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How Crime Scene Photography Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House staff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
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Speaker 1: Snap Snap snap. That was my camera impression. You could
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Speaker 1: you get your little iPhone? You could do you know
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Speaker 1: the little sound if you want to. I guess I could.
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Speaker 1: Is it this? That's your iPhone camera? My own personal rendition?
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Speaker 1: Did I introduce this yet? I have not? I'm Josh Clark.
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Speaker 1: You did? Oh? I did? You didn't say this is
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Speaker 1: stuff you should know? This is stuff you should know?
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Speaker 1: The podcast? Right, that's right. I have you noticed I've
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Speaker 1: started to differentiate between the podcast and the nothing else?
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, here, let's see what we got there? You go? Yeah, So, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: had you been you know, in the act of vandalism, murder,
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Speaker 1: theft um, or had you done it gotten up and
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Speaker 1: left some sort of scene behind that picture would have
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Speaker 1: constituted crime scene photography. That is not my intro. Uh.
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Speaker 1: Did you notice in this article again named Alphonse Bertillon, right,
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Speaker 1: He was a nineteenth century French photographer who was credited
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Speaker 1: with um creating the concept of crime scene photography for
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Speaker 1: forensic police investigation. He's also credited with creating something that
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Speaker 1: any smoking gun fan will appreciate. This guy for mug shots,
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Speaker 1: like mug shots. Mug shots. Um, he created mug shots,
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Speaker 1: I should say for the purpose that they're used today
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Speaker 1: cataloging and criminal This guy with this face, with these
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Speaker 1: tattoos has done this crime right, or has been questioned
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Speaker 1: for this crime or whatever. It's it's a way of
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Speaker 1: documenting what a person looks like, so there's no mistaken identity.
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Speaker 1: That kind of thing. Uh. And when um Bertillon came
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Speaker 1: up with this, it was it was kind of a
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Speaker 1: lifesaver for people suspected of being criminals, or for criminals
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Speaker 1: because in France at the time, UM, you may be
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Speaker 1: branded with a hot iron. That's how they identified repeat offenders. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so that was kind of a safe But Bertillon was
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Speaker 1: also very much interested in eugenics, which was the idea
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Speaker 1: that you could create a fitter, better human race by
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Speaker 1: basically sterilizing or killing people who didn't fit the idea
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Speaker 1: of fitness, right, epileptics, criminals, that kind of thing, uh,
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Speaker 1: And part of eugenics was based on um phrenology or
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Speaker 1: the shape of the skull, the shape of the face characteristics.
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Speaker 1: And Bertillon came up with eleven character characteristics that you
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Speaker 1: could measure drawn on ethnic lines, largely very much so
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Speaker 1: um but using calipers and other instruments, and he came
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Speaker 1: up with this uniform measure meant set. That's the other
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Speaker 1: reason he started doing mug shots right, And it actually
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Speaker 1: worked for a while until uh in the early turn
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Speaker 1: of the century, the last century, not this past one,
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Speaker 1: the one before UH Leavenworth Prison, a guy was using
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Speaker 1: this bertignon um measurement. They have a standard procedure by
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Speaker 1: them to book somebody in named William West. And this
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Speaker 1: guy who was doing the measurements, that was his job,
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Speaker 1: so he knew everybody in the prisons measurements by heart
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Speaker 1: pretty much. He was like, I have measured your face before,
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Speaker 1: and this William West is like, no, I promise you
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Speaker 1: I have not been here before. And he's like, I
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Speaker 1: don't know. Let me look. So he looks it up
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Speaker 1: and sees that yes, he has indeed come up with
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Speaker 1: the same exact measurements for these eleven different distinct characteristics
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Speaker 1: which Bertillon calculated to be one in about four million,
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Speaker 1: the chances of two people having the same characteristics. And
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Speaker 1: not only that, this Leavenworth forensics guy, UM finds that
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Speaker 1: they're attributed or cataloged with a guy by the name
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Speaker 1: of William West. Here's the thing. The guy he was
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Speaker 1: booking processing wasn't lying. The other William West was still
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Speaker 1: in prison in Leavenworth with the same eleven characteristics. So
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Speaker 1: as of that guy's processing, there were two William West
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Speaker 1: with identical facial characteristics in Leavenworth at the same time.
