by Kari Wainwright
Most mystery writers know about Writers’ Police Academy (WPA) put on by Lee and Denene Lofland for the past twelve years. Those writers either attended one or more, or wanted to do so. For the second year in a row, the WPA was held at Sirchie in Youngsville, North Carolina, the holy grail for crime writers, since Sirchie is the go-to place for law-enforcement training in crime scene investigation and forensic science solutions.
The 2020 event required radically change due to Covid-19. Lee and Denene and the folks at Sirchie prepared a virtual version, which happened Thursday and Friday, August 6 and 7.
I can’t share all the information given due to security and confidentiality concerns. But the first speaker of the day, forensics psychologist Katherine Ramsland’s talk came mostly from her new book, which I bought. For the rest of the classes, I hope to entice readers interested in crime fighting to sign up for a Writers’ Police Academy in the future. The workshops can be the most important tool in a writer’s toolbox.
To Catch a Serial Killer
Thursday morning began with Katherine Ramsland, whose latest book is How to Catch a Killer: Hunting and Capturing the World’s Most Notorious Killers. She discussed serial killers and the different ways they get caught. Her categories included Forensic Innovation, Police Procedure, Mistakes and Miscalculations, Witness Reports, and Self-Surrender. Dr. Ramsland mentioned several killers’ names in each category.
British murderer Colin Pitchfork was the first criminal caught due to DNA testing. Learn more about his case by reading, The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh. David Meinhofer became the subject of early FBI profiling. Detective Frank Geyer’s excellent work helped bring down the infamous killer, H. H. Holmes, at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
As a humorous aside, she told us about a fake suicide note that ended, “P.S. Don’t blame the guy I was with the other night.”
Individual Sessions
After Ramsland’s talk, we writers went our separate ways to one of six sessions available. This aspect of WPA replicated in-person attendance with no way to attend every meeting offered. We signed up for the classes we wanted before the WPA event began, then they sent Zoom invites for our individual choices. We spent the next two days Zooming in and out of classes instead of walking up and down corridors.
“Drugs/Toxicology/NARCAN by Noon” led by a sergeant and an instructor at the Fayetteville, North Carolina Police Department was my first session. With such an epidemic of drug overdoses today, this class covered a very important subject, including NARCAN, which often helps save lives of addicts who overdose.
The next session, “Homocide or Homicide: You Decide,” was taught by a homicide police specialist and training officer. During this class, we learned from an experienced homicide detective. With more than 200,000 unsolved murders in the United States, cold cases fill lots of boxes on police department shelves. We learned how investigators take advantage of cell phones, except when authorities cannot get into the phone due to password problems. Warrants—when needed, when not—were also covered. This type of information could be difficult to obtain elsewhere.
Blood Spatter
A retired FBI Special Agent led the next class, “Art of Blood.”
Blood is often a significant part of crime solving. When blood evidence is found, it’s important to know whether or not it’s human, so tests to ascertain that. Then DNA comes to the forefront.
The workshop covered different testing techniques, including luminol. I found this particularly useful because it cleared up some of my misconceptions.
One note I reveal to other mystery writers because I made this mistake in the past. Whatever you do in your stories, do NOT use the term blood splatter. The correct phrase is blood spatter (no “l”).
I learned all of this just from the first day of the WPAMurderCon.
Day Two
The second day started with the retired FBI agent again, this time with “Child Abduction/Murder.” The agent was one of the founders of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team (ERT), who aid in using often minute evidence to tie scenes together. The FBI often works with local police departments on child abductions. The particular case discussed by the agent involved a lot of hard work, along with using technology, new at the time.
Next came “Murder-Mayhem” presented by the director of a university’s applied forensic science program. He’s worked with the Writers’ Police Academy before and for some reason, he considers mystery writers weird.
His talk included discussions of the causes, manners, and mechanisms of death. He also spoke about the disparities of the systems that use coroners and ones that have medical examiners.
Conclusion
For my last session I atteneded “Murder Cases” with a 21-year veteran sergeant who currently deals with the Fayetteville, North Carolina Police Department.
He worked over the years to solve many brutal murders, but with all the forensic technology available today, he believes the ability to communicate is the most important aspect of detective work. His session sometimes became upsetting due to the subject matter, but I found it extremely informative.
The two-day event concluded with a panel of instructors who answered any leftover questions. We asked questions during each individual session, but with this group of attendees, it seemed the questions kept coming.
We mystery writers felt extremely lucky to attain knowledge and training usually reserved for law enforcement only.
When the 2020 Virtual Writers’ Police Academy MurderCon concluded, I knew I wasn’t the only one overwhelmed by all the information received over the two-day period. And I didn’t get to the sessions on entomology, forensic geology, fingerprinting, footwear evidence, and internet/computer crime. Too much crime, too little time!
Thanks to Lee and Denene Lofland and the staff at Sirchie, including the Sirchie host, Dyer Bennett, and all the class instructors for their hard work in turning this WPA from an in-person event to a virtual one. They deserve a huge round of applause.
I wish I could provide more information from the fascinating and educational classes I attended, but I’m sure you know the saying: “if I told you, I’d have to . . .”
Kari Wainwright has written, co-written, and acted in plays in small towns in the Rocky Mountains, way off Broadway. Now she lives in Arizona, where she belongs to Desert Sleuths Sisters in Crime and Mesa Writers, her critique group. She’s published short stories in Desert Sleuths anthologies, as well as stories in That Mysterious Woman, Landmark, Busted! Arresting Stories from the Beat, and A Murder of Crows. Her story, Dead Armadillos Don’t Dance, was a finalist in the 2019 Bill Crider Short Story Contest.
