Linda Lovely: It’s a PARTY and You’re Invited!

What a terrific group of friends, who are taking time out of their busy schedules to help me celebrate the release of Bad Pick tomorrow (April 16) at 3 p.m.

Authors Annette Riggle Dashofy, Gretchen Archer, Cynthia Kuhn, Julie Mulhern, and Wendy Young heard I’d had an accident that put me out of commission for awhile and organized this party to help promote my new book, BAD PICK, since they knew I was unable to do the usual book launch promotions. PLEASE join in the fun.

There will be lots of prizes AND you’ll get better acquainted with some talented fellow authors!

Directions to the party.

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Murder One: You Can’t Make This Up: Oddities in Police Procedure

Looking for Classes on Police Procedures or Paranormal Stuff? Check out our April Classes. Now OPEN for Registration!

Yes, I’m once again teaching a fun and informative month-long COFFIN class. This one is called “Murder One: You Can’t Make This Up: Oddities in Police Procedure.” Please sign up to join in on the fun. Classes begin today and are open to the public.

Note: COFFIN is the name of the online workshop program through Kiss of Death. All classes are 100% online via an email loop and open to anyone.

Again, classes are open to the public!!

To sign up: https://rwakissofdeath.org/coffin 

To View Upcoming Classes: https://rwakissofdeath.org/coffin (signup is always open so signup early).

April Classes:

Murder One: You Can’t Make This Up: Oddities in Police Procedure (by special request)

Lee Lofland, founder of the Writers Police Academy and the 2019 special event, MurderCon, returns to the Kiss of Death Chapter to expand on his most popular articles of THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT, one of the top five of the thirty best police blogs. During this class, this renowned instructor will discuss thing writers miss or things writers get wrong in books. Come prepared to learn and ask questions about Death Investigations, Police Procedure, Police Tools and Equipment, Courts and Research, and more.

Instructor Bio:

Lee Lofland, a Medal of Valor recipient, is a veteran police investigator who began his law-enforcement career working as an officer in Virginia’s prison system. He later became a sheriff’s deputy, a patrol officer, and finally, he achieved the highly-prized gold shield of detective. Along the way, he gained a breadth of experience that’s unusual to find in the career of a single officer.

Killer Instincts: Beyond Boo!: Using Paranormal Creatures, Plots and Elements in Your Romantic Thrillers

NYT Bestselling author Megan Hart guides you through how to create your best monsters, figure out what perilous situations will horrify your characters most, and how to get them to fall in love while on the run from things that go bump in the night. You’ll learn how to decide what paranormal elements you want to incorporate in your suspense and thrillers to give it the edge you might not have expected.

Instructor Bio:

Megan Hart writes books. Some use bad words, but most of the others are okay. She can’t live without music, the internet, or the ocean. She writes a little bit of everything from horror to romance, though she’s best known for writing erotic fiction that sometimes makes you cry. Find out more atmeganhart.com, twitter.com/megan_hartand www.facebook.com/readinbed

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Special Guest Detective I. Ketchem Details Ten Tips Your Protagonists Should Never Forget

My name is Detective I. Ketchem and I’ve been asked to step outside the pages of my current book to help the heroes of your stories, the poor characters whose writers sometimes forget how important it is to conduct even just a wee bit of research.

Those writers, bless their hearts, think they know everything about police work and crime scene investigation because, believe it or not, they’ve watched a few episodes of Law and Order, Hawaii Five-O, and Barney Miller.

Thant’s not proper research folks, and your readers deserve better. After all, they spend their hard-earned money by driving through forests and deserts and mountains and deep, dark jungles, searching for stores where they can purchase your books.

Those same fans stand in long lines at their neighborhood Piggly Wiggly stores, lines that snake through the pickled pigs feet and cottage cheeses, passing eggs, bacon, and tripe, before finally winding through the dips and chips and Cool Whips and beef lips, all to have you sign copies of those precious books.

Later, they proudly post cheesy posed pictures of you with your arm around them at those signings where everyone leaves smelling like raw clams and smoked hams.

Yes, fans adore you. So why let them down by inserting not-so-hot information into your tall tales. Besides, those inaccuracies could do us in before chapter one concludes on page twelve. And you need us to bring your tales to a satisfactory conclusion.

So I decided the best means of addressing the problem would be to dive right into the deep end of some of the books found out there today. After an exhaustive search, here are the tips I have for the characters in your books.

If you won’t help them out by conducting proper research, well, it’s up to the fictional heroes of your stories to do the things that keep them safe so that they may live on to star in the next book.

A List of Ten Traps That Could Kill Your Characters

1. No matter how hot or uncomfortable it is in a setting, always wear your vest. Bad guys carry guns in scenes where the settings are hot and humid! Don’t believe it, drive over to New Iberia, Louisiana and have a chat with Dave Robicheaux. He’ll fill you in on all the sticky, sweaty details.

2. When responding to a call in an unfamiliar area, always plan an escape route. Never drive into an ambush situation, especially deep in those crevices where the pages meet the spine. And, whatever you do, look behind every single cookie crumb down there. You never know…

3. Search every suspect thoroughly before placing them inside your police car. Officers in other books have been injured or killed because they skipped this simple step.

4. Don’t be shy when searching criminals. Weapons have been found in every imaginable place, and some have been found in places you don’t want to imagine. This is fiction, after all, so anything and everything is possible, including in those places where the “sun don’t shine!”

Shyness Can Be A Death Sentence!

5. Use the same caution when arresting women as you would when arresting male suspects. You’re just as dead when killed by a female character. Letting down your guard can be a series-ender. Female crooks in real life take advantage of the fact that male officers are a bit apprehensive about placing their hands in places where the hands of strangers shouldn’t be placed. So, where do they hide guns, handcuff keys, drugs, etc.? Yep, they often hide those thing right “there.”

And, to make things far worse for the male detective who’s searching a female for weapons, she often pretends to enjoy the hands-on search and even quite loudly vocalizes her feigned pleasure so that bystanders hear every blush-inducing comment.

Shoot, I once stopped a dress-wearing shoplifter who’d concealed a plastic garbage pail between her legs. And when I removed it found that it contained several packages of steaks, CDs, a small umbrella, and a cantaloupe.

So yeah, search EVERYWHERE!. Do. Not. Be. Shy.