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Speaker 1: So was that the beginning of the end of mugshots
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Speaker 1: being used in that way pretty much, because from what
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Speaker 1: I understand with the characteristics, it was sort of like
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Speaker 1: he was using this proof like just look at the guy,
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Speaker 1: just look at him right, look at the face. Well,
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Speaker 1: not not only that, by studying, by creating a catalog
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Speaker 1: of people along these eleven characteristics, like how far apart
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Speaker 1: your eyes were, like how protruding your eyebrow, your eyebrow ridge?
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Speaker 1: Is that kind of thing? Um, you would conceivably and
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Speaker 1: we're very much doing something along the same lines with
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Speaker 1: d N today. Um, we're conceivably saying, well, this person
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Speaker 1: with this you know, pronounced eyebrow ridge is um, you know,
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Speaker 1: very much predisposed to acts of murder and violence because
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Speaker 1: if you, as you've seen all these other people that
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Speaker 1: we've cataloged, had this protruding eyebrow ridge and that common
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Speaker 1: characteristic shows that you're a murderer. Not to nab a criminal, no,
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Speaker 1: but it's the same point that we're at with these
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Speaker 1: DNA data bases that we've spoken about. To Chuck, let's
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Speaker 1: get back to crime scene photography, shall we. Yes, Bertillon
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Speaker 1: was the first guy to really do that, and he um,
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Speaker 1: he was the first guy to I mean, there's been
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Speaker 1: forensic photography, they said, since pretty much the camera's been around.
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Speaker 1: But he was the first guy to say, you know what,
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Speaker 1: let's do some different angles, and let's get some real
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Speaker 1: close ups, and let's survey the whole scene, and now
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Speaker 1: we have sort of a picture of what the whole
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Speaker 1: crime scene looks like and methodical. He was the first
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Speaker 1: to really apply a method to it. Before um, it
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Speaker 1: kind of grew out of newspapers printing crime scene photos
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Speaker 1: like The Guy in Road to Perdition. Um. Jude Law. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I enjoyed that it was a good movie, but they
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Speaker 1: would they would go for the art or the shock
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Speaker 1: value of it, not necessarily the evidentiary value. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's very sensationalistic. U. Crime Scene photography is obviously very
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Speaker 1: important because evidence is transitory. Um. You clean up a
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Speaker 1: crime scene, you remove the body, lift the fingerprints, you
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Speaker 1: do all that stuff. So you need to get it
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Speaker 1: while the egg is still in the pan. As they
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Speaker 1: say that, I think you just say that so before
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Speaker 1: everyone else comes in and does their thing, um, the
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Speaker 1: crime scene photographer. There's a lot of pressure on on
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Speaker 1: these men and women to go in first because they've
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Speaker 1: got their c s. I guys outside saying all right,
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Speaker 1: come on, let's get this over with so we can
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Speaker 1: start analyzing it. Right. But they gotta be first because
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Speaker 1: you don't want to disrupt the scene. Yeah, and you
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Speaker 1: have to take your time, and you have to do
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Speaker 1: it right, and there's standard procedures that you have to
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Speaker 1: come up with very much. Um. But yeah, it's kind
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Speaker 1: of a high pressure job. It's it's a very important job.
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Speaker 1: You remember when we were talking about, UM, blood pattern
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Speaker 1: analysis just a couple of days ago, it seems it
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Speaker 1: seems like just no time at all, UM, But you
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Speaker 1: were talking about how maybe some police departments have people
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Speaker 1: pulling double duty with blood pattern analysis. Uh, not necessarily
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Speaker 1: so with crime scene photography. Uh, this isn't so. This
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Speaker 1: is not as much in art as a science, even
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Speaker 1: though it's something that grew out of an art um.
