7-Eleven off of Tom Stewart Causeway in Gulf Boulevard it was a rooftop burglary so I have to climb up on said roof so I get my ladder out of my van we all have it it's a little giant ladder so you know it turns every which way in extends Little Giant it's a little it's a brand it's a brand oh yeah the sheriff does US good he gets us good equipment so the ladder gets up to the roof but it doesn't it doesn't come above said roof right so it's below the right thing right so I'm carrying my camera my print kit and I'm Up on the Roof no problem getting up I go to get down looking around I can't get down the deputies are you coming down I'm like I can't get down he's like yes you can I said okay take my camera and take my print kit and I'm sitting there because there's nothing for me to grab onto because I would be fine if the latter would just come over the edge right you just gotta you got to put your hands on the roof and back down it and he's like you could do this you can do this I said I can't I can't do it call empty and sure enough FD came out and got me off the roof I rescued you they did and did they carry you down no okay they came up and made sure I could get my foot on the thing and made sure I wasn't gonna fall and then um I had another one and I was like I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this I'm not calling FD this time so I'm up there I'm like oh I can't do this so then I decided let's just lay down on your belly so I so here I'm on this roof I lay down flat on my stomach and put my feet towards the ladder and I'm slowly working my way down this roof with deputies down below laughing yeah I did it and then uh we sometimes have to go up on the ladders at accident scenes to do the aerial shot down if the big ladder truck's there instead of going in the eagle they like to just do that well it's backwards on a fire truck the Ladders because down below the steps are close together the higher you go the further apart they are so here I'm up there get up and I'm like now the steps like this and I said oh God I could fall through there now you're still they attach you to a right you're tethered thing right it's just but I couldn't imagine doing it in all our gear right they do that every day but you should have been a firefighter I I well just for the sleeping and the snacks then I told her I said you know when I retire in a few years um I was told maybe you should look into being a fire investigator because you already have this and you get the fire smell yeah and then get the fire smell everybody wins so what is what does uh what does Rhonda do outside of of work that she enjoys anything fun uh my I go to my daughter's dance class and I watch her dance I go to the gym I work out that's my life that's your whole life huh it's my whole life all that excitement you gotta come you know when you're when you're used to liquid people and whatnot or what do we call them pudding people I think that's the name of the episode that might be yeah yeah I think so too don't step in the puddle people huddle people and we didn't even get to say bubble level yet no we have not got to see bubble level Bubble Level bubble level do I talk about that yeah I mean so you work all of these big cases and you frequently have to appear in court which I'm sure can be really stressful yes yeah so is there any any big case you can talk about or you were so center of attention there was the circle a shooting to stay in your ground the first one in our County uh Draco case yeah and so I worked at um three days before trial my phone rang I was out school shopping with my kid hey what are you doing uh school shopping oh well we gotta return to the crime scene oh for what well they want to use a bubble level thing to put on the slope of the walkway where it goes from the walkway to the drive and take a picture like okay well we don't have one of those we don't house one I'm talking about just a level right like the long bubble levels like the blue ones right well they're they come in all colors but the one we got's blue so here off to Home Depot we go we get above a level and we go to the scene I take the photos the next day I have trial prep in the next day's trial so this is like right before trial yeah yeah so I they tell me to bring the Bubble Level and I said what and they go yeah tomorrow bring the Bubble Level with you into the courtroom and I go you bring your own props yeah and I said you you can't ask me anything about this device because I don't I can't it's a stick I don't I'm not comfortable to testify on this I said all I know is you lay it on the ground and the bubble has to be in the middle thing in this level that's all I know I can't really talk about this this is a new or you don't even have this are there Bubble Level experts out there somewhere that can expand on that I don't know I mean there is foreign TV is going to be in there the news channels are in there there's gonna be full of cameras everywhere so I was already nervous about that I've testified so many times in my career I can't even tell you I never get scared just to find this one I was scared because of all this and I knew everybody and their brother would be watching so here I I walk in the courtroom when my name's called with the Bubble Level in my hand are you holding it like a sword I'm just holding it yes and I was like oh man they weren't lying about these cameras they were everywhere so everywhere a person would sit in the courtroom it was covered in cameras courtroom one yeah and then the camera was literally mounted next to the witness stand so you I literally had to look down at the ground when I had to get into the stand because I would have knocked over the tripod because it was right here in your face and then there was a camera directly in front of your face so I'm sitting in the witness stand I'm doing pretty good I'm on the stand for like 30 minutes 35 minutes where's the level now it's still sitting next to me it's just next it's just next to me like your friend like my friend your emotional support so yeah yeah I get asked a question about it so I what was the question yeah how does it work you responded back out uh to the scene to do some additional photographs what item did you take to complete that this so I because they said they weren't gonna ask me said question and I'm already nervous so I just forgot my mind just went oh my God they're asking me this question so I pick it up and I said this measuring thing I said thing no why on the end didn't say thingy did not say thingy I have it on my phone I recorded it like I played back the