6. When engaged in a vehicle pursuit never fixate on the suspect’s tail lights. If he runs off the page or hits a dog eared corner and crashes, you’ll likely follow straight into death. (Yeah, we dislike dog-eared pages too. Drive us nuts).

Instead, of following taillights, watch the entire vehicle and where it’s headed. Be aware of your surroundings at all times. Also, all bright lights are not oncoming cars and trucks. Instead, it’s possible they’re merely reading lights. Still, use caution when heading “into the light”.

7. Always double-lock handcuffs. This is not the time to rush to the next page. Doing so before it’s time can have disastrous results. You don’t want to spend the next three chapters in some fictional hospital.

20140807_112130

To double-lock, insert the pointed end of a handcuff key into the tiny hole on the side of the cuffs.

Remember, the writer of your tale can be pretty darn devious, so don’t put it past her to give her crooks some serious brainpower. Even make-believe thugs sometimes practice escaping cuffs with only one lock (the ratchet) secured. A paperclip or bobby pin will do the job. Besides, double-locking prevents the cuffs from becoming too tight on your suspect’s wrists.

8. Never allow tunnel vision to run your investigation. The deadly blow could come from any character and from any scene. Your writer is actively dreaming up hurdles for you, and this one could be a doozy.

9. Never let your guard down. The well-dressed man with the flashy smile on page 67 just might be another Dr. Lector.

10. Don’t let your job come before family. Every story needs a dose of personality. Readers want to know and like you. So make it happen. Smile. Love your wife or girlfriend. Take the kids to the park. And definitely get an ugly dog. Readers gush over this stuff. Without it, you may as well be tromping through the nonfiction aisles of a B&N.

And, the dour detective has been done to death. You’re writers, so use your imaginations.

Finally, please, please, please stop having us smell the odor of cordite at crime scenes. It can’t happen. It doesn’t happen. They stopped making it back at the end of WWII. The stuff we smell is smokeless gunpowder, and it smells a bit like the odor of 4th of July fireworks.

 

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Are Real-Life Detectives Inspired by Agatha Christie’s Fiction?

As a police detective whose job was to solve murders, I found it especially helpful to immerse myself into the lives of the victims rather than merely going through the motions of filling in the blanks of police reports. I had to make it personal, to try my absolute best to see the case through the eyes of the victims. I needed to know them and everything about them. I practically had to BE them until the point where they exhaled for the final time.

I needed to know a victim’s family and friends. I walked the paths they traveled. I learned their routines. I spoke with and interviewed their friends and family and neighbors, yes, but I also made the effort see those friends and relatives from the victim’s perspective, not in reverse, as those people thinking about their loved one occupying a table space in the state morgue.

It’s Personal

To know the family and friends and acquaintances from the point of view of the victim is a telling and sometimes eye-opening experience. Getting to know people on a personal level is a key that unlocks many “doors,” and doing so, more often than not, helps to crack those hardened exteriors people often develop toward police officers. Showing that you do indeed care about them and their loved one as people and not as items on a checklist goes a long way.

Above all, I listened. And I listened and I listened and I listened.

Caring About the Victim

I cared about the victims, each of them. I learned their habits. Their likes, hopes, and dreams. I grew to know their coworkers and their bosses and the people in the stores where they shopped for food and clothing, and the places where they purchased gas for their cars. I knew what they liked to read and to watch on TV. I held their dogs and cats and their babies. I hugged their parents, their spouses, and their young children. I played ball with their kids. I sat with the family, again listening to stories about the past and of lost futures.

I had to know the victim, personally.

If a victim once stopped by a donut shop in the mornings, well, I sometimes retraced the route and did the same. Along the way, I saw joggers, dog-walkers, letter carriers, delivery people, children on their way to school, bus drivers, cab drivers, and I saw the grumpy old men and women who spend their days peering at the street through gaps in dingy lace curtains. I saw garbage collectors, street sweepers, patrol officers, ambulance drivers, FED EX and UPS drivers, animal control officers, the man who waters his lawn at precisely 9 A.M., and the woman who wore a big floppy hat while tending to her roses each day at the crack of dawn. I spoke with each of those people. People see the little things and those “things” no matter how small, could lead to the killer.

Clues

Tiny clues are often the ones that bring a case to a close. And those leads are sometimes offered by ordinary people not associated with the crime in question—the lawn waterer, neighborhood street sweepers, etc.—who each have an opportunity to see something, and often times they did. But had I not taken the time to to stop and say hi and to ask a few simple questions, well, those little tidbits and tips may have gone forever unspoken.

I visited the homes of murder victims. I examined the rooms where they slept. I saw where they cooked and ate their meals. I looked into the refrigerators to see their contents, searching for anything that could help me better understand the unfortunate and poor soul whose heart no longer beat with metronome precision.

Research

I even used this method when researching and writing a true crime tale published by Prometheus books. The story was about the extremely brutal murder of a young woman named Tina Mott.

While conducting the research for the book , a process that lasted over a year, I found myself delving deeper and deeper in Tina’s life until I felt as if I’d known her. I learned so much detail about her short time on the planet that I knew her likes and dislikes, her hobbies, and even her emotions.

Tina wrote poetry and it was through her writings, works I studied, hoping to use them to provide me with insight, when I began to set her story to page.

I tacked photos of Tina on my bulletin board. I even had one of my desk. In the image on my desk, she was at a birthday celebration for her, a small event hosted by friends. In the picture, she was smiling and obviously happy.

Images like those helped to take me into her life and, together with the poems and interviews with friends and family, well, she was no longer a stranger whose remains sadly went unfound for a year.

Instead, I knew Tina even though we’d never met. She was a person. A good-hearted young woman, a brand new mother with feelings and emotions. She laughed. She cried. She hurt. And she loved life. And then she died at the hand of her boyfriend, another person I came to know during the research.

I experienced both his good and his dark side. He, too, was real person. A real and evil person.

This is the same way I approached all murder cases. I came to know the victims as people.

Locking Away Biases

While working to solve a homicide case, it is paramount that investigators leave their predispositions locked away in an imaginary safe. Actually, officers should never pre-judge anyone. Instead, they should start fresh at each and every crime scene and with each and every suspect, witness, and victim. Isn’t that exactly how the great writers of our time produce such wonderful books, over and over again? They do so by starting with a fresh story on page one, chapter one.

