Steve Rush is an award-winning author whose experience includes tenure as homicide detective and chief forensic investigator for a national consulting firm. He worked with the late Joseph L. Burton, M.D, under whom he mastered his skills, and investigated many deaths alongside Dr. Jan Garavaglia of Dr. G: Medical Examiner fame. His specialties include crime scene reconstruction, injury causation, blood spatter analysis, occupant kinematics, and recovery of human skeletal remains.
Awards:
Top Pick in 2024 Killer Nashville Claymore Awards
Finalist in 2023 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Awards
Honorable Mention in the 2023 Readers’ Favorite Awards.
Longlist in 2022 Page Turner Awards
First & third place winner in the 2022 Public Safety Writer’s Association Writing Competition for two unpublished novels.
Finalist in 2020 Page Turner Awards
Co-winner of the 2020 Chillze KiMo T-E-N Contest.
The idea for The Shocking Truth sprouted after an unidentified body arrived at the ME’s Office. Postmortem changes altered the body’s physical appearance making visual identification impossible. Skin sloughed off the remains. I removed the section of skin from the man’s thumb and used it to ink a thumbprint. A lab tech identified him through Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS).
Accurate details prove important for those of us who include crime scenes in our writing. In the real world, scene investigators arrive after the crime. They might have little or no information about the incident other than what they see. Every CSI wants answers in three basic areas: What was the victim doing before the crime, what happened at the time and what took place afterward? They rely on accuracy or risk losing the case.
As writers, we create answers to these questions ahead of time or decide as we write and revise. One or two details may be all that is necessary when writing a crime scene. Whatever we use, we want to make certain the facts fit the scenario we portray without overloading it with details. We must rely on accuracy or risk losing readers.
For example, time of death is important to detectives investigating a homicide. Determining an accurate time frame within which death occurred may mean the difference between accepting the suspect’s alleged alibi as true or proving he/she had ample time to commit the murder. A body undergoes changes following death. These include rigor mortis (stiffening of the body), livor mortis (also known as lividity: the pooling of blood as it settles in the tissues), and decomposition. These begin at death, though they may not be evident for hours. Other considerations include environmental factors such as the surroundings and temperature.
A detective must decide which items to collect and preserve, tangible and intangible, before he/she departs a crime scene, or else potential evidence may become contaminated or lost.
A blood spatter pattern might provide answers to questions that might otherwise remain unknown. If persons investigating JFK’s assassination had performed blood spatter analysis on the car, they would have identified the shooter’s position, and we would know whether the shot came from the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll.
The investigator may rely on ballistics to match a projectile to the firearm and/or the stippling pattern on skin around a gunshot wound.
If you’re not sure about something related to forensics you would like to incorporate in your prose, ask. Police officers, detectives, coroners and medical examiners are available and most will gladly answer a few questions for you. Talk to them. Chat about your crime scene and make use of the resource of their experience. Compare what they tell you with what you have heard from others or watched on TV and note any differences.
One thing is certain. A person always leaves something wherever they go (hair, fiber, etc.) and takes something with them that they did not have when they got there. A CSI knows these things. They employ this knowledge to solve cases.
Plug into their expertise.