This course will provide you with innovative techniques that could lead to the resolution of unresolved death cases.

The course is divided into three parts.  The main feature of the first segment will be an in-depth study of the "differential diagnosis of death" (D.D.D.), with heavy emphasis on the latest scientific techniques available to the homicide investigator.

The second segment will be a teaching forum for case presentation.  You are encouraged to bring one uncleared death case for presentation to fellow officers and to a panel of experts in the fields of criminal profiling, major case management, crime scene and injury reconstruction, criminalistic, medicolegal autopsies and interrogation and statement analysis.

The final segment will be an expanded study of psychological profiling, with the presentation of actual solved cases for you to evaluate and classify.  The extent of this segment will depend on time allocated to the unresolved cases in the second segment.

Topics include:

• Cold case squad philosophy
• Cold case selection criteria
• Determination of time, manner and cause of death through the examination of the crime scene
• New forensic techniques available to the investigator
• Bloodstain interpretation
• Collection and analysis of physical evidence
• Child abuse and infant death investigation
• Sexual homicides
• Psychological profiling and evaluation of the crime scene (expanded)
• Presentation of unresolved cases

 

At the conclusion of the course, you will be able to apply newly learned investigative techniques to the current unresolved death investigations in your department and future ones you will encounter.

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