Starting anew, without predisposition and prejudice, and without knowing the identity of a killer is one reason why I believe Agatha Christie remains so wildly popular in the mystery world. This is so because she, like police homicide investigators, did not know the name of the killer when she started her stories.

As Christie’s characters worked through their convoluted and fictional crimes—bad and good folks alike—, they often made the same mistakes real-life officers tend to experience as they wind their ways through along the journeys leading to the ends of their cases. Christie wrote in this style because she, too, was working out resolutions to the clues and traps that she herself had planted while writing.

Human Nature

As a former detective who still thinks like an investigator as I read book after book, I sometimes see subtle things in Christie’s writing that leads me to believe she was solving her own cases with each written word.

In Five Little Pigs, Christie’s story clung tightly to the cause and effect of human nature. It’s a character-driven book where Poirot solves a cold case and he does so through his and Christie’s understanding and examinations of a person’s emotions and passion. Like Poirot, through Christie’s eyes and typewriter, a real-life police investigator who has the ability to “see” human nature is an investigator who’ll find success in their field.

Sure, DNA and fancy lights and chemicals and laboratories are nice, but they’re nothing more than icing on the cake when compared to the detective who knows and understands people, and human nature.

Are Real-Life Detectives Plotters or Pansters?

If one were to stop and ponder for a moment they’d see that homicide and other detectives are often both plotters and pansters. The former due to department guidelines and standard methods as to how a scene is approached—911 call, first responder arrives, detectives and CSI arrive, coroner is called, speak to witnesses, collect evidence using Sirchie evidence collection tools and products, yada, yada, yada.

But it is the panster detective, the cop who’s not afraid to step outside the line, who’s the investigator that people will open up to most quickly. They’re the cops who turn over all the stones, just not in any particular order. They easily adapt to fast paced and quick-changing cases.

Detectives who follow along a more plotter-type course of investigation are perhaps science-based linear thinkers and, sure, their style produces results. But even they must vary from the “plot line” in order to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Christie knew and understood that humans are flawed. No one, including either of her characters, is perfect. And it is this, the fallibility of human beings, that helped her characters and her tales ring so wonderfully true, and believable.

Agatha Christie was indeed the queen of writing believable make-believe, and this is so because she understood the importance of adapting real-life into her work. Poirot, for example, was based upon first World War refugees who arrived Torquay, in 1916. Miss Marple assumed characteristics of Christie’s own grandmother. Others were based upon traveling companions and co-workers from her dispensing days. She based settings on her own property, holiday locations, archaeological digs, and more. Much more.

Police detectives understand the importance of knowing each of the characters involved in the crimes they investigate. They also study setting, the crime scene, victim’s home, etc.

They know the value of stepping outside one’s comfort zone to reach a satisfactory conclusion. They’re also extremely willing to conduct research and attend training to help set them apart from the average cop. Shouldn’t you, as a writer, be willing to do the same?

Research. Research. Hands. On. Research!

There’s still time to register for this extremely rare opportunity where you will attend the same training offered to top homicide investigators from around the world! This course of instruction is typically for law enforcement eyes only, but the Writers’ Police Academy, in conjunction with Sirchie, the world leader in in Crime Scene Investigation and Forensic Science Solutions, has made it possible for to attend this, the only event of its kind in the world!

MurderCon takes place at Sirchie’s compound located just outside of Raleigh, N.C.

Please, do your readers a huge favor and sign up today while you still can.

MurderConRegsitration

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Words That Take Your Breath Away

You know you have a winner when a reader says, “Wow, that book took my breath away!”

The Bee Gees offered a simple solution how writers can deliver those magical stories, and the answer is so very simple. Use the right words and the magic will happen. Because, after all …

“It’s only words,
And words are all I have,
To take your breath away.” ~ The Bee Gees

P.

Parenticide – Killing of one’s own parents.

Patent Fingerprints – Prints that are visible to the naked eye.

PCR (Polymerace Chain Reaction) – DNA testing procedure/technique that creates millions of copies of strands of tiny samples of DNA. The procedure was discovered and developed by biochemist Kary Mullis, who, by the way, is an acquaintance of my wife Dr. Denene Lofland.

PCR Thermal Cycler – Device used amplify, or copy, segments of DNA using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A sort of DNA “copy machine.” You’d likely see one of these devices in most labs used for DNA testing, including the labs where samples are tested in cases involving criminal suspects.

Thermal Cycler manufactured by Bio-Rad, one of the top five life science companies in the world.

The above image of a Thermal Cycler was taken in a laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. This particular device was located in the laboratory of Dr. Stephanie Smith, a DNA expert.

I took the photo while visiting my friend Dr. Dan Krane, one of the world’s most highly-respected and renowned DNA experts. Dr. Smith’s laboratory was operated under the watchful eye of Dr. Krane.

WPA attendees may remember Dan Krane from his fascinating presentation at one of our past events. Dr. Krane is often called upon as an expert in high-profile cases, such as the OJ Simpson case, the D.C. Snipers, and even the infamous “blue dress” case involving Clinton and Lewinsky. Dr. Dan Krane and Denene (my wife) were colleagues at the time I visited his laboratories. He and Denene (also an expert) were responsible for much of the DNA information in my book on police procedure.

Pedophilia – An ongoing sexual attraction to pre-pubertal children. Its recurrent sexually arousing fantasies involve strong sexual urges and/or behaviors that include sexual activity with a child or multiple children who are typically age 13 years or younger. To meet the criteria of a pedophile, the person typically must fantasize about or act on those attractions over a period of at least six months.

Perimortem – Around the actual time of death.

Petecheal Hemorrhage – Pinpoint spots that appear as a result of bleeding under the skin. Conjunctival petechiae are a sign of possible compression of the neck and jugular veins due to choking and/or strangulation. Keep in mind that petechiae do not prove strangulation and their absence does not disprove it. It’s not a definite conclusion. However, the presence of petechiae is a handy red flag for police investigators that foul play could be a cause of death.

Piquerism – Sexual gratification to stab and cut. To enjoy seeing a victim bleed as flesh is pierced, ripped, and/or torn away.

Plastic Prints – Fingerprints visible in substances such as wax, caulk, or soap.

Psychological Autopsy – Procedure where experts in the mental health field collaborate with law enforcement to determine a person’s state of mind at the time they committed a crime.

Psychopathic Killer – A person who kills simply because they enjoy the act of killing.

Psychotic Killer – A person’s who’s psychosis drives them to murder.

