Logic in Your Plotline - Investigatory Thought Choices with Richard McEachin

Fiona -

Today our guest is Richard McEachin

Richard B. McEachin has been an investigator for 40 years. Since 1993, his firm, McEachin & Associates Ltd., has provided research, training, and consulting to private investigators, law firms, due diligence analysts, journalists, public relations professionals, and government. Since 2006, the author has published The Confidential Resource , which is one of the top 10 Private Investigation blogs . He has also appeared in The Toronto Star, the Financial Post, Profit Magazine, and appeared on Canada's most-watched current affairs and documentary program, W-5. He is the author of Sources & Methods for Investigative Internet Research

Richard, you've been consuming a lot of chicken soup this week to help you with your illness. Wouldn't it be nice if we had such a time-tested remedy for investigations that are suffering?

Richard  - 
That's for sure

Fiona

What kinds of things do you see going wrong that would thwart an investigation from a successful conclusion?

Richard -
Most of the problems I see today relate to a lack of understanding of the sources & methods being employed and not knowing all the sources & methods available to the investigator.

Fiona - 
So today we are talking about crime investigation - sometimes the trail goes cold. What are some options an investigator has at that point?

Richard -
Well, fixing an investigation is about the details, logic, and the human factors that caused it to go off the rails.

Fiona -
Let's start there. What kinds of issues might cause a problem to begin with? These will be very interesting to writers because they act as plot twist material.

Richard -
Let's look at some of the human factors. Detectives are people too. All the things that influence a factory worker or witness also have an influence, to a larger or smaller degree, on the Detective. For example, bias. Bias isn't an indication of any evil in this context. If something in the evidence paints a picture of who the culprit might be, then the detective may start believing this and start molding the investigation around that premise.

Fiona - 
Can investigators train to avoid bias?

Richard - 
Yes, just like LEO's (Law Enforcement Officers) can train not to overreact to verbal taunts.

Fiona -

Bias then is a big issue

Richard -
Bias in this context is most often 'pattern matching' or contextual bias. Something in the evidence starts to point you in a certain direction, and you get tunnel vision and don't recognize other possible avenues of investigation or other possible offenders. 

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Contextual bias appears in the 2009 National Academies of Science report on forensic science. In testing fingerprint examiners, they found that supplying the examiner with too much contextual information influenced his identification of the person associated with a sample fingerprint.

The report is here: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12589&page=1

Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward
www.nap.edu

Fiona - 
Excellent. Okay, bias. And what else?

Richard - 
The other two things I see often are failures in logic and failures to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the underlying science. I also see a lot of failures to understand the strengths and weaknesses of data sources, but I think that is related to both of the above.

Fiona - 
Great. So our team has dug themselves into a hole of poor logic, bias, and misunderstanding of forensic sciences. How can we get them out?

Richard -
Once you are in a hole, stop digging. I start by

sifting thru the pile of dirt instead.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I look at how the team presented their case. I look at all the reports and supporting documentation. How they present this material is very telling. It will tell me a lot about their skill level, particularly about handling the details that have a large impact. The presentation of the 'product' of the investigation has a large impact on how the case proceeds.

This material will usually tell me if they used top-down or bottom-up logic. Top-down (deductive) logic is more prone to produce a problem as its conclusion is a certainty. This is not a small consideration when someone's future is at stake.

Fiona - 
I think this is a very interesting point. Can you give me an example that you can take us through using top-down logic and then take

us through again using bottom up logic?

Richard -
Deductive logic requires that every premise is always true or the conclusion is wrong. The conclusion may be logical but wrong because one premise in the argument was not correct throughout the closed domain of the argument.

Fiona - 
So let's make something up - you have a murder scene, at least the inspector assumes it is a murder scene because everyone hated the victim and everyone threatened to kill the victim. When they found the guy's body, it was badly decomposed. But the investigators are running on the assumption that someone must have killed the horrible guy - something like that?

Richard -
Yes. essentially, you have a dead guy. He was hated. Therefore, he was murdered.

Fiona - 

Quick deductive reasoning tutorial -

1. The investigator creates a hypothesis
2. The investigator looks for data that would support his hypothesis
3. When the investigators gathers enough supporting data, they will draw a conclusion.

