Detective

 This badge has taken me far longer to complete than I think it should have done, given my penchant for police dramas.

The science of fingerprinting - this goes much further than just which of the three main types you have got. I already knew how you can lift fingerprints (superglue in an enclosed space - thanks for that Beverly Hills Cop, - also sellotape, fingerprint dust), and where fingerprints can be found: on any smooth non-porous material. TV series will also show that you can attempt to rehydrate the skin on the finger tips, then ‘wear’ the fingertips like gloves to provide fingerprints. There are 3 main fingerprint types - arch (about 5%), loop (about 60%) and whorl (about 35%) - and they can be subdivided: pain arch, tented arch, radial loop, ulnar loop, central pocket loop, double loop, plain whorl, accidental whorl. I’ve made more notes about fingerprints in my Rebel Notebook, but as a final comment on this section I believe that my fingerprints include whorls, loops and a tented arch.

Use of DNA evidence - deoxyribonucleic acid, which is made of 2 linked strands that wind around each other in a double helix. Basically, DNA contains that blueprint of each individual.The complete set of your DNA is called your genome, and it contains roughly 3 billion bases, twenty thousand genes and 23 pairs of chromosomes. You inherit one half of your DNA from your father and one half from your mother. DNA is present in all our cells, and DNA evidence can be collected from blood, hair, skin cells, saliva, sperm, semen, urine, faeces, swears, fingernails, muscles, bone, teeth, earwax…each person’s DNA is different, with the exception of identical twins. In the US DNA samples are entered into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), and in the UK it is entered into the National DNA Dattabase (NDNAD) - officially known at the UK National Crime Intelligence database. In 2020 it had 5.6 million individuals on there.. Some samples have been deleted as the individuals have not been charged or have been found not guilty. Mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA) is inherited from the biological mother, so all people who are related maternally have the same MtDNA. Examining DNA in the sex-determining chromosomes will show whether males are related - as the Y chromosome e are passed through the paternal line, so a brother, father and male children will exhibit the same Y chromosome. It is important to note that blood transfusion will temporarily change the DNA profile of the receiver’s blood. However, for a bone marrow transplant recipient, their blood will come from the donor’s stem cells, and so will have the donor’s DNA - in this case it is important to test both blood and another tissue sample from the suspect’s body, to make sure they have the same DNA.

Blood spatter analysis - here programmes such as CSI and NCIS have been very helpful! Blood spatter can tell you the type of weapon that was used, the force that was used, what happened after the event. It can help to answer questions such as: where did the blood come from, what caused the wounds, from what direction was the victim wounded, how were the victim(s) and perpetrator(s) positioned, what movements were made after the bloodshed, how many potential perpetrators were present, does bloodstain evidence support or refuse witness statements. There are 3 basis types of blood stains - passive stains, transfer stains and impact stains, and I’ve gone into further detail about these in my Rebel Notebook.

Blood type - there are 4 main blood groups: A, B, AB and O. Your blood group is determined my the genes you inherit from you parents. Each group can be either RhD positive, or RhD negative. A and B versions of the blood type are dominant, O version is recessive, and RhD positive is dominant, RhD negative is recessive. A+B=AB, A+O=O, A+A=A, B+O=B, B+B=B, O+O=O. RhD postive + RhD negative = RhD positive,  - only RhD negative + RhD negative = RhD negative. My blood type is A+; this means my blood can be given to A+ and AB+. I can receive blood from A+, A-, O+, O-. In addition to this my blood is marked NEO - it is CMV negative - it lacks the cytomegalovirus. CMV is a mild and very common virus, 50% - 60% of adults in the UK have had it. People are often infected in childhood and might not know they’ve had it, so CMV+ blood is safe for most patients, but it won’t be given to bone marrow recipients or newborn babies, as CMV+ blood can cause life-threatening illnesses to patients, especially those with particularly poor immune systems.

I’ve made a scrapbook page in Canva - all about Vera Stanhope (TV series). It was quite difficult to choose my favourite fictional detective - who to choose? Van der Valk, James Bergerac, Miss Marple; in the end I thought that Vera Stanhope gave me a fair amount to work with!