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Speaker 1: This this position is very valuable, so much so that
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Speaker 1: the Manhattan District Attorney's Office has its own crime scene
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Speaker 1: photography and videography department, and they dispatched them independently of
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Speaker 1: the police. Interesting, so there'll be two on the scene
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Speaker 1: because they found that documenting a crime scene is so
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Speaker 1: important to closing a case that they just they have
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Speaker 1: their own peeps doing it, their own, their own homies. Alright,
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Speaker 1: so let's talk about the classifications of forensic photos. There's
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Speaker 1: uh three of them, and at first it sounds like
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Speaker 1: no dub. But it's a little more interesting than that.
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Speaker 1: You've got your overview, you've got your mid range, you
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Speaker 1: got your close up. You think overview, you think, yeah,
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Speaker 1: they just take the big wide shot. They take a
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Speaker 1: lot more than that. They take pictures of the outside
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Speaker 1: of the buildings. They take a pictures entrances and exits.
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Speaker 1: They take pictures of uh, let's say it's there's a
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Speaker 1: crowd of folks standing around that police tape. You know
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Speaker 1: in the movies they always return to the scene of
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Speaker 1: the crime. You can pick them out of that crowd.
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Speaker 1: So they take pictures of the crowd. Not only that,
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Speaker 1: if the police are canvassing the crowd and some people
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Speaker 1: wander off or whatever, you can use that to go
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Speaker 1: find those people who may be potential witnesses. Uh. They
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Speaker 1: will take pictures of uh, not just the room, but
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Speaker 1: every angle of the room, the corners of the room, um,
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Speaker 1: the different rooms in Like let's say the murder occurred
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Speaker 1: in a bedroom. They're not just gonna stick to the bedroom.
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Speaker 1: They're gonna take pictures of all the rooms in the
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Speaker 1: house because they may say, uh, look at the picture.
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Speaker 1: The phone was off the hook in the other room,
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Speaker 1: so let's go lift fingerprints off the phone handle, or
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Speaker 1: trace the last call that was made something like that
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Speaker 1: coming from upstairs. It's inside the house. So that's the overview.
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Speaker 1: That's the overview, right, and that that pretty much is like, Okay,
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Speaker 1: here's the boring part, and then the oh my god,
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Speaker 1: now we're at the mid mid range. Right. Yeah, that's
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Speaker 1: when you use zoom in a bit on some of
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Speaker 1: the gruesome aspects of the crime. I've told you before.
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Speaker 1: I think I've mentioned it that I've seen like some
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Speaker 1: some crime scene photography that's really like oh, Dian the Woods, No,
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Speaker 1: thank you, Yeah, not for you know, Kurt Cobain. People
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Speaker 1: are always trying to find that photo his his wouldn't
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Speaker 1: the crime scene but his death scene. Or was it
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Speaker 1: that's right Courtney or who's that investigative turnalist that tried
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Speaker 1: depending on her I know there's a documentary. Yeah it
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Speaker 1: was that guy, Nick somethmer other Nick Cage, Nick Cave,
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Speaker 1: Nick Love, No, none of those people, Nick and Jessica. Yes,
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Speaker 1: that's what it was. Uh So the mid range shots
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Speaker 1: are pieces of evidence, um, like the murder weapon if
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Speaker 1: it's there, Um, but you're not you know, you're gonna
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Speaker 1: do some different variations. You're gonna zoom in on the
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Speaker 1: murder weapon obviously, but you also want to show it
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Speaker 1: in relation to where it is on the scene, like
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Speaker 1: it was laying uh you know, on the floor three
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Speaker 1: ft from the body. Yes, and now you can take
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Speaker 1: it away now right. Um, After the mid range we
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Speaker 1: come to the close up, and the close up is
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Speaker 1: going to be like maybe the murder instrument, um, a
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Speaker 1: tattoo on the victim's body, UM scar serial number. If
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Speaker 1: somebody used like a DVD player to beat somebody else
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Speaker 1: to death with it, you got to catalog the murder
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Speaker 1: weapon that kind of thing. Good point, um, So that
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Speaker 1: this is what the close ups useful for. Uh. And
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Speaker 1: then when you're taking it a close up photo, you
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Speaker 1: take one with like an instrument, like a rule or
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Speaker 1: something like that to provide scae all. Yeah, and then
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Speaker 1: you also take a duplicate photo of the same photo
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Speaker 1: without the measuring device. So the defense can't be like, oh,
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Speaker 1: well that ruler was actually covering up, you know, in
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Speaker 1: controvertible evidence that my client was not guilty, covering up
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Speaker 1: the name of the killer. Yeah, so it's important to
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Speaker 1: take two, you're right. Uh. They also have to be
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Speaker 1: really detailed with the photolog um has all the details.