Quick Inductive reasoning tutorial

1. Start with a small observation or question
2. Works towards a theory by looking at related data/issues (more exploratory than deductive)


Video Quick Study (1:32) Inductive v. deductive reasoning in a nutshell.
Video Quick Study (1:16) Sherlock Holmes deducing correctly enough that he gets a glass of wine thrown in

                               his face.
Video Quick Study (4:26) Monty Python uses deductive reasoning to discover if a woman is a witch or not

Richard - 

Amazon Link

Bottom-up is Inductive logic. The conclusion of the argument is probable based upon evidence that is not certain and cannot form a premise that is always true.

Fiona - 
But on the inductive it would be - I have a dead guy I believe he was murdered and I will now search for the clues to prove that I'm right?

Richard - 
Yup. You got it.

Fiona - 
Okay good - and you prefer the second. The inductive reasoning? If this is correct can you tell me why?

Richard - 
Yes. The closed domain required by deductive logic is very hard to maintain. An example would be GSR testing. Your suspect might have fired the fatal shot. His clothes and hands test positive for GSR. You got the guy--wrong. Many things that are not GSR will test positive. In 2006 the FBI stopped testing for it, in part because all there labs were found to be contaminated by GSR and GSR-like material

Fiona - 
The labs were covered in gunshot residue, and it was contaminating the evidence? Wow. I'm thinking that probably there's GSR on all of my clothes... well, not my bathing suit. Can you wash it off? Suddenly I feel contaminated. Maybe even a little OCD. Also, what might give a false positive?

Richard - 
You can wash it off. Soap & water for the OCD in you. An auto mechanic would probably test positive but someone who fired a .22 rimfire might not as much .22 RF does not test positive in the chemical test.

Fiona - 
Things like that make it very difficult for investigators but help put kinks and twists into a story line. Thank you so much for coming on today. A ThrillWriting traditional question - Can you tell us about your favorite scar?

Richard - 
Scar: nobody notices the good work but they sure will bitch about the bad work

Fiona - 
LOL You are very cryptic. Richard, my great thanks to you for coming in and helping us out today. 

You can catch up with Richard at: his website and blog

My best wishes to you. 

See this article in action in my novella: MINE


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Diplomacy: Information for Writers with William Shepard

Fiona - 
Good morning, Mr. Shepard. 

Thank you so much for visiting with ThrillWriting today. 

     Readers, Mr. Shepard has
     served our country

     overseas for decades in

     the diplomatic corp. Sir, what
     would

     you like the readers to know
     about you?

Mr. Shepard - My career was in

     diplomacy. I am a lawyer by

     training, and a writer by preference. I am herded
     about by two enchanting rescued cats, and we live on the
     Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Fiona - I very much enjoyed reading your memoirs - you are

     Harvard educated and decided to use your expertise in

     language and diplomacy to further the American cause in

     many countries. Can you give a brief taste of the countries

     in which you served and what your roles included?

Mr. Shepard - First, Singapore, fascinating and ultra-modern. When

     we were there, the island was being kicked out of Malaysia. As

     an Embassy officer and lecturer at the University of Singapore, 

     I had a ringside seat. We returned a year ago, and enjoyed

     seeing how magnificently the nation has progressed.

     A model for progress and keeping an expert eye on the

     environment. I was Consul at the Embassy in

     Singapore, then was transferred directly to Saigon during the
     war, and my family stayed in Singapore. In Saigon, I was Aide to

     Ambassadors Henry Cabot Lodge, then Ellsworth Bunker. It

Amazon Link 2.99

     was a ringside seat in the war.

Fiona - Before you tell me about

      your next stint, may I ask

      how that was for you and

      your family? You were both

      in foreign countries with very

      different cultures to our own

      and on your own without the

      daily support. How did you

      cope?

Mr. Shepard - Some would say,

      after New England, everyplace

      is a foreign country! I am from New Hampshire and Lois is

      from Connecticut. So, of course, we met while students at the

      University of Vienna. Living in foreign parts comes fairly

      naturally. Lois is very good at adapting to foreign cultures - and

      representing our own. I must say, a high point of sorts was

      reached when she heard that I was coming home to Singapore

      from Saigon for Thanksgiving, and there was no turkey

      available. So she talked a visiting US Admiral out of a turkey

      for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Fiona - I love that! Your wife, Lois Shepard, is very versatile.

      Would you share the story about when her quick actions saved

      a little boy's life and protected your family as a result?