Solve at least 3 cases - what constitutes solving a case when they could be games, books, portals mysteries, escape rooms etc.? I chose Space Station Escape Room which required a little thinking to work out exactly what they wanted, but didn’t take very long in the end. The second one I chose was a book called The Cypher Files. At first this looks rather thin, especially for something that costs £12. However, it was well worth the money, as it involves not just the book, but a website too - so it truly is interactive, and requires you to think outside the box. Once I had started it, I didn’t really want to put it down! The third case I solved was a mystery jigsaw puzzle called Murder At The Pyramids. I read the story, put together the 1000 piece jigsaw (for which there was no picture to help), and from that picture I thought I had worked out who the culprit was - and I was delighted to find that I was correct! It was perhaps not the best idea to start the jigsaw a week before we had someone coming to stay for a week - it took quite a long time to work out where all the pieces went, and I’m sure that some of the pieces went in places I had tried numerous times previously without any success!

Three different methods of concealing a message: a fairly simple task for an avid geocacher! Using invisible ink, and using a black light or heat to reveal the message, using codes or ciphers (please note, codes and ciphers are two different things), putting a message in an ordinary item - e.g. bison tube, fake rock, hollowed out book, steganography, hiding it in plain sight - I could go on, but I won’t!

Review your chosen media (choose at least three to review, - either true crime documentaries, three different true crime podcasts, or three detective novels - can be a mixture). I watched at least 3 episodes of the series ‘Written in Blood’ which is hosted by novelist Simon Toyne. In the episodes he talks with authors who have used true crimes as inspiration for their novels, and they look at a particular murder that took place; often Simon Toyne will see if he can work out who the murderer is, based on the evidence he is presented with. The programmes work well, as you get to see some familiar authors (Tess Gerritson, Elly Griffith, Karin Slaughter, Peter Robinson) and learn about their methods for writing, and their background. The programmes also have evidence from the crime itself, and will also have interviews with police officers who were involved in the case. It is particularly pleasing that it is a British host with quite a few British authors - many such documentaries on TV seem to be American. 

I watched a few episodes of an American documentary series - while it was interesting enough, it did not have the same impact as ‘Written in Blood’ (I can’t even remember the name of the series) - it was very repetitive, and at times it was particularly easy to guess who the murderer was.

I enjoy reading and since starting on the Detective badge I have read several books; most recently ‘The Memory Game’ by Nicci French. This was a book that had me wanting more - I wanted to continue reading it well into the night; the main character Jane Martello discovers the body of her best friend who had disappeared some 25 years previously. Jane then sets about trying to find out who killed her best friend, and why. It is through therapy that she starts to find answers, but not without causing some friction in her family to start with. Just when you think you’ve got the answer and found the murderer, there is a twist - and one that I certainly did not see coming. 

Another book I read (having read the latest Richard Osman book and also the novels by Reverend Richard Coles) was The Askham Accusation by Rebecca Tope. I found this book a little difficult  - I might even describe it as tedious - I wanted to get on and read it, but I was disappointed by the ending, as I felt the rest of the book had not been leading here, and how on earth was anyone supposed to work out exactly who had done it? The main character is a florist in the Lake District, who has helped the police solve mysteries previously. In this novel, Simmy Henderson (main character) is accused of murder, and so sets out to clear her name with the help of the boyfriend of her shop assistant, her husband, her shop assistant and her parents. They do solve it in the end, but not without a lot of confusion - and as Simmy says at the end “We were wrong about nearly everything,” - which sums up the book for me.

As a final book - A Death In The Hospital by Caroline Dunford (a Euphemia Martins mystery) - I did enjoy this book; it is set in the early days of WW1, but there is not a huge amount in the book to suggest this - it is as easy to read it as if it were set in WW2 or the present day. Euphemia Stapleford (previously Martins) is involved with British Intelligence, something that came about as a way to escape the death penalty (for something she was not guilty of). In this book she and her friend Merry go to become nurses, and her husband goes with Spymaster Fitzroy on a mission. We read about Euphemia climbing trees, climbing in and out of windows, exploring places in the dark, and even going out for a run to keep fit. She is charged with finding out who the traitor is in a team of spotters, who are recuperating in the hospital. At the same time there are some mysterious deaths in the hospital - and Euphemia manages to solve more than one mystery. The book ends of a cliff hanger - I’m currently thinking that I may have to read more from this series!