Five Fun Forensic Facts 4 Fiction!
By Judy Melinek, M.D & T.J. Mitchell
January 7, 2020
Forensics shows are a ball, right? Not if you’re us. If you’re forensic pathologist Dr. Judy Melinek, you throw things at the screen while screaming about the parade of absurdities and inaccuracies marching across it. If you’re her husband, writer T.J. Mitchell, you have to dodge the things being thrown.
We have co-authored a nonfiction forensics book, Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner, and have blogged on this subject when it comes to television (“7 CSI fails“) and the media (“A Forensic Primer for Journalists“). Our own debut detective novel, First Cut, is coming in January. In writing it, we tried to remain as true to Dr. Melinek’s morgue life as we could be, while working within the requirements of the genre. There are a lot of pitfalls along that path! Here is our shortlist—the 5 most common forensics errors that crime writers make.
- A coroner is not a medical examiner, and a medical examiner is not a cop. In writing about crime, you need to understand your fictional jurisdiction. If it’s a medical examiner district, then the system is run entirely by doctors. The autopsy death investigation is performed by a forensic pathologist, usually called an assistant medical examiner, overseen by another forensic pathologist, the chief medical examiner. If it’s a coroner district, then it’s still a forensic pathologist who does the autopsy, but the final investigative authority is not a doctor; a coroner can be an elected official, a sheriff, or some other public officer. All of these different bureaus might also include a cast of support professionals: medico-legal death investigators, autopsy technologists, forensic anthropologists and dentists and neuropathologists…. You get the picture. If you want to make your fiction realistic, research the structure of the death investigation system in the state you are writing about, and strive to reflect the integrity of these different layers of divisional expertise.
- Cause and manner of death are not the same thing. You will never hear a medical examiner or coroner say, “the cause of death was blood loss,” or “the cause of death was self-inflicted.” The cause of death is the disease or injury that starts the lethal sequence of events. If someone is shot and one of your characters asks your forensic pathologist for the cause of death, the correct answer is something like “gunshot wound to the head.” If your dead guy has been stabbed, it’s “stab wound of the chest.” Blood loss is the mechanism by which your dead guy died, but the cause of that death is the injury that brought about the blood loss. Its bedfellow, manner of death, is a legal and scientific classification scheme we use to categorize causes. In most jurisdictions, the available manners of death are natural, accident, homicide, suicide, and undetermined. Natural deaths are due to disease or aging. Accidental deaths are due to unforeseeable acts, like a motor vehicle collision, or to hostile environments, like a drowning. A homicide is a death due to a volitional act of another person. Suicide is due to an intentionally self-inflicted lethal act. Undetermined means there’s not enough information to come down hard on one—an area of ambiguity that can, of course, be a boon to a crime writer, but only if (again) you do your homework and understand how death certificates get finalized.
- Time of death estimation based on biology is guesswork. It is not accurate down to the minute or even the hour. The deputy coroner or medical examiner cannot come out to the crime scene and declare that, based on the body temperature or rigidity, the time of death was between 8 and 8:30 last night. While the body does cool at approximately 1.5 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit per hour, the accuracy of these determinations is highly dependent on the temperature of the death scene and the starting temperature of the body. If the victim died with a fever or had been taking drugs like ecstasy or methamphetamines that screwed with their metabolism, their temperature might have started higher than normal, affecting the time of death estimation. “The time of death was in the ballpark of 8 to 10 PM, plus or minus two or three hours,” is about the best you can pull off if you want to reflect reality.
- Crime writers love poisonings. Real murderers do not. In the course of Dr. Melinek’s 20-year career, she’s found that almost all poisonings are accidental overdoses of drugs, whether prescribed or illicit. She can count on one hand the number of homicidal poisonings she’s investigated. Most drugs do not have an immediate and instantaneous effect when ingested. Only rare weapons-grade toxins can be formulated to be absorbed through the skin, so sprinkling them on a surface won’t work. If you must poison a character, do your research. Toxicology textbooks are out there in libraries. Pay attention to the timing of onset and symptoms, and get the scenario right.
- Gunshot wounds won’t drop your victim to the ground, unless there is direct injury to the brain or spinal cord. Bullets don’t spin people around or propel them across a room. In many cases people don’t even know they’ve been shot, even if the wound proves fatal. When you’re writing about gunshot wounds, consult an actual doctor who treats injuries, like a surgeon or an emergency room physician—or, of course, your friendly neighborhood forensic pathologist. Just don’t ask her to tune in to your favorite forensics show, unless you want an earful after.
More: Doreen Sheridan’s Review of First Cut
About First Cut by Judy Melinek & T.J. Mitchell:
For San Francisco’s newest medical examiner, Dr. Jessie Teska, it was supposed to be a fresh start. A new job in a new city. A way to escape her own dark past.
Instead she faces a chilling discovery when an opioid-overdose case contains hints of something more sinister. Jessie’s superiors urge her to close the case, but as more bodies land on her autopsy table, she uncovers a constellation of deaths that point to an elaborate plot involving drug dealers and Bitcoin brokers.
Drawing on her real-life experiences as a forensics expert, Judy Melinek teams up with husband T.J. Mitchell to deliver the most exhilarating mystery of the year. Autopsy means “see for yourself,” and Jessie Teska won’t stop until she has seen it all—even if it means that the next corpse on the table could be her own.
Comment below for a chance to win a copy of First Cut by Judy Melinek & T.J. Mitchell!