Amazon Link 2.99

Mr. Shepard -  We lived near a

     kampong, or native area, in

     Singapore. One day the amah

     (house servant) came running

     in, to say that a baby had

     fallen into a water cistern and 

     drowned. Lois went flying out

     of the house, took the child

     from the arms of a relative, 

     and started artificial

     respiration. She was relieved

     when, after what seemed an eternity, the child

     threw up all over her and started breathing! After that, oddly

     enough, we were the only Embassy family that never had a

     problem with thievery. By the way, that rescue hit UPI quickly,

     and Lois' parents read about it in Hartford the same time it

     appeared in the Singapore press.

Fiona - What a fabulous story. I interrupted you, sir. Where did you

      go after Singapore?

Amazon Link 2.99

Mr. Shepard - Saigon. Actually I had

      two tours there, once for a

      year directly from Singapore, and

      then a few years later, I

      returned from Budapest to help

      monitor the Paris Peace Agreement.

      The Hungarians were part of the

      peacekeeping team, and I was there

      to monitor their performance -

      which was lousy. 

Fiona - That was during

      the communist reign. What did you

      find most difficult from a western

      perspective in dealing with this very different governmental

      philosophy? What personal challenges did you have to work

      through?

Amazon Link

    Mr. Shepard -   Communism in
      Hungary was a hated imposition.  
      The Russians were viewed

      as backward in every way, and their

      system a dreaded imposition. The

      heroic Hungarian Revolution of 1956

      proved that. I was trained in the

      Hungarian language and was the first

      Political Officer at our Embassy in
      Budapest, and then held

      the Hungarian Desk

      at the Department of State. We

      knew His Eminence Cardinal

      Mindszenty, who was in refuge at the

      Embassy then. And Lois was the only eyewitness to his

      departure. My novel, Murder On The Danube, is set in

      modern Budapest, with flashbacks to the 1956 Revolution.

Amazon Link

Fiona - Did you feel great

      relief when you were sent

      to France?

      How fun that you wrote a

      book about French wines.

      Was it all red wine and

      cassoulet? Or did your stay

      in France offer up its

      own challenges?

Mr. Shepard - My responsibility as Consul General in Bordeaux

      covered one-quarter of the entire nation. I had the usual

      gamut of American citizen issues (including getting people

      out of jail, or locating people who were lost), understanding

      the local culture and politics (I called nearly every election

      right), and making friends for the USA. The fact that my father

      had been an American soldier in France during the First World

      War helped ensure my welcome. The wines of course were

      world class, but that was on my own time. One of my chief

      responsibilities was keeping watch on Basque terrorism. 

      That formed the basis for

      my first diplomatic mystery novel, Vintage Murder.

Amazon Link .99

Fiona - Can you quickly go over

      some of the roles that

      diplomats play in foreign

      service and the ranks?

Mr. Shepard - Diplomats

      represent their own nation in

      another one. An Embassy is

      the official mission in the

      receiving state's capitol city.

      With us, it is a career 

      service,  and various 

      specialties (political, economic/commercial, consular,

      administrative, cultural/press) to follow as a career track.

      You start by taking a tough written and oral exam, and then get

      promoted, ever so slowly. The variations of assignment along

      the way are fascinating. The problem for a writer is that they

      change over time, and what you remember quite distinctly may

      no longer be there!

Fiona - What types of personalities work best for foreign service?

      And which kind of personalities might feel the most challenged

      - this will help writers set up their characters for success or

      failure when plotting.

Mr. Shepard - I think that the folks who do well on the Foreign

      Service exam are readers, and compulsively curious. My oral

      exam, for example, had a panel member asking me to trace the

      attempts in the US Senate to forestall the Civil War. I had

      always been interested in that period, so apparently did well.

      Another question was to name, in my view, the five best

      American symphonies and their conductors. What seems

      needed is curiosity, a desire to see beyond the obvious, and a

      self-starter mentality.

Fiona - You referred to the changing conditions included in the life

      of a diplomat not only imposed by place but time and

      circumstance, what do you feel are important aspects of the job

      for a writer to understand in order to write authentically. Are

      there resources for writers that you are aware of where research

      could be conducted on diplomatic realities of a given time or

      place?

Mr. Shepard - Well, now there are an increasing number of

      memoirs, such as my own, Sunsets In Singapore. There are

      probably too many thrillers about, and the Foreign Service isn't

      really like that. A lot of it is slow going, and building some

      confidence with your opposite numbers in a Foreign Ministry.