Pugilistic Attitude – Position assumed by a victim of a death by fire. These victims often appear in a “boxer-like” position with elbows and knees bent/flexed and fists clenched. This posture is caused when intense heat contracts muscle fiber and tissue. A rookie mistake is to assume this person was “burned in place” while attempting to fight off an attacker. Not so.

 

Dead bodies always have a lot to reveal to investigators!

Putrefaction is the destruction of the soft tissue caused by two things, bacteria and fermentation of enzymes. As the bacteria and enzymes do their jobs the body immediately begins to discolor and transform into liquids and gases. The odd thing about the bacteria that destroys tissue at death is that much of it has been living in the respiratory and intestinal tracts all along.  Of course, if the deceased had contracted a bacterial infection prior to death, that bacteria, such as septicemia (blood poisoning), would aid in increasing the body’s decomposition.

Temperature plays an important part in decomposition. 70 degrees to 100 degrees F is the optimal range for bacteria and enzymes to do what they do best, while lower temperatures slow the process. Therefore, and obviously, a body will decompose faster during the sweltering days of summertime.

A blood-filled circulatory system acts as a super-highway for those organisms that destroy the body after death. Without blood the process of putrefaction is slowed.

Therefore, a murder victim whose body bled out will decompose at a slower rate than someone who died of natural causes.

Bodies adorned in thick, heavy clothing (the material retains heat) decompose more rapidly than the norm. Electric blankets also speed up decomposition.

A body will decompose faster during the sweltering days of summertime

A body that’s buried in warm soil may decompose faster than one that’s buried during the dead of winter. The type of soil that surrounds the body also has an effect on the rate of decomposition. For example, the soil in North Carolina is normally a reddish type of clay. The density of that clay can greatly retard the decomposition process because it reduces the circulation of air that’s found in a less dense, more sandy-type of earth.

Adult bodies buried in a well drained soil will become skeletonized in approximately 10 years. A child’s body in about five years.

People who were overweight at the time of their deaths decompose faster than skinny people. People who suffered from excessive fluid build-up decompose faster than those who were dehydrated. And people with massive infections and congestive heart failure will also decompose at a more rapid rate than those without those conditions.

The rule of thumb for the decomposition of a body is that, at the same temperature, 8 weeks in well-drained soil equals two weeks in the water, or one week exposed to the air.

Now, hold on to your breakfast …

The first sign of decomposition under average conditions is a greenish discoloration of the skin at the abdomen. This is apparent at 36-72 hours.

Next – Small vessels in the skin become visible (marbling).

Followed by, glistening skin, skin slippage, purplish skin, blisters, distended abdomen (after one week – caused by gases), blood-stained fluid oozing from body openings (nose, mouth, etc.), swelling of tissue and the presence of foul gaseous odor, greenish-purple face, swollen eyelids and pouting lips, swollen face, protruding tongue, hair pulls out easily, fingernails come off easily, skin from hands pulls off (gloving), body swells and appears greatly obese.

Internally, the body is decomposing and breaking down. The heart has become flabby and soft. The liver has honeycombed, and the kidneys are like wet sponges. The brain is nearly liquid, and the lungs may be a bit brittle.

Wrong kind of brittle, but who wants to end the post with crunchy lungs? So have some homemade peanut brittle and enjoy the rest of your day.

 

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Using Words to Help Readers See What You See

For the past fews days I’ve been offering up the individual ingredients of a word salad. I’ve presented you with formal groupings of letters that, when used properly, could add a little something extra to a crime story. However, I’ve given you these terms merely as a catalyst, a basis to help develop your scenes into 3D visions on a page.

It’s okay to have your cop character spout off a cool-sounding term, such as “marbling,” the the mottled, greenish-black appearance caused by sulfhaemoglobin molecules present in settled blood (once the heart stops beating). But simply saying the word does nothing to help form a picture. For example:

“Her leg is marbled. That tells me the victim has been dead for three to five days.”

It’s another thing entirely to describe marbling like this.

“This one’s a stomach-churner, Lieutenant. Wonder how long she’s been out here?”

“The skin of her right leg looks like a squiggly-lined roadmap of Northern Virginia. With marbling that pronounced, I’d say she’s been dead three, maybe four days, or so,” said Lieutenant Deadlooker.

I know, the writing above was not book quality, but I overwrote it to showcase that it is the definitions and imagery associated with each of these terms that should appear in your work, not so much the actual word itself.

Help your readers see what you see inside your mind. Show them that picture.

Take your world to them.

 

N.

Narcomania – An intense desire for alcohol and drugs.

Navicular – Shaped like a boat, such as certain bones in the feet and wrists. In the wrist, this comma-shaped bone is situated in the first row of carpals. In the feet, they’re located between the talus and the metatarsals.

Graphics Resource:

“BodyParts3D, © The Database Center for Life Science licensed under CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.1 Japan.”

NCAVC– A subdivision of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime is comprised of fours separate sections of the bureau—the Consultation Program, Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP), Criminal Personalty Profiling Program, and Research and Development.

NATIONAL CENTER FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VIOLENT CRIME

“The mission of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) is to combine investigative and operational support functions, research, and training in order to provide assistance, without charge, to federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies investigating unusual or repetitive violent crimes. The NCAVC also provides support through expertise and consultation in non-violent matters such as national security, corruption, and white-collar crime investigations.” ~ FBI.gov.

Necrophagia– The eating of dead corpses. As crime writers who conduct massive amount of research, I’m sure you already know that both insects and some humans partake in the consuming of dead flesh.

In the insect world, beetles and flies, for example, take advantage of the free meals offered to them when they happen upon a dead body. Human diners of freshly-killed people are typically of the serial killer breed, such as Dahmer and others who seem to enjoy appetizers and entrees made from well-seasoned fresh and/or frozen friends.

Back in 2001, well-known paleoanthropologist and Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley described the three ways in which anthropologists divided and categorized cannibalism.

  • Endocannibalism–  the act of consuming someone from within a tribe or specific culture.
  • Exocannibalism– the consumption of anyone outside of a group.
  • Autocannibalism– consuming parts of their own flesh. By the way, nail biting is also included in this category.

When, or if, you decide to include this term—Necrophagia—in a twisted tale of macabre mystery or romance, please don’t confuse it with the death metal group of the same name.