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Speaker 1: Nowadays with digital photography, you have you know, you can
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Speaker 1: have the sequence of photo number, the date and time,
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Speaker 1: all that like already stamped on. But back in the day,
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Speaker 1: they would you know, use a log and a book
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Speaker 1: to record all this. Um. The filters that they use, Like, hey,
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Speaker 1: I used to daylight filter out here because I had
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Speaker 1: to but it's you know, it can't be tainted. So
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Speaker 1: you gotta let people know that that was a filter use.
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Speaker 1: You gotta be honest, You gotta be very honest, Chuck.
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Speaker 1: We also mentioned that you, um, there's a standard operating
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Speaker 1: procedure that you have to come up with. One of
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Speaker 1: the big one of the big aspects that lens readents
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Speaker 1: to crime scene photography is that sensationalism has been pulled
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Speaker 1: completely out of it has no place in it whatsoever. Um.
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Speaker 1: And one of the ways that you ensure that you
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Speaker 1: your photographers aren't being sensational or can't even be accused
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Speaker 1: of being sensational, is by coming up with the standard
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Speaker 1: operating procedure and method that you are are going to
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Speaker 1: employ when taking photographs. Right, So you have to have
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Speaker 1: things like maximum depth of field, which is the amount
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Speaker 1: of a photograph that's crisp and clearing in focus. Right.
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Speaker 1: You can't be all already and do one of those
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Speaker 1: like a portrait things where the background is blurry might
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Speaker 1: look neat if you're telling the cadaver to make love
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Speaker 1: to the camera, you're you're you're on the wrong path
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Speaker 1: with your crime scene photography. Yeah, the last thing you
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Speaker 1: want is for your boss to say, boy, these are
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Speaker 1: really sensational. Yes, because why you might say, well, thanks,
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Speaker 1: that's not what you're looking for, not at all. You
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Speaker 1: don't want art school calling you. So other technical specs
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Speaker 1: that should make up this UM photo taking procedure right are, UM,
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Speaker 1: you want to make sure that the photos as sharp
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Speaker 1: sharp as possible, UM, and that none of the devices
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Speaker 1: that you're using to measure are blocking anything. You don't
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Speaker 1: want to get creative with how you take the photo.
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Speaker 1: You don't want to cover up anything, leave anything out.
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Speaker 1: You can't let anything be blurry. That's important, that kind
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Speaker 1: of thing, right, And that's just part of this larger
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Speaker 1: standard standard operating procedure. Correct. Yeah, and that's for for
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Speaker 1: the picture taken itself, But the procedure also includes afterward. UM,
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Speaker 1: you have to have a standard chain of custody UM
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Speaker 1: image security because you know, Dexter leads a crime scene
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Speaker 1: with the camera and what's he gonna do with it? Right?
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Speaker 1: Or if he hands it to UM? What's the one guy? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the funny comic relief. Yeah, have you seen his trucks?
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Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it he hands it to UM. I
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Speaker 1: don't want to get any emails, Chuck, we'll look it up.