      For example, I helped negotiate a consular convention with

      communist Hungary, our first treaty with that nation in some

      thirty years. What made it work was that the other side, when I

      disagreed with them, understood that I was giving an honest

      point of view. Had there not been that understanding, there

      would have been no treaty.

Fiona - Now that you have retired, you have become a prolific

      writer - and many of your books are under the sub-genre 

      diplomatic mysteries. Obviously, your work is a great resource

      to you - can you speak to this genre and what readers might

      hope to experience through your writing.

Mr. Shepard - First, I hope the reading is enjoyable. Tell a story,

     that's the first thing. I had an uncle who was a farmer in New

     Hampshire and a born storyteller. He and my aunt had no

     children, but they took in foster children from the state. Uncle

     Irvin told me that if the children were bad, the worst thing would

     be to tell them, "No story tonight!" Something like that is

     needed. Then comes the context, and the believablity of detail.

     But remember, it is a story that is being told.

Fiona - Mr. Shepard, it has been an honor to interview you, thank

     you so much for sharing your time and expertise with us. One

     final question that I ask of everyone who visits ThrillWriting:

     Could you please tell us the story behind your favorite scar? And

     if you are without scars, could you please tell us a harrowing

     story?

Mr. Shepard - No scars, I'm afraid. In my last days in Saigon during

      my second tour, I went out for a trip towards the Cambodian

      border. The helicopter pilot told us that there would be no

      intelligence briefing - the last briefer had left for the USA the

      day before! So off we went. We flew near the Parrot's Beak of

      Cambodia, and before we landed, the small arms fire began.

      (We were a peacekeeping mission.) The children who were to

      have met us left their sad traces on the ground. It still gives me

      nightmares. 

      On the more pleasant side, we had a huge

      Christmas tree in Budapest, and invited some Hungarian friends

      (who weren't afraid to be seen with us) to the house to see it.

      One said that they had always had small trees - the reason being

      that Christmas trees were illegal to have, so people would chop

      down small trees and hide them behind their overcoats. "But we

      really like the big trees," he said. I'm sure that is what they have

      now.

Fiona - Thank you, Mr. Shepard. 

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Forensic Psychiatry: Information for Writers An Interview with Olga Miret

___________________________________________

Fiona - 

Today, I would like to introduce you to Olga Núñez Miret. Olga will you take a moment to tell us about you, explain your fabulous academic background, and what you do for a living?

Olga - 
Thanks so much for having me here as a guest, Fiona. When I was 12 years old or so, I decided I wanted to study Medicine and be a doctor. I went to Medical School at the University of Barcelona (6 years) and obtained a degree that there is called LMS (Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery). I left Barcelona and came to the UK where I carried on my studies to become a psychiatrist. 

I worked as a junior doctor in Psychiatry for a few years and then felt it was time to try something a bit different and went back to University. I studied a BA in American Literature at the University of Sussex (in Brighton). It included a year in the US (I spent it at Mount Holyoke College, a beautiful campus and great courses). I carried on my studies and completed a PhD on American Film (although the title of my PhD is 'The films of David Mamet' the university didn't have a Film Department at the time.)

I went back to work in Psychiatry and got the Membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Whilst working full-time in forensic psychiatry, I became quite interested in the workings of the Criminal Justice System and completed a Masters (MSc) in Criminology and Criminal Justice.I have worked in a variety of specialties in psychiatry: general psychiatry, old-age, substance misuse, but since 2004 I've been working as forensic psychiatrist. I work for the NHS (National Health Service) although I have worked in the private sector in the past.

Fiona - 
...and of course you also write. Your newest book came out in January Escaping Psychiatry. I want to get back to your writing in just a moment. But can you please explain to the readers the difference between forensic psychiatry and forensic psychology?


Olga -
I am a psychiatrist, and we are doctors who then specialize in psychiatry. We have to study medicine first and then spend several years working as psychiatrists. There can be confusion between psychology and psychiatry, although psychologists study psychology, and in England have nothing to do (in general, I know in the US this could change) with prescribing medication or providing specific diagnosis, although they do assessments and provide therapy. As a forensic psychiatrists, our work is not terribly different from other psychiatrists.

Both professions look after people who suffer from mental illnesses. As a forensic psychiatrist most of my cases have been involved with the criminal justice system. They have committed crimes, and in most cases, the courts, instead of sending them to prison, feel that they need to receive treatment in a hospital.