The ghoulish-sounding band produced jaunty little tunes such as Ready For Death, The Divine Art of Torture, Death Is Fun, A Legacy of Horror, Gore and Sickness, Cannibal Holocaust, and the always soothing bedtime melody, Slit Wrists and Casket Rot.

By the way, another term for those of you writing horror, thrillers, or romance stories with a bit of the dark side, is autophagia, the consuming one’s own flesh.

Necrophilia– Erotic stimulation by a dead body. Morbid attraction to the deceased. And having sexual intercourse with a corpse.

Neonaticide– the Killing of a child within 24-hours of its birth.

 

O.

Oblique Lighting – Light source positioned at an angle to an area to be viewed and/or photographed for evidence. Sometimes called side-lightling.

Open Tail– Surveillance style in which law enforcement (or others) utilize, using no means to avoid detection, such as a single police vehicle following behind a suspect car along city streets.

 

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Crime Writers’ Words of the Day: Make Your Stories Bleed Realism

When I crack the covers of a James Lee Burke novel, the words on the page begin to dance and sing. The odor of swamp water oozes out into the air. I feel the humidity and I smell the delicious odors of meat cooking on open fires. I see the mist on the bayou. More importantly, though, I’m there, in that book following along with Dave and Clete and Alafair as they go about their journey to the final page.

In The New Iberia Blues, Burke described a young deputy sheriff who’d grown up in a small town on the Louisiana-Arkansas line as having an accept that sound like “someone twanging a bobby pin.” Well, y’all, I instantly heard the officer’s voice ring as clear as a bell from that point forward.

The author described this fictional deputy, Sean McClain, as “slender, over six feet, his shoulders as rectangular as a coat-hanger wire inside his shirt, his stomach as flat as a plank.”

In that brief passage, readers had a mental picture of the lawman. He was fit and strong and tall.

Burke also, within just a few lines, brilliantly gives the reader a look inside the mind of Deputy McClain, describing his sincere innocence, and how he views life and approaches it from day to day. And he used his lead character, Dave Robicheaux, to introduce us to the man.

Robicheaux said to the reader, ” … I drove down to the tip of Cypremort Point with a young uniformed deputy named Sean McClain, who had seven months experience in law enforcement and still believed in the human race and woke up each day with birdsong in his head.”

Sean McClain was now a person I knew—how he walked, talked, and how he would confront criminals and witnesses. I knew his approach to investigations—reserved and with a glass half-full mindset. His lack of experience would cause him to first give the benefit of the doubt before looking at someone’s dark side. Rookie innocence. I’ve seen a hundreds of times.

So yes, words are the key to making a story come alive. But only when they’re assembled in the correct order and only if the selected words used are absolutely necessary to advance a scene. Too much is, well, too much.

So, without further ado, here are your …

Crime Writers’ Words of the Day

 

Incised Wound – A wound caused by a sharp weapon and is typically longer than it is deep. These types of wounds usually bleed quite readily.

Infanticide – The killing of an infant shortly after the child is born.

Infarct – An area of dead tissue (necrosis) caused by a lack of blood supply. A Myocardial infarction (MI) refers to the myocardium, the heart muscle itself, and the changes that occur in it when the muscle is suddenly deprived of fresh blood. When blood ceases to flow to the heart muscle it causes necrosis, the death of myocardial tissue. This is a heart attack.

 

K.

Klismaphillia – The use of enemas for sexual arousal/pleasure.

 

L.

Latent Prints – Fingerprints that are NOT visible to the human eye. (Patent prints are visible).

Ligature – Any string, rope, material that’s used to bind or tie, such as a household extension cord used by a killer to strangle his victim.

The post-autopsy photo below/right shows a deep ligature mark on the neck (upper left). Note the post-autopsy stitching of the “Y” incision.

The murder weapon was an extension cord, the typical cord (left) found in many homes.

Thanging autopsyo help orient – the head is to the left, just outside the upper edge of the photo. The Y-stitching begins at the bottom left  (upper right shoulder area) and continues to the mid chest area where it’s met by a like incision that began at the upper left shoulder area (upper area of the image) and continued to the chest center. The incision continued down to the area below the navel (bypassing the bellybutton).

 

Livor Mortis (lividity) can help investigators determine the time of death. The staining of tissue normally begins within the first two hours after death. The process reaches it’s full peak in eight to twelve hours.

If the victim is moved during the first six hours after death the purplish discoloration can shift, causing the new, lowest portion of the body to exhibit lividity.

After a period of six to eight hours after death, lividity becomes totally fixed. Moving the body after eight hours will not change the patterns of discoloration. Therefore, investigators know a body found lying face down with lividity on the back, has been moved.

Rookie officers have often confused lividity with bruising caused by fighting.

Remember, ambient air temperature is always a factor in determining the TOD (time of death). A hot climate can accelerate lividity, while a colder air temperature can slow it down considerably.

 

M.

Marbling – Not to be confused with the desirable tenderness caused by the intermixing of fat and muscle fibers in good beef, marbling, as it relates to a dead body, is the result of damaged blood cells that leak from deteriorating vessels. Bacteria converts haemoglobin molecules, the molecules that once carried oxygen around the body, into sulfhaemoglobin.

When the sulfhaemoglobin molecules present in settled blood (once the heart stops beating) it causes the skin to display a marbled, greenish-black appearance. this is a characteristic of a body that undergoing decomposition. These vessels, mostly the veins, often have the appearance of the squiggly lines of a roadmap. Marbling generally appears on the skin in early stages of decomposition, approximately 3 to 5 days, or so.

Marbling

Midline – The center of the head, chest, and abdomen, as if an imaginary line is drawn from top to bottom.

Midline

Mysophilia – Sexual attraction to filthy, dirty people, animals, clothing, etc.

 

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Words. They’re Important to Your Readers. Use Them Wisely

Words – Tools writers use to tell a tale. They’re important to readers. Here are some logical groupings of letters you may find helpful when concocting a crime story.

D.

Degeneration – As a postmortem term it’s the deterioration of a body part, such as the decomposition of tissue and organs.

Dentition – The number and kind of teeth, and their arrangement in the mouth. Pertaining to teeth.

Depersonalization – The manner and actions a killer takes to conceal a victim’s identity. Removing the head and hands, for example.

Disarticulation – The separation of two joints, either by surgical or criminal amputation/dismemberment.

Joe Choppemup disarticulated his wife of twenty years and then scattered her remains in a field behind her lover’s home. 

