Behind the Yellow Tape: On the Road With Some of America's Hardest Working Crime Scene Investigators (26 page)

“There was one recently; it hasn’t gone to trial, but it was sad,” Melissa replied. The word
sad
really seems to define her, especially when discussing her cases.

“There was a 911 call from Perth Amboy, from a cell phone,” Melissa continued, “but it bounced off a tower in New York City. The 911 operator dispatched officers to places that sounded like what the woman was saying, but they of course never found her.” Two days later, the woman was found dead, dumped in a large bag by the side of the road.

Investigators discovered that the victim had been on an interview for a potential nanny job with the man who was now a suspect. He worked as an auto-body technician, and coincidentally the bag the woman’s body was found in was very similar to ones used at the shop where the suspect worked. Tiny beads typically used in sandblasting were also found both in the bag and in the suspect’s car. Though the beads could not be specifically placed to any one locale, the bag was determined to have come from the shop where the suspect worked. Investigators continued to process the auto-body bay but found nothing.

At the suspect’s house, very little evidence was found either. But one of the detectives did find a cell phone in a bathroom drawer, and the last call registered on the phone was to 911. “Apparently, she had gone to the bathroom and made a call with a cell phone she had found in the house,” Melissa said, about the poor young woman. “Once they got the call, they could hear her being yelled at to get out of the bathroom.” The victim probably thought she’d be saved, desperately waiting for the police to come, but no one ever showed. Because the cell had hit on a New York City tower, the 911 call was dispatched to New York City officers, never realizing that the call was coming from across the river in New Jersey. If the call had bounced off another tower, her fate might have been different.

“There wasn’t much evidence,” Melissa said, of the crime scene. However, “there was something weird though when they found the body; she had maggots on her chest, but no wound.”

“There shouldn’t be maggots there,” we responded to Melissa, trying to figure out reasons why there would be. Typically, flies lay eggs only in the moist, warm areas of a victim, such as the nostrils, ears, eyes, anus, and pubic area. But if there is an open wound, such as a slit throat or a gunshot wound, then maggots will lay eggs in those areas as well.

“Well, and it probably won’t make it into court, but investigators worked out some street information on the guy, and supposedly, he liked to have sex with prostitutes and finish on their chests,” Melissa explained.

“That’d probably do it,” we replied, a little dazed, never having thought about flies laying their eggs in sperm. The case is still pending trial.

Our experience in Union County, New Jersey, was a little surprising. As the crow flies, the county is only twelve miles from New York City, and yet it has a relatively low crime rate. On average, the CSI unit works roughly forty homicides per year—just over three per month and just under one per week. (There were none during the four days that we spent in Union County. Perhaps we’re good-luck charms.) But whether you’re talking about Gary, Indiana, or Beverly Hills, California, every city or county in the United States has crime related to three elements—drugs, sex, and money. Without those things, crime would be nonexistent.

With our interviews, ride-alongs, and penal swabs finished, we headed to the DeFilippos’ house for another dinner with the CSI unit—an Italian Last Supper, if you will. Most of the crime scene investigators were in attendance for the prosciutto and melon, the made-from-scratch dishes doused in red and white sauces, and the sopping up of the juices with fresh Italian bread. Frankie, fashionably late as usual, brought a bounty of fresh cannolis from an old-school Italian bakery that has been in Elizabeth since the Statue of Liberty arrived in the harbor. The conversation around the table started out typical for cops, telling the bad things, the funny things, the gross things, and the things not for public consumption. And after some good Italian wine, some ghost stories were told.

“Youse guys know we used to live in a haunted house?” Mike asked the group.

Silence fell on the group for a second, until Frankie said, “Getthefuckouttahere!”

“It’s true,” Mike insisted, over the laughter, breaking off a piece of bread. Mike then proceeded to tell some elaborate ghost stories about how one of Melissa’s Looney Tunes figurines, Gossamer to be exact, would mysteriously find its way from its shelf on the bathroom wall down to the commode lid. It would be sitting there staring at them when they returned home for the evening. Mike told how his Xbox video game system, which he kept on a TV tray in the living room, would be found overturned and stacked under the tray when he got up the next morning. And he told stories of 911 calls that came from inside the home when nobody was there. Most of the group continued to laugh, skeptical of ghosts and Mike’s stories. Then Mike and Melissa told a whopper.

“A friend of ours and her kid came up one time,” Melissa began as we huddled around listening like we were kids at summer camp. “We were just sitting around talking and her little boy looked up at the stairs and said, ‘Who is the funny-looking man?’ At the same time, the dog began to growl at empty space.” Hair stood up on the backs of our necks. The Jersey Devil lives!