Sometimes we also look after people who have not been charged with any crimes, but are felt to be too risky for standard psychiatric services.

Fiona-
So you're interviewing and making determinations in a hospital setting?

Olga - 
I work in a low-secure unit. Here in the UK (I'm not that familiar with the set-up in the US), we have three types of secure facilities: high (places like Rampton Hospital), medium and low. Normally, if somebody has committed a serious crime, like murder, and it's felt that they might be a serious and immediate risk to others, they would go to High Secure hospital. Once they've received treatment, and it's felt that they are not a major risk to others, they would move to a medium secure facility. Where I work, we aim to discharge people to the community. I mostly work in the hospital setting, but part of our work is also about seeing people in prison to provide reports to the courts, to guide them with regards to the mental health difficulties of prisoners (and help them decide if the prisoner needs to be in a hospital or not).

Fiona - 
In parts of  the US, suicide is considered a criminal act - would people exhibiting suicidal ideation come under your expertise?

Olga - 
They might do. Here suicide is not criminalized, although assisting to suicide is. They would come under our area if they were in prison and are found to be at risk, especially if they required expert treatment. It is more common to see people with suicidal ideation in general psychiatry, but it happens.

Fiona -
Can you give me a general idea of how your diagnosis statistically breakdown? In criminal psych do you see mostly individuals who experience schizophrenia, depressive and anxiety disorders that can be medicated and treated through various therapies or do you find many of your clients to be dealing with personality disorders narcissism, and the like?

Olga - 
In the hospital where I work, our criteria is that people we admit (it's a male only unit) must have a diagnosis of mental illness, not solely personality disorder. The great majority of our patients suffer from psychosis, mostly schizophrenia  (Blog Link) or schizo-affective disorder. We have had some patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and some with psychotic depression. (Blog Link) Substance misuse problems are very high within our population. In general, in the prison population, personality disorders, particularly for men antisocial, feature very highly, and one of the problems is how difficult they are to treat. There have been attempts and units specifically created for it (like the DSPD, Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder unit in Rampton Hospital, where patients would have been diagnosed with at least 2 different types of personality disorders), both in hospitals and prisons, but in general the outcomes aren't very good.

It is a bit of a chicken and an egg situation, as criminality scores highly as one of the criteria for diagnosing somebody with antisocial personality disorder. Psychopathy is not a specific psychiatric diagnosis, but people who score highly in psychopathy ratings (like PCLR, Hare Psychopathy Check List, Revised) are likely to re-offend and be violent again.

Fiona -
Would your training and expertise allow you to be proficient if say if a detective sought you out and said, "We have this terrible case we need to figure out who could be involved in this series of attacks." Could you develop a picture for them like: I think he's uneducated male, about 45 years old, with no familial ties except for a deep and disturbing attachment to his mother...


Olga -
No. We don't really do profiling. We do assessments of risk of the people who are under our care using specific rating scales, but even with that, psychiatrist are only marginally more accurate in assessing risk than other people.There are certain symptoms we know are more likely to result in crimes - command hallucinations, paranoia, and definitely substance use, both drugs and alcohol. As mentioned, somebody who scores highly in psychopathy rating scale is more likely to be violent and aggressive, but these people would be unknown until they get caught.

Fiona - 
Are you ever called into court to explain the psychology of your client and offer expertise as to whether you believe they would be a repeat offender, or escalate in criminal activity?

Olga -
If one of our patients (or somebody we have seen for a report) goes to court, we would provide a report to court. Our area of expertise is mental health, so we would comment on their mental state, on our opinion about their likelihood to respond to treatment, etc. Normally, a probation officer (now called Offender Management Officer) would asses the person and provide a report. They look at their statistics and use a rating system to provide a likelihood of repeated offending. It tends to be fairly accurate.On the other hand we get patients that because they have committed a serious crime and are seen as dangerous, end up detained and with a 'restriction order'. That means that the Ministry of Justice keeps track of them, and they cannot be discharge without their agreement. We are asked to provide reports regarding their response to treatment and likelihood that they might destabilize mentally and be violent again.

Fiona -
Olga, with your background if you wanted to become a profiler could you do that?

Olga - 
I'm not sure there are profilers as such here. With regards to looking into something like forensic psychology, even doing something like a masters in Psychology requires having a degree in psychology and being a member of the Psychological Society.I have worked with forensic psychologists and none of them were profilers either.

