Center Offers Death Investigation Training

This spring 2011 issue of TechBeat discusses the Medicolegal Death Investigation Training Program offered by the National Forensic Science Technology Center, the lead organization in the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence. The training program provides medical examiners, coroners, and medicolegal death investigators with general knowledge of how to use available forensic science resources to conduct death investigations. These forensic science resources include crime scene processing, photography, latent fingerprint processing, controlled substances analysis, toxicology, forensic anthropology, forensic entomology, forensic odontology, firearm and tool mark collection and preservation, trace evidence analysis, fire debris analysis, explosives and explosive device identification, and forensic biology (serology/DNA). The training program was developed at the request of the National Association of Medical Examiners to make students aware of the forensic science disciplines that can be used as resources in death investigations.