John Wayne Gacy - Remember him?

Well, it's a new year and it's also been a while since my last story about forensic science. So I thought I'd start off the new year with a mild story about how I got involved with crime scene work.

Many years ago, while I was still in high school, I recall the news stories about John Wayne Gacy in Chicago. Gacy had murdered many young boys and then buried them in the crawlspace of his home. When they finally caught on to him, the police went into his home and had to exhume the bodies one by one. They eventually tore his house down. Gacy was one of the most notorious mass murderers of our time and admitted to killing at least 30 vicitims.

I remember thinking that this had to be one of the worst jobs in the world... going into a murder scene and having to collect evidence and actually exhume the bodies buried inside the house! How awful! I recall saying, "I could NEVER do something like that!" To make matters worse, we actually had a crawlspace in our home! I didn't want to go in there after that. (Now that I think about it, we have a crawlspace in our current home too! - Yikes!)

Then there was a show on TV at the time called "Quincy" which starred Jack Klugman (aka "Oscar Madison" from "The Odd Couple" TV show.) Quincy was a medical examiner who also happened to solve all the murder investigations as well. He also seemed so passionate about his work. I remember thinking that the lab guy who helped him ("Sam") had a cool job doing all the forensic lab work. The show's opening title and credits showed a bunch of new rookie cops lined up to watch an autopsy that Quincy was to perform. As he got ready to start, Quincy would say, "Welcome to the facinating world of forensic science..." and then one by one you'd see the cops faint. Great opening scene! :)

Anyway, stories about murderers like Gacy and TV shows like Quincy really made me think that working in law enforcement or forensic science would be something I would never want to do, even though I thought it was facinating.

Fast forward to years later when my wife and I moved to San Diego in the late 1980's. I had to make a decision as to what kind of work I wanted to do and while playing with a police scanner that I had purchased, I thought something in law enforcement might be interesting. My wife was looking through the classified ads and saw one for "Evidence Technician" with the San Diego Police Department. So she said, "Why don't you look into this, since you like the police scanner so much." Well a call to the PD about the job got me in touch with someone in the crime lab and they said I needed a degree in Evidence Technology... so I went back to school to study to be an Evidence Technician!

While at school, I was able to land an internship with SDPD and got to learn with the best by working homicide with their evidence techs. Later, after graduating at the top of my class, I landed a paid internship with the Chula Vista Police Department and then subsequently ended up working for the District Attorney's Office of San Diego County.

So, for someone who once said, "I could NEVER do something like that," I ended up doing it. Who would have thought it would be so facinating and rewarding? Well, I suppose "Quincy" thought that...

And now, I shoot weddings instead of crime scenes. What? You don't see the connection?

Check in next Monday and I'll tell you how I went from photographing crime scenes and evidence to photographing weddings!