 

E.

Engram – A lasting trace left in the human mind, both conscious and unconscious, by anything a person has experienced phsycally. Like a latent fingerprint, one that’s not readily seen by the naked eye, an engram is latent image that’s stored in the mind.

Eukaryocyte – Simply put … a cell with a nucleus. Eucaryotae cells (eukaryotic cells) have a true nucleus and within contain membrane-bound organelles, such as mitochondria. Eukrayocyte is found in all organisms except bacteria.

Exculpatory Evidence – Evidence that proves a person is innocent of a crime.

 

F.

Fillicide – The Murdering of one’s own child.

Fratricide – The killing one’s own brother or sister.

 

G.

Gorilla – Prison term for an extremely tough male who is the aggressor during a sexual act. A giver, not a taker …

 

H.

Homicide – A homicide is any killing of one person by another, and it can be a legal act in certain circumstances—self-defense or in defense of others, homicide by misfortune (an accident), state or federal executions, etc.

New Picture

Homicide per infortunium – Accidental homicide where a person performing a legal act without any intention of harm, accidentally kills another. This is a legally excusable homicide. It is not a crime. Sad, heartbreaking, and unfortunate, yes. But not a crime.

 

 

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Forever Haunted: The Day I Handcuffed a Dead Man

Many of you have heard me tell the story of the day I shot and killed a bank robber during a pretty intense shootout. If you haven’t heard the story in person you may have read about it here on this site in one form or another.

But there’s a part of the tale I haven’t shared, and today I’ve decided to open the door in the back corner of my mind where this story lives. I’m doing so because those of you who write truly need to hear it. I say this because these are often the tiny details missing from your tales.

“That” Day

I’ve talked about the bullets zinging past my head with some striking the metal and glass of a nearby police car. I filled you in on the slow motion and my inability to hear that began the moment the robber fired his first round. I mentioned the 68 rounds that were exchanged (I fired five with all five striking the point of his body for which I aimed—one to the head and four practically dead center of his chest).

I told you about the dog barking. Of the bad guy folding like a carpenter’s ruler each time one of my 9mm bullets struck him, and then each time he popped back up like a clown in a jack-in-the-box to fire still more rounds at me and the other officers who’d arrived.

I turned to see one of the backup officers take cover beneath his vehicle, rolling under it in the same manner as a child would while playfully tumbling down a hillside. I saw members of a state highway construction crew quickly climb into the back of a dump truck just seconds before gunfire struck the vehicle. The big truck’s metal body served them well.

I described the man’s final charge with gun in hand when I and a sheriff’s captain tackled the robber at which time I saw the barrel of his pistol aimed point blank at my face while he frantically and repeatedly squeezed the trigger, hoping to kill me. I let you know that I still sometimes hear the repetitive click, click, click of the hammer falling each time he pulled that trigger.

Then I handcuffed him, and he died.

What I haven’t described to you is what took place after I cuffed him, knowing that a man I’d shot died while wearing my handcuffs.

After He Fell

I stood watching as EMS personnel frantically did their best to keep the 22-year-old bank robber alive. Sure, they contaminated the scene with empty gauze packaging and plastic wrappings and tubes and IV stuff, and with foot and knee prints in the soil. And they moved the man to slide a backboard beneath his body, and then then I saw them start chest compressions, and rescue breathing using an Ambu bag. But they were doing their best to save a then rapidly dying man.

EMS workers doing their best to save the life of the robber.

The air was still, hot, and extremely humid immediately after the man fell for the last time. When he did, my hearing returned as did real-time motion.

Since I was a detective on my way to a court proceeding when the robbery occurred, I wore a sports jacket, white shirt, khaki pants, a tie, and dress shoes. The robber had on a t-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes with no socks. Perspiration dampened my shirt. Blood soaked the robber’s.

At the time, I was working a special assignment and had grown out my hair a bit to better blend in with a particular group of bad folks. At the scene, due to nerve- and heat-induced sweating, I’d pulled the sides of my perspiration-dampened hair behind my ears. Still, sweat rolled down my cheeks like tiny waterfalls. It’s one thing that, for some reason, stood out to me. One of the many little things that did and still do.

The ambulance left the scene with red lights flashing and siren wailing. I stood on a grassy hillside surrounded by bullet casings, rescue debris, dozens of police cars with blue lights winking and blinking, scores of police officers from several agencies, news media, a crowd of citizen looky-loos, one police car with the windshield and side glasses shattered by incoming gunfire, and puddles of drying blood.

I watched until the ambulance drove out of sight.

I’d never felt so alone in my entire life.

When all was said and done at the scene, I drove back to my office where I was asked to give a statement to the investigator who’d handle the shooting. Other investigators from the outside agency were on hand as well, demanding my gun for comparison. They unloaded it and immediately counted the rounds left in the magazine and the one in the chamber. I was issued another weapon since they’d keep that one until the investigation was complete.

All I wanted to do was to go home to be with my wife. I needed calm in the midst of chaos.

However, instead of allowing me to decompress, my immediate supervisor, the chief of police, told me to go to the morgue to video and photograph the dead robber, and to collect my handcuffs.

Me, immediately after the shooting. notice the shattered glass of the patrol car. Several rounds from the robber’s gun were found in numerous locations inside the car, including the seat, doors, hood, engine compartment, and even one in the ash tray. Here you can see the hair pulled behind my ears. Why this stood out to me is a mystery, but I can still sense the feeling of it as if it were happening at this very moment. An odd feeling. It truly is.

What happened next is a macabre and blurred memory that will remain inside my skull until the day I die.

I and another investigator who, at the time, was assigned to a drug task force, drove to the morgue. He had one of those huge and clunky VHS video recorders in his unmarked car.

We arrived in separate vehicles and he waited for me to pull up beside his car and park so we could enter the building together.

I still had on the same clothes, the jacket and tie. He wore his typical jeans and t-shirt with a gun hidden somewhere beneath. His hair was long and curly and he had a thick, dark beard that nearly touched his chest. He was a huge man who stood at six-feet-eight-inches. He died a few years ago in a car crash while en-route to assist an officer. My detective partner at the time has also passed away. So has another officer who was there “that” day.

I approached the doors to the morgue. Head-high square windows near the top of each door allowed a view directly to the front of room. He was there, on his back, shirtless.