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Ah, but I’ve watched “Bones”: they have magical 3D holograms you can walk around and all kinds of things! Are you telling me a show like that isn’t a realistic study of forensic science???
I’m so glad people like Dr. Melinek are educating the public about what forensic pathology and death investigation are really about since there is so much misinformation out there. I can’t wait to read First Cut!
thanks for the chance to win!
Sounds great! Would love to win.
Sounds like a fascinating read.
Sounds really interesting!
I really want to read First Cut.
Sounds like a terrific book to read and possibly choose for one of my book clubs!
I often say… that could not have happened that way and then just move on to hopefully enjoy the story!
With a firefighter as a partner I totally understand the frustration of how badly a TV show can screw things up!
I love finding out what things are really like and how things actually happen vs what hollywood likes to tell us!!
thanks for the chance!!!
i need the second cut
Looks like a great entry into the vast canon of San Francisco mysteries.
#5 is one of my pet peeves in TV and Movies too. Not only shootings but sometimes stabbings too. The victim quickly and quietly dies right away. I tend to call BS a lot. Thanks for the chance to win your new book! crs(at)codedivasites(dot)com
Loved Working Stiff! Thank you for the chance!
Love medical thrillers.
when is the 2nd cut coming ?
interesting info
I can;’t wait to read this book.
This sounds like my kind of book. I hope I’m the lucky winner!
Thanks for this intriguing feature and giveaway.
Fabulous duo and very creative.
I would be interested in getting the facts straight. Sounds good to me.
Oh, pick me, pick me. Would love to win this book!
Points made well taken. Whether I win or not I’ll be reading First Cut and probably will pick Working Stiff also.
Thanks for the opportunity and chance to win this title.
Sounds interesting .
I really enjoyed reading the “Five Fun Forensic Facts.” I will definitely keep them in mind when I read any murder mystery from now on. Thanks for taking the time to educate your readers!
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Yes, please enter me in this sweepstakes.
Thanks!
This sounds awesome!
I spent thirty years as a medicolegal death investigator in New Mexico, in addition to Emergency Nursing, healthcare management and administration, counseling, institutional internal investigations, and more. I am now completely retired; but I have not lost my passion for death investigation, etc.
Sounds fascinating. Thanks for the chance.
sounds good
Now I’m going to be looking for errors while reading!
This sounds like a great read!
Sounds great. I read and enjoyed Working Stiff. Thanks for bringing this new book to my attention.
I find this very interesting. I know some things seem a bit off on TV shows, but it’s not always easy to pinpoint exactly what it is.
Would love to win this!
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Can’t wait to read this one, great to know about this author.
Having a bit of personal experience in this world, I appreciate a more true to life description in books, though I do take into account writer freedoms and maybe they like to have it a certain way in their fictional worlds. That’s ok too. Thanks for a chance!!
Ahh how the TV shows love to change everything to fit so perfectly, yet it’s so wrong. Always enjoyed Patricia Cornwell’s novels as I knew I was reading accurate information. Would love to read your new book, right up my alley!
Fascinating, thanks for the chance to win.
This sounds great!
First Cut sounds like a great read! So interesting to learn about the inaccuracy of some of my favorite shows .
Love this list!! And how about evidence at the crime scene?
Very interesting! I love knowing the actual facts.
Omg this makes me want to re watch everything I’ve ever seen on TV! Very interesting. Thank you for the list of facts of inaccuracies, I devoured them. Can’t wait to read the book!!
You had me at “Pathologist” – I have a Clinical Lab background and I know I will love this book.
I truly appreciate writers like this. They tell the truth, because they’ve done it, seen it, and experienced it. I love the ‘debunking’ nature of comments by professionals.
I would love to learn more about forensic science. Please send me this book!
Would love to read this!
Looking forward to this book
My sister works in your world and the amount of head shaking at the TV sometimes borders on the comical. I will never forget her yelling at a CSI show about DNA. I appreciate your hard work and your books.
Thanks for the chance! Looks like an interesting read!
Great!
I find this especially fascinating, but at the same time I’m grateful in real life to be far removed from it.
I love reading Crime novels and watching tv shows like the Fall and Prime Suspect. I’d love to win.
I love the thought of reading fiction that is based on years of real life experience. It does tend to show.
Yes! Thank you for this post! I would love to win a copy of this book!
As a budding new novelist, all the research I can lay my hands on to present accurate descriptions are worth a fortune, to me. Being new to the novel field $$’s are tight for purchasing such research material. To win, however, provides me an additional boost to use the research honestly and faithfully. So, yes, I would love to be picked to receive this exciting book.
There’s always room for one more book, even if I have to buy a new bookcase.
Would love to win
It sounds like a really interesting book.
I would be grateful to win and share.
This is useful information since as a lay person, it’s hard to know how it is in the real world.
Poisons interest me because a lot TV shows seem to go to such extremes about which one they use, its effects, where to get it, etc. Thanks for the chance to win. Love mysteries! 💜💜💜
Loved the article! The book sounds great. I love getting the facts straight too.
This looks good
Thank you for the article.
Loved the article…can’t wait to read the book!
Very nice blog post. I absolutely love this site. Keep writing!
Fascinating behind the scene details. Thanks. I so want to read this!
Loved your fun forensic facts. Your book sounds like a lot of fun.
I love the mystery genre. I especially love novels where I can learn. Whether it be crime techniques, an activity or a period: I like to expand my knowledge.
Finally an opportunity to get the facts from a professional! This sounds like a great book!!!