Fiona - 
The reason I ask is that I have read books where a detective is frustrated and frightened for his community and has sought out the help of a forensic psychiatrist who has rallied to save the day. Is this possible? Probable? Or would they need to have received specialized training to be effective in helping the law enforcement community.

Olga - 
I don't think what we see on the TV and movies is false. But these would be people who apart from studying psychology or psychiatry would have been specifically trained and would need to have a good understanding of the whole process. It is not part of the standard training. As forensic psychiatrists, we can comment on the mental health of people who are suspected or have committed a crime, but we would not be called to try and analyse a crime-scene, for example.

Fiona - 
Thank you so much for that clarification.

Olga - 
We can provide a formulation of how somebody's behavior might be related to previous experiences, to their mental state, to their life, but that would not be the same as the profiles we see in 'Criminal Minds' for example

Fiona - 
Olga your native language is Spanish, when you are doing your creative work, coming up with plots for your writing do you tend to do that in English or Spanish?

Olga - 
It varies. Normally these days in English, as I am surrounded by it. But I was recently visiting my parents and wrote a short story there in Spanish.

Fiona - 
And your books seem very different. Can you give us a quick peek at The Man Who Never Was?

Amazon Link

Olga - 
The Man Who Never Was started as a 45 pages story quite a few years back (I was 16 or 17) when I was reading plenty of books in the Magic Realism genre. I had the idea for a novel where the main character, Jesús, is born so ugly that everybody expects him to be bad or special in some way. Funnily enough everybody around him is pretty unique, but he... is a fairly nice guy. It is a family saga with bizarre goings on. Mystery, politics, cinema, banks, child prodigy...

Amazon Link

My next book published (I have quite a few unpublished) is 'Twin Evils?' that is a novella. I've described it as YA although quite a few people have told me that it also reads as an adult book. 

Fiona - 

Your next book - Click Me Happy - gives readers the choice between three possible outcomes - and it's a romance... That's quite a shift don't you think?

Amazon Link

Olga - 

The three endings thing was because some people had queried the ending of  The Man Who Never Was, and I decided to give them a choice there. I'm usually more of an open ending author, but I knew people would expect a happy ending for a romance.

Fiona - 
So now you're back to dark writing. Tell us about your newest - Congratulations, by the way! Is this the perfect marriage of your two interests - writing and psychiatry?




Olga - 
I wrote the first story of  Escaping Psychiatry called 'Cannon Fodder' many years back (1998 or 99), and I

showed it to some people (including the teacher at a short story writing course I was attending), and they liked it, but it was too short for a novel and too long for a short story. They suggested I write a couple of other stories with the same protagonist, Mary, a psychiatrist, and writer, and publish them together. I did that eventually and after publishing them initially as novellas I've now published them in a single volume with an epilogue. Mary is a psychiatrist who'd like to dedicate herself to writing, but for one reason or another she keeps getting dragged into dealing with cases that require her expertise as psychiatrist.She gets involved in cases dealing with abuse, religion, police corruption, murders, serial killers... A bit of all.

Amazon Link

Fiona -
Yipes! I see I'm over my hour - so sorry! I was having so much fun - let me ask you the question I ask everyone in my interviews - can you please tell me about your favorite scar?

Olga - 
I'm not sure it would count as a scar, but one of  the most spectacular things I remember seeing, when I was still a medical student, was a woman of a certain age (probably early sixties) with a young child in one hand, and in the other holding one of these big mixers (the ones that are a single implement that you hold by hand) stacked on her breast (on top of her clothes. She was wearing a house dress). She explained that she was preparing some food, had taking the mixer out of the bowl and her grandson make a gesture to touch the blades and she instinctively moved it towards her pressing the button. Although it looked very impressive, luckily she'd stopped pressing the button as it touched her and there were only two small cuts. But you should have seen it!

Fiona - 
Thank you so much for spending time with us today. I wish you the very best of luck in all you pursue. 

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Police Dive Teams - How to Find People and Evidence Under Water: Information for Writers

__________________________________________________________________

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last fall at the Writers' Police Academy, I attended a seminar in how the police dives for evidence and conducts searches for bodies that are underwater.

The divers that we interviewed were all police officers; they trained on a regular basis as a water recovery team. When a need arose, they would leave their normal workday duties and dive.

