Experts arrest TV myths about how to solve crimes

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Thanks to television shows including “Criminal Minds” and all the variations of “CSI” — not to mention movies dating back at least as far as 1991 and “The Silence of the Lambs” — investigating crime has never seemed sexier.

“Apparently, it helps (investigators) to have a good pair of sun glasses,” quipped Elgin Community College associate psychology professor Shawn Mikulay in reference to “CSI: Miami” star David Caruso’s habit on the show of using his shades for dramatic effect.

Mikulay knows that the process of shining light on any crime is far from these Hollywood-created myths.

As such, he and Brent Turvey hosted a seminar Friday and Saturday at the Holiday Inn Express in St. Charles — attended by students and professionals already employed in policing and related fields — which showed that the science behind crime reconstruction and crime scene analysis is anything but glamorous. Some, such as undergraduate Liz Denison, came from as far away as California for the program.

What Turvey wanted the 27 attendees to take with them back home is that such work needs objectivity, open-mindedness and thoroughness.

“For the viewers, crime shows and movies tend to oversimplify things — show crimes being solved faster than they actually can and to a degree of certainty there often isn’t,” Turvey said. “For professionals, the shows aren’t honest about science. But some play to those roles, which can lead to cutting corners and to being far too certain.”

Investigative tasks the men discussed require time, teamwork, various disciplines and skills — and they do not involve contact with the offender, as is frequently the case on TV.

According to information provided for the weekend workshop, Turvey holds a master’s degree in forensic science from the University of New Haven, “and since graduating in 1996 has consulted with government agencies, law enforcement agencies and private attorneys in the United States, Australia, China, Canada, Barbados, Korea and Scotland on a range of rapes, homicides and serial/multiple rape/death cases, as a forensic scientist and criminal profiler. He has also been court qualified as a forensic expert in the areas of criminal profiling, forensic science, victimology and crime reconstruction, providing expert examinations and testimony for the last 15 years.”

Turvey, who lives in Alaska, is the author of several criminology texts, serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology and Justice Studies at Oklahoma City University, and works and teaches with Forensic ,Solutions.

The website for the latter states that “A true forensic scientist is not a policeman, nor are they partial about the outcome of their examinations. They are objective investigators of scientific fact.”

Turvey met Mikulay in 1998, when Turvey came to lecture on sexual homicide at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where Mikulay had just finished his doctorate, with his published research concentrated in the area of employee deviance.

That eventually led to a friendship and to the men hosting their first sessions together Friday and Saturday. Both men also are involved with the Academy of Behavioral Profiling, for which Mikulay currently serves as vice president and for which Turvey is secretary and a member of the board of directors.

Profiling is not what television makes it out to be, either, Mikulay said.

“No one feels anything at the crime scene or sees things in a flash. It’s not a skill you’re born with, and it’s a big mistake to think you know everything. You start with the numbers, and you test what you find against the evidence.”

Methodical process

During his lecture Friday morning, Turvey said the work he does should have “a cooling effect” on the heat and flash that all too often subterfuge the truth in the courtroom. The process involves observing; collecting information and evidence; examining for patterns and associations; assembling a hypothesis; testing the hypothesis by attempting to disprove it; then interpreting the data.

“It’s not about you,” Turvey told the session.

With profiling, as Mikulay pointed out in his Friday afternoon session, learning as much as possible about the victim and how that person wound up in the situation where he or she became a victim is one of the most important elements in working a case — and a methodical task. Mikulay noted that building a victim’s profile makes for a long to-do list.

Those checkpoints include gathering the person’s biological characteristics; financial information; educational background; criminal background; what medical and/or psychological treatment he or she was receiving, and medications that were being taken; getting a toxicology report; getting a work history; learning about co-workers and family relationships and how those two worlds intersect; knowing work habits, history and routines; and looking through photo albums and diaries.

“It’s become ever so important to check someone’s computer and cellphone,” Mikulay said. “That means knowing someone who is technologically proficient, and it will cost money.”

Using details of a case that he also uses in a class he teaches at ECC showed how such work also isn’t for the squeamish. The man was shot in the head, strangled and left prostrate with what was left of his head hanging over a bathtub filled with water tainted by his blood.

Turvey peppered his lectures with graphic examples from crimes having elements of sexual deviance. But “bringing your own subjective morality” to an investigation is something Turvey feels can taint the process.

Processing all the sordid information he has during the course of his career is among the reasons Turvey, a native of Portland, Ore., now lives in a small island town on the southeastern Alaskan panhandle.

“We have mountains on three sides and the ocean,” he said.

One of his hobbies is donning on a “dry suit” to swim the cold waters. Even there amid the beauty, he’s seen nature’s violence — a killer whale teaching her young how to hunt seals.

“Aside from humans, they’re one of the few animals that might toy with their prey,” he said.