Foundations Reading 5B

Chap 10

Reading 5B AT THE SCENE OF A CRIME It's 5:30 a.m., and your phone rings. A police officer says someone broke into a store and took some expensive items. They need you right away. It is your job to study the whole scene for clues that will help catch the thief. You are a crime scene investigator, and the game is on. Outside the store, you see a broken window, but there is no glass on the street. There are shoeprints, and marks made by a vehicle's tires. You look at the shoeprints. They're large, so you're likely looking for a man. You photograph the shoe's pattern. This can tell you the type of shoe. You then measure the space between the shoeprints. You now know how long the person's steps were. This gives you an idea of how tall the thief was. As you follow the shoeprints over to the tire marks, the spaces between the steps get bigger. They lead to the passenger's side of the vehicle. Now you know the thief probably didn't work alone. You photograph the tire marks. They can help you find out the type of vehicle and the direction it went. The most important clues will come from a person's body. You find some fingerprints near the broken window. Using a computer, you can compare these prints against millions of others. You also find a hair. You keep it, because you know hair contains a person's DNA. You can compare this with other people's DNA, too. If you find a match for the fingerprint or the DNA, you will know who was in the store. Will you find the thief? You now have a lot of information so it's possible. For a crime scene investigator, it's all in a day's work.

♪