These divers were involved in cases that included:
* Evidence recovery
* Submerged body recovery, including:
   `accidents
   `suicide
   `victims of a crime

Teams might also participate in:
* Inspecting the hulls of ships in
   anti-narcotics operations
* Explosive Ordnance Disposal (bombs)
   in anti-terrorism efforts

The team that I interviewed maintained a minimum of three dive members per event.
* A below water surface diver
* An attendant diver who stayed on the surface to assist the underwater diver and to signal/communicate
* A supervisor who works on the surface to direct the operation

Video Quick Study (6:05) Norfolk, England but this is the same information that we received.

Most of the diving investigations are done in highly hazardous environments which might include
* Cold temperatures
* Zero visbility
* Contaminated waters including chemical hazards
* Sharp objects that the divers must feel with their hands since they can not see
* Entanglement and entrapment objects such as submerged trees, rocks, and debris

Video Quick Study (3:32) What it looks like under there.
Video Quick Study (8:21) Difficulties of suiting up, moving, and seeing underwater.

This is picture of one of our instructors, "Cookie." Cookie's technique for keeping the heebie-jeebies at bay while he's groping through pitch-black water for a dead body includes singing as loudly as he can. That's why he makes extra bubbles.

Video Quick Study (3:34) includes information on equipment, sonar, finding a car

 A U.S. Navy diver conducts a dive supporting Infinite Response 09, a bilateral exercise between the U.S. Navy and the naval forces of a Middle Eastern country (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The team might be called to investigate:
* Natural water ways such as oceans, rivers,
   and ponds
* Dams
* Caves
* Sewage ponds - there's a nasty plot twist for
   you

In some cases sonar is used to reduce diver exposure. This includes side-scan sonar and radial sonar. The sonar can help locate:
* Vessels
* Vehicles
* Planes
* Bodies
* Evidence

Search Patterns:

graphic from Wikipedia

Arc Search

* Also known as a pendulum search and a fishtail search

* The diver has a rope that is fed to him by his attendant diver.

* The diver will start on one side of a designated line (such as a shore

    line) and swim/grope through the water at the far reach of the line.

* At the end of the arc, the diver turns to go back the other way. The

   line is then released at a measured increment, knotted to maintain

   a record, and fed to the diver. For example: if the diver is looking for

   a bicycle the attendant might release a foot and a half of slack between

   arc rotations. If it is a gun, the arcs are much tighter.

* Once the diver has searched the area that can be conveniently reached

   with the rope line, the center point is moved to search another area. 

* This search works best when the general area is known.

graphic from Wikipedia

Circular Search

If the team was out in the water, away from a shore line, they would use a circular grid pattern.

This operates in a similar way as the arc search.

* Fixed central point

* Diver swims 360 degrees before his line is 

   lengthened

Other Search Patterns

* Jackstay - Has divers swimming a straight line along a shore then moving out a length to swim another
   straight line.
* Snagline - When an object is large enough, like a car or fridge, a line can be held in parallel swimmers'
   hands so that it will catch on the item.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Underwater communication 

Can take place via

* Line signals 

* Communicators

Once an Object is found

* The diver sends up a signal marker

* The GPS coordinates are documented

* The item is elevated using air balloons

Video Quick Study (2:21) You can see the lift bags bringing up a car.

A Body 

* Does not lay flat on the floor of the water. The upper half is held at an angle buoyed by air trapped in the

   body. 

* Will float after about seven days as the body fills with gases

* After several more days as cavities are punctured by fish, birds, and other animals, the body will sink back

   into the water.

* The rate of decomposition depends mostly on water temperatures. The colder the water, the longer the

   body will remain intact.

* The deceased is bagged underwater.

   `This is for the sake of the survivors watching from shore

   `This helps to maintain any evidence that will help investigators

Video Quick Study (2:26) Divers talk about their experience and shows arc, and signalling.

Video Quick Study (3:29) Canadian and American divers certify in ice diving. YIPES! 

Video LONG Study (47:00) If you are writing a SCUBA scene you may want to spend the time learning 

                                about the problems of hypothermia, dry suit, and choices.

Fiona Quinn's Newsletter Link, Sign up HERE

Thank you so much for stopping by. And thank you for your support. When you buy my books, you make it possible for me to continue to bring you helpful articles and keep ThrillWriting free and accessible to all.