After a few more stories and a few more cannolis, it was time for us to go. The New Jersey CSIs are our dear friends, and we stood in the threshold of the doorway for an eternity, cheek-kissing everyone, Melissa never wanting us to go and us never wanting to leave. It was the custom back in the old days for people leaving their country for America to bring balls of yarn with them, leaving the loose ends with relatives on the pier. Slowly, as the ship pulled away, the ball would begin to unwind and eventually the connection between the loved ones was broken, sometimes forever. If we’d given her a ball of yarn, Sergeant DeFilippo might have held on to the loose end as we dragged her down Interstate 40. Melissa and her crime scene unit is by far the most youthful we visited; Melissa is in her midthirties, and Frankie, Adrian, and Lauren are only in their twenties—mere babes in the police world. It will be interesting to see this young generation of CSIs and how they stand up to thirty more years of looking at and working the scenes of tragedies like the Nicole Giovanni case. Unfortunately, the world is not growing safer; don’t be fooled by political speeches. This means that Melissa will probably have to string the bloodstains of many a young girl’s bedroom. And through the passing years, just as in
The Shawshank Redemption
as Andy Dufresne changed the posters in his cell, Melissa will undoubtedly see blood on the next generation’s teen idols. We just hope that she, and the rest of the young Union County crime scene investigators, will still be up to the challenge. God knows, the world can use more CSIs like them.

NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, NEW YORK

New York City is the single largest city in the United States and the second-largest in the world (Tokyo is number one). New York City is considered a major powerhouse in today’s world economy. Founded in 1625, New York City is based on a system of five boroughs—The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. The region was originally inhabited by the Lenape Indians and became the theater for several important battles during the Revolutionary War. The first presidential inauguration was held in New York City, and it was the capital of the country until 1790. The police department alone is larger than most cities, employing an astounding 37,038 people.

New York City. The Big Apple. Gotham. The city that never sleeps. Home to the Yankees, Broadway, Donald Trump, Wall Street; on September 11, 2001, home to the largest crime scene the world has ever known. Everything that happens or exists in New York City is simply bigger, brighter, and louder than anywhere else in the country. Population-wise, New York City is also the largest city in America, coming in at just over eight million people. But those who work within the city will tell you that including people who commute to or visit the city each day, and also counting the illegal immigrants, homeless people, and other unknowns, that number grows to more like eighteen million. In order to police a population that large, you need a virtual army. As of the most recent law enforcement census conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is composed of 37,038 full-time police officers—in army deployment standards, that’s a corps. (Consider that the next largest police department, in Chicago, has 13,129 full-time officers.) Fifteen years ago, the NYPD had roughly three thousand homicides per year. Mayor Giuliani’s policies brought crime down significantly, but the NYPD still works about eight hundred to nine hundred homicides per year—just under three per day. Unlike most of the other places we visited, seeing crime, murderous crime, was not going to be a problem in this city.

Our tires hummed across the George Washington Bridge into Queens. We had gotten up before daybreak to drive into New York from New Jersey because we were scheduled to meet Detective Larry Walsh at seven a.m. sharp. Unfortunately, we had gotten lost along the way. Good thing for us that Larry was also running late, and as if providence had intervened, Larry called us on his cell phone and was able to meet us on the bridge, so that we could follow him in. Let’s just say that traffic laws and regulations are lost on Detective Walsh.

After jumping curbs and running through traffic lights irrespective of color, we arrived at Larry’s office. We got out of our car to sunlight that disappeared when Larry the Giant got out of his. When we said everything is bigger in New York City, we meant it. Detective Larry Walsh is a big SOB. Huge. And scary. He’s a heavy-metal-music-listening, earring-wearing giant who’s very direct and uses the F-word as much as most people blink. He can carry the both of us, and unfortunately has, like a sack of potatoes—one in each arm. But in addition to his thick Bronx accent, his multiple ear piercings, and his omnipresent fleece vest, he has the heart of a teddy bear—a teddy bear itching to bitch-slap a mofo.

The authors with New York City Police Department
investigator Larry Walsh.
HALLCOX & WELCH, LLC

“How you doin’?” Larry grumbled deeply, as he gave each of us a big squeeze as soon as were out of our cars. Detective Walsh came crashing into our lives (he literally fell through the floor of a crime scene house) during Session VI at the National Forensic Academy—the only session in which we’ve ever had to evict someone for inappropriate actions. This person was a menace who aggravated the hell out of everyone and everything that he came in contact with. He was disgusting, vulgar, and a liar. Quite frankly, he was a horse’s ass! And his classmates hated him. One day, while this person was acting typically unpleasant, Larry came up beside us like an eclipse and said as loudly as he could—“Yo, you want I should bitch-slap the motherfucker in the ear?” We absolutely did, but we declined and instead went on to counsel the jackass for the umpteenth time. Eventually, we expelled him, to the chagrin of everyone who wanted to see that bitch-slap thing to completion.

Queens is home to the crime scene unit for all of New York City. The unit is composed of fifty men and women who respond to all sexual assaults, pattern crimes, and homicides that occur in New York. Each borough has its own evidence collection team for processing crimes that fall into other categories. The prevailing belief across the country is that the larger the police department, the more money it has, and thus the better off it is. This is hardly the case. New York officers’ starting salaries are way below those of other large agencies. In addition, many surrounding counties have plenty of money (a strong recruiting incentive) to attract officers away from NYPD. “Janitors and teachers make more than we do,” Larry said as he led us onto the floor where he worked. “None of us can afford to live in the city.” Larry had driven all the way in from Long Island earlier that morning. To put it in perspective, the top pay for a NYPD officer puts him or her at about $65,588 per year. Even with the current pay raise the NYPD received in 2008, nearby Nassau County, on the other hand, tops out at $92,000. Suffolk County is $98,000.