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Speaker 1: He hands it to Macusa macause, and um, Macusa should
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Speaker 1: sign something that says, I took custody of this flash drive,
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Speaker 1: um from Dexter Morgan, and my name is MARCUSA exactly,
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Speaker 1: and then he'll make some vague sexual joke and everyone
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Speaker 1: will laugh at home. You have to preserve that original
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Speaker 1: digital image. So let's say you want to blow it
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Speaker 1: up and change the contrast a bit to to highlight something.
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Speaker 1: That's all great, that's all groovy, but you have to
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Speaker 1: note that you've done that, and you have to have
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Speaker 1: the original in its original form and format as whatever.
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Speaker 1: If it's a jpeg, you can't make it a gift
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Speaker 1: or a gift, certainly not an animated gift that's grousing
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Speaker 1: would be weird. Uh. There are a lot of times
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Speaker 1: there's image security software to make sure everything stays like
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Speaker 1: it should. You have to store it in uh, you know,
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Speaker 1: like on a hard drive. You have to backups of it, right,
14:53
Speaker 1: just gotta be really, really really detailed. It's not like
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Speaker 1: your vacation photos. No, anytime you do anything to manipulate
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Speaker 1: that photo, you should log it and be again, you
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Speaker 1: have to be just be completely honest. You shouldn't have
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Speaker 1: any dog in the fight. No, of course not. Your
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Speaker 1: just your job is to document the scene and and
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Speaker 1: extract or prevent any emotion from coming into it as
15:16
Speaker 1: much as possible. Yeah, exactly right. Let's talk about the kit,
15:21
Speaker 1: which isn't super exciting. But you're gonna have your camera,
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Speaker 1: maybe a couple. Yeah, if you're into that, you're gonna
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Speaker 1: have a variety of lenses that will work for different
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Speaker 1: crime scenes. You're gonna have some filters if you need them.
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Speaker 1: You want your wide angle lens, you want your mid range.
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Speaker 1: You want if you want a zoom in on something
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Speaker 1: and you don't want to get down on the floor,
15:39
Speaker 1: you might want a zoom lens. Yeah, be a good
15:41
Speaker 1: IDEA light meter make sure everything looks great. So, Chuck,
15:45
Speaker 1: what is the um? I noticed? The great card? Was
15:47
Speaker 1: the great card? I saw it works with the light meter. Yeah.
15:50
Speaker 1: I think you use that to to to set your meter.
15:54
Speaker 1: Is that right? Like you use the like that's your
15:57
Speaker 1: like your meter understands this is the g card. It's
16:01
Speaker 1: it's the zero value. I think so. I think it's
16:04
Speaker 1: sort of like white balancing a video camera. Okay, I
16:07
Speaker 1: might I might have that wrong though, Um, and generally
16:10
Speaker 1: you're gonna use color unless uh they said things like
16:15
Speaker 1: latent fingerprints sometimes or show up better in black and white. Yes,
16:19
Speaker 1: but we mentioned video. Since uh I said that word, yeah,
16:25
Speaker 1: I think, um, it's become a lot more prevalent since
16:28
Speaker 1: the advent of the video camera, let's say so, and
16:31
Speaker 1: especially nowadays. You know the uh SLRs that shoot great
16:36
Speaker 1: high deaf video. I've seen she can have all in
16:38
Speaker 1: one package here. You don't have to have a couple
16:40
Speaker 1: of cameras you have to tote around. So SLR a
16:44
Speaker 1: brand name. No, okay, it's uh single lens reflex. I
16:49
Speaker 1: believe that's a guess, all right, Josh. Videotape You know
16:54
Speaker 1: a lot about photography, don't you. My dad's a big
16:56
Speaker 1: shutter bug. I grew up with it. Videotape is used
17:00
Speaker 1: a lot nowadays, and that can do a lot of
17:02
Speaker 1: things that regular SLR photography cannot, Like show you you
17:08
Speaker 1: can literally walk a jury through a crime scene and
17:11
Speaker 1: show relationships to uh, you know, the body or the
17:16
Speaker 1: uh the weapons. Like a picture is one thing. It's
17:19
Speaker 1: worth a thousand words at least, But twenty four frames
17:22
Speaker 1: per second that's worth right, I would say, yes. So
17:28
Speaker 1: videos has used a lot of times, and they say
17:29
Speaker 1: if there's video that they actually video before they take
17:34
Speaker 1: the still photographs and the c s. I guys are
17:36
Speaker 1: out there going come on, you're gonna draw a picture too. Well,
17:40
Speaker 1: that's what they used to do originally, they would draw.
