Paul Fennewald, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent from 1981-2004, spoke Tuesday to the Tween/Teen Summer Reading Club at Wood Place Public Library, California, about crime scene investigation.
Fennewald's presentation included a powerpoint and investigative tools such as a fingerprint kit.
Fennewald worked in various aspects of crime scene investigation for the FBI including being a team leader for the Advance Response Team based out of Chicago. Later he was also attached to the Rapid Response Team of the FBI Laboratory, which investigated major crime scenes including the attack on the USS Cole while in Yemen and some of the crime scene of Ground Zero of the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, in New York.
"I wanted to stress in class that in good crime scene investigation," Fennewald said, "you must first have a good foundation of the basics. Being able to document evidence. Being able to interview people. Trying to get a holistic picture of what happened there. You need to realize various pieces of evidence help tell a story. No one piece is going to tell the whole story. So you need to have various pieces of it.
"With the proper examination by experts, they can then go in and testify in a court of law and help tell the story to the jury of what actually happened there," he said. "You always want to find out what the truth is. You do not want to take your idea of what happened but want to let the evidence itself tell the basic story."
For more of this story check out the June 27 issue of the California Democrat.