Investigations of Crime, Cause and Effect, and Forensic Science
Investigations of Crime, Cause and Effect, and Forensic Science
The field of Investigations is a vast one, and the subject is immense, as the number of sciences which are either concerned with discovering or proving the existence or non-existence of something or other are countless. Investigation is the science of finding out the truth by means of certain methods, and these methods may be physical, chemical, historical, chronological, experimental, or logical. Thus we have the naturalists who search for facts in nature; investigators who collect data for literary or dramatic purposes; metaphysicians who reconcile contradictions or account for the discrepancies which we see in the world; and politicians, who try to discover causes for political disturbances. We have the learned who insist on the accuracy and authenticity of their learning; investigators who test the facts by experiments and observation. And we have the scientist, whose only business it is to discover the laws and the nature and conditions of things.
All these, and many other branches of the subject, are extremely interesting, but they all start with the same stage, and that is the investigation. The actual act of investigating; the process of asking questions; investigative process; investigation, especially thorough and patient investigation; even the inquiries of the metaphysician and the poet; the criminal lawyers and prosecutors who try to put their victims beyond doubt; potential witnesses whose lives are destroyed by criminal acts or by the refusal of the police to charge them with criminal offenses. There are many interesting instances of this history in history, and it is worth our studying.
One well-known instance of an investigation is the “Hollywood Screengrab”, an instant photograph of a murder scene from a famous movie was seized by a private detective, after the film maker had produced the picture. After examining the photograph, a grand jury in California decided that there was sufficient evidence to convict the suspect on murder charges, and he was executed. But the case aroused a great deal of public attention, because the prosecutor had used an ineffective secret code for his defense, and because it was known that witnesses had been removed from the scene of the crime. Another case which aroused public attention was that of Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder. The Dallas Police Detective who investigated the murder claimed that there were two sets of evidence and apparently deliberately set the scene of the murder to make it impossible for Oswald to have acted alone.