St. Charles County, MO
12/02/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/02/2024 13:23
CSI St. Charles County: Real Life CSI Team Solving Crime with New Technology
As County Police prepare to celebrate their 10-year anniversary next month, Chief Kurt Frisz says the all-civilian CSI team is playing an important role solving crime.
"I think the advent of TV shows like CSI has drawn attention to this kind of work," Frisz says. "It's nice in St. Charles County that you don't have to be a police officer to serve in the unit."
The all-civilian makeup of the unit has led to stability, Frisz says, because the people there want to be there long term- as opposed to police officer CSI teams whose members might get promoted out.
"I'm extremely proud of the work that our Crime Scene Investigators do daily," Frisz says. "Their attention to detail in processing crime scenes, collecting evidence, and conducting forensic analysis of the evidence is a key reason behind our high clearance rate."
A roomful of puzzle solvers
They were the kids who could solve jigsaw puzzles on a rainy day-or knock off a sudoku or word search before the rest of us. Now they solve murders, burglaries, car thefts and more-all with the same skills. They find the pieces.
"To be a Crime Scene Investigator, you have to enjoy puzzles," says CSI Don Smallwood. "That's ultimately what we're doing, is putting together a puzzle without the picture."
Smallwood, 50, is the longest-serving member of the six-person team. (They collect and document the evidence needed to make cases.)
"The basics of crime scene investigation is the same," Smallwood says. "What's changed is the technology. It's changed significantly over my career."
Amazing technology
In the old days, when Smallwood got started, he would use a 35mm film camera to document a crime scene-and had to develop the film himself.
Now, he uses a 3D digital camera that can capture a murder scene or car accident location in lifelike detail-like an architect's rendering that can be viewed from all angles.
They also have an infrared camera that can see evidence of bruising under the skin in assault cases before it's visible to the naked eye.
A mechanic's garage off the crime lab lets the CSI team search vehicles for evidence involving guns, drugs, and DNA.
Fingerprints no longer have to be done with ink. The CSI team can scan them on a table-top screen, instantly loading them into a data base to compare with other crime scene prints.
Once DNA evidence or fingerprints are entered into the system, they could get a match at any time with some other crime scene nationwide.
"Our unsolved latent evidence remains searching in the system until the statute of limitations runs out. All of a sudden, I'll come in on a Monday and we got five hits to cases over the weekend from old cases, because a matching suspect got arrested over the weekend," Smallwood says.
The half-eaten Cheeto
There was a burglary in St. Charles County in which the homeowner noticed the thieves got into the pantry. They tore through a bunch of snacks, leaving a half-eaten Cheeto on the floor.
The CSI team pounced on the Cheeto, hoping it might contain DNA evidence.
It did. It ended up identifying a suspect and making the case.
"That sort of thing would never have been possible in the old days," Smallwood says.
Now, the CSI team is finding smaller and smaller amounts of DNA that seems to shout from every corner of crime scenes, "Here I am, over here."
"When I first started, we had to have a coin-sized blood sample to get blood typing," Smallwood says. "Now we can collect 'touch' DNA from a fingerprint or skin cells, from touching a doorknob or light switch."
She grew up watching those CSI TV shows
Ashley Burkemper, 34, is the youngest member of the CSI team. She says it was the TV shows that first drew her in.
"When I was growing up all the crime scene shows were pretty popular," Burkemper says. "I was very into CSI Las Vegas. Gil Grissom-loved him and all those characters-and that kind of got me into it."
Then she went to college for criminal justice, graduated, and worked 8 years as a County 911 emergency dispatcher before an opening came up in CSI. She applied for the job and got it.
On the team for two-and-a-half years, she still gets excited when she finds some good evidence at a crime scene.
"I had a case a couple of weeks ago. It was a stolen vehicle, and I found a fingerprint that we believe is the suspect's under the door handle inside the vehicle," Burkemper says. "It's a good feeling. I just like figuring out those puzzle pieces, figuring out who did the crime."
Burkemper says she enjoys learning more about evidence scene photography, and she enjoys the collaborative vibe of the CSI team.
"I think we have a really good culture here," she says. "I really enjoy this. I can see myself retiring from my current position. I can see myself being in this role for a long time."
Mid-career in CSI and still smiling
A cheerful man who has seen a few corpses in his time, CSI Daniel James says you have to be task-oriented when you're confronted with the horrible.
"I just think as I'm at the scene, 'Hey, I've got a job to do,'' he says, "and you just got to do it."
Raised in Wentzville, James, 37, says he was always "interested in whodunits and putting away the bad guy." In college, he studied criminal justice with an emphasis on forensics at Lindenwood University.
When we spoke with him, James was in the lab photographing a shoe from an apparent suicide scene (to rule out homicide).
On the job now for 12 years, James says he likes the variety. Some days it's lab work, processing fingerprints, doing photographs of physical evidence. Other days it's going to a crime scene.
His most memorable case?
"There was a homicide in St. Peters a few years back. A young girl in her late teens or early 20s had been stabbed several times," James says. "We had some blood stains at the scene that ended up being his blood. He ended up admitting to everything and he's in prison now for the rest of his life."
Chief Frisz also mentioned this case as an example of the work the CSI team does.
"They recognized one blood splatter was set off in a different area," Frisz says, "And they went to his known residence and found more of his blood there on the front porch. They recognize things that a normal person is not going to see-that I wouldn't see."
To young people interested in the business, James says it's meaningful work, but it takes a certain kind of person.
"You've got to be able to deal with death," James says. "We don't do death every day. We also do burglaries and that kind of stuff. But we do have to deal with death from time to time."
CSI Predictions for the Future
The head of the CSI St. Charles department, Sgt. Dan Zanzottera predicts artificial intelligence will be a game changer.
"I think A.I. technology will be used to make DNA processing a faster, more efficient thing through data mining," Zanzottera says. "A.I. may also be used in detecting and developing fingerprints without the use of enhancement powders."
Zanzottera also predicts 3D cameras now used to document crime or accident scenes will get smaller and faster. Instead of a bulky 3D camera on a tripod that requires extensive hands-on work to create evidence for court, Zanzottera expects smaller, hand-held 3D cameras with faster scan times that upload to a cloud or data base.
The veteran of the department, CSI Don Smallwood says technology will continue to dazzle and change the way evidence is gets from the crime scene to the court room.
"I can see by the time I'm done at the end of my career, we could be putting juries into virtual reality goggles and letting them walk through a crime scene. We're close to that."
Editor's note: This article is part of a series celebrating the upcoming 10-year anniversary of the St. Charles County Police Department.