Cool sweat began to flow down my back (perspiration seems to play a big role in these memories). A lightheadedness set in as I pushed open the green double doors and stepped inside using what felt like rubber legs to push me forward. The undercover guy had already begun filming the body and narrating what he observed.

Seconds later, and I do not remember walking over, I stood beside the guy I’d killed an hour or so ago, looking at what I knew would be cold flesh. His chest and face were badly bruised and covered in streaks of dried rusty-brownish blood. Chest and belly hair stuck together in clumps matted together by more of the dried fluid that trailed from four nearly perfect round holes at the center of his chest. Holes I placed there with 9mm bullets fired from my pistol.

Another neat and perfectly round hole—an entrance wound, the first shot I’d fired—was an inch or so from his left ear, just above his cheek. A trail of clotted blood went from there down to his jaw where a single drop had hardened before it could fall. I vividly remember placing my sights at that very spot, the one near his ear. It was center mass of what I could see of the man as he hid behind his car, an old station wagon that belonged to his father.

I fired my first round through the rear car window. The round struck the robber’s head near his left ear, just above his cheek. The large hole in the side of the car was caused by a slug fired from a patrol officer’s shotgun. The round was later found inside a duffel bag filled with clothing. I had a better angle of fire, especially after the gunman moved from behind the car to square off with me.

He crouched beside the car while lobbing rounds at police officers who’d positioned themselves atop a small hill. His head was all I could see and his head was for what I aimed.

In my mind I saw the entire event again as I stood there, as motionless as his dead body. I saw him go down after the round struck the side of his head and I was stunned to see him pop up to begin firing again.

I walked around the stainless steel gurney and saw the reason why that round didn’t kill him. Since he was positioned at the bottom of the hill my shot entered the target at a downward angle. The bullet went in near the ear and exited in an ugly tearing of flesh and bone just below his right lower jaw.

When he stood and turned toward me to fire even more rounds was when I started perforating his chest, answering his bursts of gunfire with a round of my own, each time he stood to shoot. He fired and I placed a shot dead center of his chest. He fell. Then he popped back to fire and I’d fire another round and down he’d go. I fired four rounds into his chest, all eventual fatal rounds, yet he still managed to get up and charge at officers.

And that exchange of gunfire, my precise shooting, was what brought me to the point of slipping my handcuff key into the lock of my, what were then extremely bloody handcuffs. I released the catch and for what I believe was the first and last time that the person wearing them did not rub their wrists after they were removed.

No, “Thank you.”

No, “Glad to get those off.”

No, “I want my lawyer.”

No, “I’ll have your badge.”

Nothing.

Just the sound of my pounding heart.

And a dead guy.

A man I killed.

Even now, as I write this, the emotion is there. My heart feels these words. My mind sees the dead robber just like he’s here beside me helping to tell the story.

But there are no words.

Just five little holes.

Well, six, if you count the hole in my soul.

The one he fired when he decided to use me to end his life.

"You get always what you want from me
You can make it easy, can't you see
You shot a hole, hole, hole in my soul." ~ C.C. Catch

 

 

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Wormhole Thursday: Policing Back in the Day

Badge Contact Lee

It’s Wormhole Thursday, a time to journey back to a time before TASERS and prior to the CSI Effect.

It’s memories of what it was like to be a cop way “back in the day” and I share this with you for two reasons. One: The information contained within are details that could add that extra touch of realism that’s sometimes missing in a crime story. Two: To help those not involved in the real world of coppers better understand that cops are more than just someone in uniform who writes traffic tickets and locks up the bad guys.

So please join me as we wander into the Thursday Wormhole. Oh, and please keep your hands and feet inside at all times. We’re approaching Halloween and you never know what or who is lurking out there in the shadows.

Sheriff’s Office

First, a bit about the office of sheriff. Sheriff’s are elected officials and they’re like the CEOs of their departments. Most operate under a county government. However, a few cities also have sheriffs which, I believe, occurs mostly in Virginia where some cities are legally not a part of the county that surrounds them. The law there states that only a sheriff may serve civil process (jury summons, divorce papers, lien notices, etc.), meaning a sheriff is needed in those locations since, by law, a police department may not serve those papers.

Wearing “the Star”

I worked as a patrol deputy, riding county roads doing double-duty, as we all did, serving civil papers between answering criminal complaints and keeping our eyes open for bad folks doing bad things. In our “spare time” we investigated crimes resulting from those complaints. There were no detectives. Our sheriff didn’t believe in having them, just like he didn’t believe that female deputies should carry guns. In fact, our department didn’t have women working the roads. Not a single female deputy was a sworn police officer. There were female jailers, of course, because our jail, like others, housed women prisoners. We also had female dispatchers.

It was a requirement that all jailers/corrections officers were certified to carry firearms, and they received training at the range. The women who worked in our department also received the training (had to to become certified jailers), but when the training was completed the she sheriff made them turn in their weapons.

In Black and White

Our shifts were divided by race. White deputies were assigned mostly to work with other white deputies, and African American deputies were assigned to work with African American deputies. I was the exception to the rule. I was a crossover deputy. The sheriff called me into his office one day to tell me he was trying the experiment of mixing us (yes, he actually said this) and he thought I had the personality to get along with everyone. Well, duh …

Anyway, that’s the flavor of how it was during the early days of my career in law enforcement. Obviously, things changed over the years, but gradually. This was the South and change and progress in many areas there were slow to come, especially within the sheriff’s office.

Moving Ahead to 1984

August 25, 1984. 2330 hours (11:30 p.m.)

I tucked my daughter in bed for the night and told the overnight sitter I’d see her in the morning, and to call my office if she needed anything. Someone there, I said, would contact me by radio to relay the message. And, if I wasn’t in one of the many “dead spots” in the county I’d respond right away. Then I headed out the front door and to my patrol car, a brown and tan sheriff’s vehicle with a red light bar on top and a long whip antenna that frequently struck and trimmed low hanging branches and leaves from the trees that lined some country roads.

I’d repeat my message to the sitter message each time I worked the night shift. Thankfully, the sheriff understood that I was single dad raising a daughter, so I was fortunate in that I worked mostly day shifts. But, nights were a part of the job so I rolled with the punches.

My attire for the evening, as always, was the standard dark brown shirt, khaki-colored pants, shoes shined until they looked like polished mahogany, a straw campaign hat, a deep brown basketweave-patterned gun belt that held a Smith and Wesson .357 with a 6-inch barrel, a pair of Peerless handcuffs, and two dump pouches that contained a few extra rounds of hollow point ammunition. And a Maglite.