17:44
Speaker 1: I was that with that one. Yeah, they would sketch
17:46
Speaker 1: the crime scene. But of course, I mean, it doesn't
17:49
Speaker 1: get a lot more subjective than sketches. So when photography
17:53
Speaker 1: came along, people see he's done it pretty quick. When
17:56
Speaker 1: the video camera came along, people were like, oh, this
17:59
Speaker 1: is just is good, if not better, let's accompany the two.
18:02
Speaker 1: But you need both. Uh. They they use infrared films
18:06
Speaker 1: sometimes if it's dark and you need to get a
18:09
Speaker 1: blood stain, that's when you're you're super fancy. I think
18:15
Speaker 1: what else? Oh, I'll tell you. The thing I thought
18:17
Speaker 1: was cool was the if you video blood spatter on
18:22
Speaker 1: a wall. Let's say someone's brains are blown out over
18:25
Speaker 1: a wall, you could potentially you could potentially photograph that,
18:30
Speaker 1: put a yard stick in there as as a as
18:32
Speaker 1: a frame of reference, and then years later or days later,
18:37
Speaker 1: you can uh make a slide. You know, if it's
18:39
Speaker 1: just if if if it's a slide, then you can
18:42
Speaker 1: project that onto the wall, even onto that wall actual size,
18:47
Speaker 1: so you can kind of recreate it as it was
18:50
Speaker 1: before it got all cleaned up, projected right there on
18:52
Speaker 1: the wall. It was really kind of like Princess Leiah. Uh. Yeah,
18:56
Speaker 1: I guess so when when R two D two Uh
19:00
Speaker 1: is that what you're talking about, or when archie Chi
19:03
Speaker 1: was projecting her as a hologram. Yeah, although nothing like that. Um,
19:08
Speaker 1: you want to talk about Wegi. Yeah, Wegi's one cool cat.
19:13
Speaker 1: What's this deal? Wegi is uh the I guess pseudonym
19:17
Speaker 1: of a guy named Arthur Fellig And he was big
19:20
Speaker 1: from the twenties to you, I think the fifties. He
19:23
Speaker 1: was an independent photographer photojournalist and uh he had a
19:28
Speaker 1: special knack for uh sniffing out crime scenes, so much
19:33
Speaker 1: so that someone once complimented him that he had the
19:36
Speaker 1: sense of a Weigi board to predict when a crime
19:38
Speaker 1: was gonna occur, so we would be in the right
19:40
Speaker 1: place at the right time to like really get all
19:43
Speaker 1: the photography he wanted out of it, right, how do
19:45
Speaker 1: you do that? Well? He lived in a shack behind
19:48
Speaker 1: the police station in Manhattan, and he had a police scanner.
19:52
Speaker 1: Um and yeah, he basically didn't have a life, so
19:55
Speaker 1: he just sat around listening to the police scanner and
19:57
Speaker 1: he would just head on over. He also had a
20:00
Speaker 1: pretty extensive network of informants, um, cops, robbers, bar keeps,
20:09
Speaker 1: you know, prostitutes whoever. I wonder if they based uh
20:12
Speaker 1: An l A confidential was that Danny DeVito was the
20:15
Speaker 1: Was he the photographer? Now? I think this guy was
20:16
Speaker 1: way more put together than Danny DeVito's character was. Yeah.
