A body is found in the desert. Police think foul play may be involved, but police can't identify the person. The Medical Examiner's Office is stumped, too.
In situations like these, there's only one thing to do: remove the hands and send them to the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services.
A fingerprint database compiled from jail bookings has helped forensic scientists identify the 20 sets of hands the crime lab has worked on in the past three years. The skills needed to do such work cover a variety of areas.
"In latents, you have to be a chemist, a biologist, a physicist and a bit of an artist," said Andy Pacejka, the forensic scientist manager.
That seems to be true throughout the state lab, where 15 to 20 scientists analyze about 15,000 items a year in thousands of cases. Now staff are poised to see how a 15 percent budget cut, which took effect July 1, could lengthen turnaround time. The lab, the main section of which is housed in Salt Lake City with extensions in Ogden and Cedar City, had to close its Price branch and cut three positions statewide.
Lab Director Jay Henry says he's hoping to get federal funds that would help patch holes at the lab, one of only two state-run labs nationwide accredited under international standards that require regular audits and a dedicated quality assurance manager.
The lab handles everything from identifying the make and model of a car from a paint chip left from a hit-and-run to identifying someone from a drop of blood left behind at a crime scene. Forensic scientists use techniques such as putting a slice of the corpse's skin on their own gloved finger to make a print, and have even lifted a print from a chocolate brownie.
"About one third of our forensics cases exonerate people," Henry said. "Our people are focuses on finding the unbiased, scientific facts, and I'd stack these guys up against any FBI or federal lab."
All evidence receives a bar code and is checked out to a specific scientist or storage locker in order to maintain the chain of custody needed to prove that evidence was not left unattended.
In the DNA section, scientists looking for bodily fluids work in a large, white-walled room with work stations where they can lay out large materials, or use one of the many machines scattered throughout the room under bright fluorescent lighting. It's not the mood lighting and svelte, glass-walled rooms so often featured on the set of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
Scientists clip out the pieces of evidence with bodily fluids, extract DNA from the material and make copies of it in order to work with it without damaging the original sample. It's also checked several times for accuracy.
"These are never just a bar code to a forensic scientist," said Todd Van Buren, forensic scientist manager. "At the end of the day, we want to make sure that we did everything possible to work each piece of evidence as far as we could take it."
The DNA identification and comparison process on average takes between one and three months if it's a fairly straightforward case. Other sections like the trace section, where scientists analyze fibers, paint chips, fire debris and controlled substances, can produce results within a week or two with anywhere between 10 and 50 cases a week.
"I love the variety of things we can do with our instruments in this lab," said Justin Bechaver, a forensic scientist.
While every forensic scientist has an area of expertise, it's coming to work each day not knowing what may come across your desk that keeps many in the demanding field for years.
"This kind of stuff is exciting," said Trent Grandy, a forensic scientist who has worked at the state lab for nearly 10 years with another five in the Salt Lake City Police Department's crime scene response team. "I've developed a kind of passion for this job because no two cases are exactly alike, and that keeps things fresh."
