Tips and Tricks Archives

In the 1960s, during the time when the group Jefferson Airplane released the song “White Rabbit” from the Surrealistic Pillow album, lead singer Grace Slick’s haunting voice filled rooms and cars and vans and anywhere else equipped with 8-track or record players. Slick’s silky crooning, combined with the feel of the band’s music in the style of Maurice Ravel’s BOLERO, practically oozed from stereo speakers, entering spaces where it mingled with pot smoke and incense and people who wore bell bottoms and flowers in their hair.

Grace Slick credits the drug LSD, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and jazz musician Miles Davis’ version of Rodrigo’s classic piece Concierto de Aranjuez as inspirations for “White Rabbit.” Slick once told The Wall Street Journal that immediately before she wrote the song “she dropped a tab of acid and listened to Davis’ album over and over for hours.”

This was a period in time when someone who desired to purchase a bag of weed, LSD, or other drugs they simply visited their source, handed over some cash in exchange for “the goods”, and then went on their way to get high. Or, they knew a guy who knew a guy who’d make the connection and introduce the two. LSD, by the way, was legal until 1968, a year after the release of “White Rabbit.”

Today, like purchasing items from Amazon or other online merchants, social media and other e-commerce sites are often used for buying and selling illegal drugs, such as fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, and mushrooms. Dealers openly advertise but they do so in code. To disguise the their drug transactions, they often use emojis to depict services and products.

To help parents and others understand how the emojis are being used, the DEA and DOJ published and emoji drug decoder that shows each emoji and its corresponding meaning. For example, if someone wants a large quantity of marijuana they’d text a cookie emoji (symbol for large batch) and a tree, leaf, or fire emoji (symbols for marijuana).

Posted below is the DEA’s Emoji Drug code.

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CREATING PLOTS FOR PAGE TURNERS

Presented by international bestselling author Robert Dugoni

Date: Saturday November 5, 2022

Time: 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. EST

Where: Writers’ Police Academy Online – https://writerspoliceacademy.online

This is a live and interactive online course

Reserve your spot today!

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so this is me with too much time on my hands.

Forensic Terminology

External Ballistics – characteristics and behavior of a bullet after it leaves the muzzle of a firearm, but before it strikes an object/its target.

External Ballistics

Jacketed bullets – lead bullets that are encased either partially or completely in copper or a similar alloy. The term “full metal jacket” refers to complete jacketing of a bullet.

Jacketed bullets

Negative Impression – Impression evidence created when contact between two objects results in the removal of material where the contact took place.

A handprint impression made in wet beach sand is a positive impression. A handprint, however, made on a freshly-painted surface is a Negative Impression because the hand removed paint to create the impression.

Negative Impression

Cast-off – occurs when an object is swung in an arc, tossing blood onto nearby surfaces. For example, when a killer swings a bloodstained hammer back and forth above his head while delivering blow after blow to the body of his victim. The blood sent airborne as a result of the hammer’s motion is “Cast-off.”

Cast-off

Barefoot Morphology Comparison – A forensic application that uses the impressions of the weight-bearing areas of footprints left at crime scenes to include or exclude suspects in an investigation.

Barefoot Morphology Comparison

Forensic Musicologist – experts in music theory who compare pieces of music to determine if something is a copy.

For example, a court determined that former Beatle George Harrison was liable of subconscious (unintentional) plagiarism for the song “My Sweet Lord.” The decision was a no-brainer because the tune was practically a note-for-note copy of the 1962 hit “He’s So Fine” by The Chiffons. Forensic musicologists were called upon to examine and compare the two songs for similarities.

Forensic musicology also helped determine that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams plagiarized Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got to Give It Up” when they wrote and recorded “Blurred Lines.” The court awarded a hefty sum of over $7 million in damages to be paid by Thicke and Williams to the heirs of Marvin Gaye.

Forensic Musicologist

Equivocal Death – “Situations in which the manner of death (i.e. accidental, natural causes, suicide, and homicide) is uncertain or not immediately clear” ~ Knoll 2008

Psychological autopsy, analyzing the psychosocial aspects of a victim’s life leading up to and at the time of their death, can be extremely helpful in equivocal death investigations.

Equivocal Death

Welcome to MurderCon

It’s a killer event that features renowned experts who train top homicide investigators from around the world.

Writers, please take advantage of this opportunity to learn from those who are the best in the business of crime scene investigation. I say this because this incredible event may not come your way again.

*2021 Guest of Honor – Andrew Grant

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