20:20
Speaker 1: He um, although it would make sense because Weigi, which
20:23
Speaker 1: he adopted that name, but he spelled it phonetically W
20:27
Speaker 1: E G E. Right. Um. He did travel to l
20:31
Speaker 1: A and uh he created a spread called Naked City
20:36
Speaker 1: and it became the the um movie, The Naked City. Right.
20:41
Speaker 1: But he was just this famous crime scene photographer. One
20:45
Speaker 1: of the things that he became famous for was not
20:47
Speaker 1: just the crime scene any smoke. Could you know, shoot
20:50
Speaker 1: a dead body, and that was something um, but he
20:54
Speaker 1: would often turn and just start taking photos like close
20:57
Speaker 1: ups of the crowd in their prairie in ecstasy, you know,
21:02
Speaker 1: like with these crazy like some would be laughing and
21:04
Speaker 1: others would be smiling and some would be crying, and
21:07
Speaker 1: it was just like it would capture the range of emotion.
21:09
Speaker 1: And he has one very famous photograph called Their First
21:12
Speaker 1: Murder that was taken in Williamsburg, which is hipster central
21:15
Speaker 1: now in Brooklyn Um and they it's just this group
21:19
Speaker 1: of people of all ages. They all seem to be white,
21:23
Speaker 1: but they're all just in this weird pose, like almost
21:26
Speaker 1: writhing in ecstasy, um on the scene of a murder,
21:30
Speaker 1: like before the cops have even got there. Like that
21:32
Speaker 1: crowd that crowds around. Oh yeah, look at him, like
21:35
Speaker 1: Ray Ray Bradberry wrote about them, the crowd. They would
21:39
Speaker 1: be there on the scene when an accident occurred. Interesting,
21:42
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that. But anyway, we Gie had
21:44
Speaker 1: some pretty good stuff well, and that that kind of
21:47
Speaker 1: brings up a point that crime scene photographs have been viewed.
21:51
Speaker 1: And this is once from back in the day. I
21:52
Speaker 1: don't think they new ones as art, but in uh,
21:56
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, in l A. They dug up in two
21:58
Speaker 1: thousand one a bot well, I say a box. It's
22:02
Speaker 1: probably more than one box. A trove, a trove, a
22:04
Speaker 1: treasure trove if you will, of old forensic photos, and
22:08
Speaker 1: some of them were some of the most infamous crimes
22:11
Speaker 1: and murders in the in the history, and black Dahlia
22:14
Speaker 1: comes to mind. I don't know if that was in there,
22:15
Speaker 1: but yeah, I wonder if it was in there. I'm
22:17
Speaker 1: sure it was probably And uh, some of these negatives
22:21
Speaker 1: were decomposing and deteriorating at this point, so they said,
22:25
Speaker 1: you know, like we should preserve these because it's historical record,
22:29
Speaker 1: and some of these are really great photographs. And so, uh,
22:33
Speaker 1: years later they actually took it on tour in art galleries.
22:38
Speaker 1: What was it called. I think it was called I
22:41
Speaker 1: know Wegi did that, didn't he? Yeah, we Gi had
22:43
Speaker 1: one in New York called the Wegi Murder is My Business?
22:47
Speaker 1: He I read a quote from him. There's a pretty
22:49
Speaker 1: cool book Chuck called um Shots in the Dark, based
22:52
Speaker 1: on like a true TV documentary, I think, but it's
22:56
Speaker 1: it's a lot of crimes, the photography, but it's an
22:58
Speaker 1: explanation about crime scene photography too. But there's a quote
23:02
Speaker 1: from from Ouiji where like gangsters in the forties and fifties,
23:06
Speaker 1: like the big Ones, they reveled in their notoriety, but
23:10
Speaker 1: it was the young punks who tried to cover up
23:12
Speaker 1: and pretend they weren't, you know, criminals. And he would
23:15
Speaker 1: always say to him, like, you just wait until you
23:17
Speaker 1: make it big, you punk, then I'll take your picture.