live thing and recorded on my phone and proved everyone I didn't say thingy so I finished testifying it was like I was up there forever I get off the stand I take my phone out of the pocket I had like 30 text messages almost all of our homicide guys my whole office thingy thingy thingy they have screenshots of my face on the news because it says Rhonda Klein underneath it on there expert and I'm like I did not say thingy so that was an embarrassing moment in my career I was very embarrassed hey but it was a conviction so it was 24 years the thing he worked but in my defense I said don't ask me about this thing you just made us get 30 days you went back out to the scene what device did you take the Bubble Level I couldn't remember that word but that they weren't asking you about how it works or anything I lose words all the time I sympathize oh I do too oh yeah we all do just not on National Television yeah it's such a fun way too can I say Bubble Level again because I really like really what it's called I think it is I would just call it a level in it so what other level is that but yeah isn't there any other way to check if something's level well our thing that we put on our camera um to make sure it's at 90 degrees with the ground when we're doing uh comparison photos is we call it a bubble level and it's the same thing that's inside that thing we say Bubble Level it is bubble necessary I think because there's a floating bubble in it so it's a bubble I mean I know what you're doing the level I've never called it a bubble level it's always been a level I don't know right I don't know we can move on it's a fun name though I like it it's always it's fun makes it sound happy it does it does it sounds yeah unless you're talking about the bubble of a dead person do you still that that too do you still have the bubble level in your office like mounted on a Wall of Shame or fame or whatever it's actually in our equipment closet for you yes if needed have you used it again since then we have not okay I hope someday you have an uneven surface that you need to or levels I don't know how exactly how to use them it might become you know my retirement um gift in some joking manner I have a feeling it's coming the Bubble Level correct bubble level um that was fun what else Laura um should we get to the final question that we ask everybody yeah I just want to make sure I'm not using some other heinous nasty thing you want I mean is there another did we miss a bottle no we did okay nope got all of them sure yep we did in all the animal deaths that was great yeah that was my favorite this is why when you talk about Bubble levels because it's a happy yeah yeah because it's happy because [Laughter] so you usually do the concluding thing yeah all right so we always give our guests the opportunity if there's if there's one thing that you can let the public know it can be about specific about your job it can be a general public safety thing what do you what does Rhonda Klein want the citizenry of Pinellas County and potentially the world because we have listeners all over the world what do you want them to know please lock your car doors it's a simple friend yeah simple just lock the car doors we have so many unlocked burglaries right now with guns being stolen out of it and that's actually a stolen gun was used to kill the law enforcement Deputy so like just lock your doors is that your most common call that you get would you guys like be out of a job if people just lock their doors we would probably need half the division yeah but yeah it's just lock your doors so put forensics out of business and lock your door yes yeah um don't is it I've heard that a lot of times people won't let you guys process their vehicles though well that is is that why I just I don't understand why people why even call to say hey my vehicle got broken into if they're not going to let you guys process to try to get prints So eventually this person can get you know so a lot of people want to make the report but a lot of people are afraid to get the powder on their vehicle or inside their car because it's messy because it's messy I think but you know we we have better technology today we can do just touch DNA in that case if they don't want powder on it we should at least go out there and photograph the car and just collect a touch DNA from it because if they open the center console or glove box or even touch the interior door and a lot of them like if like people if nothing's taken there's rummage suit they don't want to process them either and it's like all right you still could get so lock your doors but if you don't let us process your car correct please to try to get a print yeah and don't leave your gun in your car don't leave your gun in the car yeah even if you lock it don't worry yeah and if you lock it don't leave it in the car and if you do lock your doors don't leave your purses or bags visible either because then they're going to smash your window don't let them see things of value and yes obviously people because this is always a point of conversation with the Firearms obviously if you're going somewhere where you're not allowed to take the gun inside that's fine but be smart about it lock it you can a lot of lockable boxes things like that you know just keep guns out of the hands of bad people correct well Rhonda I know that you had to face another fear today to talk with us but we promised that it would be painless and I and you think you were smiling the whole time so we did good thank you for uh joining us on this episode 56 and thanks for all you do and all the men and women mostly women uh of forensics because it is uh it is not easy and it has it's tremendously valuable because we couldn't put bad people in jail for the most part without what forensics does so thank you for that and thanks for coming and being a good sport um we appreciate it thank you for having me and you lived and I lived you did no ladders no Heights it's warm in here yeah and I have long sleeves on too that's that too that seems a little self-inflicted though it is yeah um Laura do your thing well we want to know what you guys think of of this episode or the podcast in general and we really want to hear ideas for who you'd like to hear next and we have a way for you guys to get in contact with us and hear from our adoring public and it's let's 56 at pcsonet.com that's l-e-t-s-56 pcsnnet.com that was pretty good that wasn't your best one it was not because I was still smirking about swabbings and things I bubble level thanks everybody for listening catch you next time [Music] foreign