My left rear pocket was weighted slightly by the spring-handled lead and leather SAP I’d slipped inside just prior to leaving my bedroom. It was my secret weapon in the event someone got the best of me and there was no other way to survive the encounter.

This was any and every night back in the late 70s and early 80s. We weren’t issued vests, semi-autos, shotguns, TASERS, or chemical sprays of any type. There were no cages/partitions in our cars either, meaning we’d have to place the crooks in the front passenger seat and, as a result, when we arrested an unruly suspect we’d often have to wrestle with them, while driving, all the way to the jail. On more than one occasion, simply for a bit of relief, I handcuffed the guy to the bracket that held the carseat to the floorboard.

Other times I’d call for backup and that poor deputy would have to ride in the backseat and tussle with the a-holes until we arrived at the jail.

Some of us kept a baseball bat tucked between the driver’s seat and door, in that narrow space on the floorboard. It’s purpose was to equal the odds a bit when facing a group of people who were hellbent on bashing in the brains of a solo deputy. To paint a better picture, imagine yourself facing a crowd of 100 drunk people in a nightclub parking lot who’re in the midst of fighting, cutting, stabbing, and shooting and it’s your job to break it up. Then many of them decide it’s time to attack the cop and that cop is you and you’re the only cop there. Yes, a baseball bat came in handy, believe me.

We were required to wear the Smokey Bear campaign hats any time we were outdoors. If the boss drove by a traffic stop and the deputy’s head was bare, well, there was a good chance by afternoon he’d no longer be a deputy. And you’d as soon be caught dead as to have your photo appear in a newspaper story without the hat perched atop your dome. Goodness, NO!

The same was true about the shine on our shoes, and that meant after rolling in a mud hole with a dangerous suspect, trying to handcuff him while he constantly punched, kicked, and bit you, well, the moment you were once again upright you’d best be wiping away the mud from your shoes and buffing them back to a glossy shine. Otherwise, you risked being sent home for good.

As I briefly mentioned above, there were several radio dead spots throughout the county. In those areas calling for backup was absolutely impossible. Remember, cell phones weren’t around back then. Therefore, we answered dangerous calls there with the mindset that we’d do whatever it took to come back. It was a bit like entering the Twilight Zone.

It’s not a good feeling to respond to a murder scene, knowing the killer was last seen entering a dark and big old abandoned building, knowing you’ve got to go in to get the guy, alone. Just you, your revolver, a Maglite, and a heart that’s jackhammering against the inside of your chest wall.

To make things worse, those were often the areas inhabited by people who loved to make and guzzle moonshine, fight the police, and who didn’t mind spending a few nights in a jail if it meant getting in a few good punches on a cop’s face.

Neighbors were no help to us either, because many of them enjoyed seeing a good brawl, scuffles that sometimes included being bitten by dogs of questionable intelligence who were defending their owners with every tooth in their snarling mouths.

Wives and shoeless and shirtless kids also liked to dive on the “beat-a-cop” pile.

The good neighbors, well, most of those folks didn’t own a phone so they were useless when it came to calling for help. They’d have to get in a car, if they owned one, and drive to the home of the nearest neighbor who had a “telly-phone.” Sometimes the closest phone was a located many miles away inside a country store, the places where large jars of pickled pigs feet and eggs sat on plywood counters near the old-timey cash registers, just a few feet from potbelly stove.

Somehow, and it’s difficult to fathom how, we’d almost always come out on top and bring in the person we’d gone out to get. And, sometimes we’d bring back an extra man or woman, depending upon how badly they’d beaten us.

Then, after tucking the offenders away in a nice warm jail cell and at shift’s end, I’d drive home facing a rising sun.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

After parking my car and signing off for the day, I’d open my front door, thank the babysitter, pack my sweet little girl’s lunch, usually a peanut butter grape jelly sandwich (her favorite), and then watch her run to meet the bus and her little friends. She never failed to grab a seat at the window so she could toss me a kiss and a wave goodbye.

Me? Well, I had shoes to polish and uniforms to wash, and a warm, soft bed and pillow waiting for me whenever I was ready to … zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

More about the office of sheriff.

The duties of a county (or city) sheriff differ a bit than those of a police chief. In fact, not all sheriffs are responsible for street-type law enforcement, such as patrol.

In many areas the sheriff is the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the county.

Remember, this information may vary somewhat from one jurisdiction to another.

Who is a sheriff?

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1) Sheriffs are constitutional officers, meaning they are elected into office by popular vote.

2) Generally, sheriffs do not have a supervisor. They don’t answer to a board of supervisors, commissioners, or a county administrator. However, any extra funding that’s not mandated by law is controlled by county government.

Sheriffs are responsible for:

1) Executing and returning process, meaning they serve all civil papers, such as divorce papers, eviction notices, lien notices, etc. They must also return a copy of the executed paperwork to the clerk of court.

2) Attending and protecting all court proceedings within the jurisdiction.

– A sheriff appoints deputies to assist with the various duties.

3) Preserve order at public polling places.

4) Publish announcements regarding sale of foreclosed property. The sheriff is also responsible for conducting public auctions of foreclosed property.

5) Serving eviction notices. The sheriff must sometimes forcibly remove tenants and their property from their homes or businesses. I’ve known sheriffs who use jail inmates (supervised by deputies) to haul property from houses out to the street.

6) Maintain the county jail and transport prisoners to and from court. The sheriff is also responsible for transporting county prisoners to state prison after they’re been sentenced by the court.

7) In many, if not most, areas the sheriff is responsible for all law enforcement of their jurisdiction. Some towns do not have police departments, but all jurisdictions (with the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, and Connecticut) must have a sheriff’s office.

8) Sheriffs in the state of Delaware, our new home, do not have police powers.

9) In California, some sheriffs also serve as coroner of their counties.

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10) In the majority of jurisdictions, sheriffs and their deputies have arrest powers in all areas of the county where they were elected, including all cities, towns, and villages located within the county.

*In most locations, deputies serve at the pleasure of the sheriff, meaning they can be dismissed from duty without cause or reason. Remember, in most areas, but not all, deputies are appointed by the sheriff, not hired.

The above list is not all inclusive. Sheriffs and deputies are responsible for duties in addition to those listed here.

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