23:20
Speaker 1: So he's a tough guy. Really Yeah, no, I think
23:24
Speaker 1: he's dead. He was working in the twenties to the fifties. Well,
23:27
Speaker 1: I mean he knows how old he was. He's immortal.
23:30
Speaker 1: He could be like really old. So crime scene photography,
23:34
Speaker 1: I don't have anything else. I don't either, pretty straightforward.
23:37
Speaker 1: If you want to see wegi's their first murder, it's
23:39
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Um, you should type in crime scene photography
23:43
Speaker 1: in the search bar how stuff works dot com. This
23:46
Speaker 1: concludes are Um dexter Lovin series Valentine Week series of
23:51
Speaker 1: crime and documentation. Indeed um And since I said search bar,
23:56
Speaker 1: that means chuck. Of course, it's time for listener mail. Yeah,
24:02
Speaker 1: we're doing a shout out and now I say we
24:03
Speaker 1: never do them, but we're kind of doing them more.
24:06
Speaker 1: The only reason I'm doing this is because this, uh,
24:10
Speaker 1: this lady has been writing me since last summer August.
24:16
Speaker 1: I think, how do you really make them wait her
24:18
Speaker 1: birthday shout out? No, she broke me in August for
24:21
Speaker 1: for the stud's birthday, which is now. So I thought,
24:24
Speaker 1: you know, persistance pays off. Sarah So her boyfriend, his
24:29
Speaker 1: name is Graham Baker, and he is turning, I believe, tomorrow,
24:35
Speaker 1: and she says she's collecting birthday greetings and he's such
24:38
Speaker 1: a super fan that she thought, I think. He actually
24:41
Speaker 1: said if I ever received anything from Josh and Chuck
24:43
Speaker 1: would probably lose my mind. So hopefully he's going crazy
24:47
Speaker 1: right now. And she said, here's some information about him
24:50
Speaker 1: that you should read. He's turns twenty five on February eighth.
24:54
Speaker 1: He's doing his Masters in Religious Studies at McMaster University
24:58
Speaker 1: in Canada, Ontario, Canada, and it's going to complete his
25:02
Speaker 1: thesis this summer. You need some encouragement, she says, So
25:06
Speaker 1: keep on plugging away there, Graham. He's originally from Edmonton.
25:09
Speaker 1: Josh calls Calgary as home and is in Hamiltons until summer.
25:16
Speaker 1: That's a lot of information, she says, I live in Calgary.
25:18
Speaker 1: Oh there's more. Is this social security number in there? Now? Uh?
25:21
Speaker 1: They both listened to stuff Mom never told you and
25:23
Speaker 1: stuff you should know on their road trips. Nice He
25:25
Speaker 1: lived in Prague for four months to study abroad. Very cool.
25:28
Speaker 1: He really likes Star Trek, he's really funny. And his
25:32
Speaker 1: two favorite bands yes, Henry Clay People, Nope, the band No,
25:38
Speaker 1: those are my two favorite bands. Um, Jimmy Cliff now
25:43
Speaker 1: Wilco in the National Todd run gren Man, Todd run
25:46
Speaker 1: gren So Graham, happy birthday, dude, and tell Sarah to
25:50
Speaker 1: quit emailing us. This has been going on for months.
25:53
Speaker 1: I think you can reasonably block her now. Yeah she's gone.
25:56
Speaker 1: But um yeah, Happy birthday, Doude and thanks for listening.
25:59
Speaker 1: Good luck with that religious studies. Happy birthday, Graham and Sarah.
26:03
Speaker 1: That was very kind of you. So um, if you
26:07
Speaker 1: have a birthday request, birthday shoutout request, don't send it.
26:10
Speaker 1: You can send us something else though, And if you do,
26:13
Speaker 1: go ahead and email us at stuff podcast at how
26:17
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
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26:28
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