𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗬 𝗡𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗛𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗥 𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗖 𝗦𝗖𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗦𝗧 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘!
𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. (𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴!)
(thank you Elaine for this one!)
Once I was done laughing, because Elaine is right about how we see it on TV and in movies, I got down to it.
𝟭 – 𝗟𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀. It’s mixed ahead of time, but not by much. So we never see crime techs doing these first steps. Sometimes it’s a powder or a tablet. This takes a minute and it’s good about 24 hours. And it needs to be tested to be sure you don’t have a bad batch.
𝟮 – 𝗠𝘆 𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗹 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝟰 𝗼𝘇. (That’s for personal use not generally full crime scene, but the bottles aren’t huge like propane tanks!) This isn’t going down like painting your house with a sprayer or a teenage boy with Axe. Mine deosn’t even have a good squeeze sprayer for volume. Just the little push top one, and it’s legitimate crime scene material.
𝟯 – 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀. Heme is a component of blood and these compounds flouresce under black light when they come in contact with heme. So you need spray, blood, and black light to see anything.
𝟰 – 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗲! We aren’t using it on blood we can ID with our bare eyes. But this will show the blood you thought you scrubbed away. Or the small amount on your sneaker that you wiped from human eye visibility. So we are only spraying where we already suspect there is residual, unvisible blood. Then if we find it, we can use that spatter to direct where to see more of it.
𝗔𝘀 𝘂𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹, 𝗧𝗩 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝘁. Luminol/BlueStar/etc are great tools, but if there’s enough visible blood, it may not get used until the crime scene cleaners are there to be sure they got it all!
𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲? 𝗔𝘀𝗸 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆!
