Need help from police officers/folks who have worked on a crime scene

No

No would be the answer. Why? If and when someone is arrested for the murder and goes to trial, all the defense attorney would have to do to bring up reasonable doubt would be to say the reporter contaminated the crime scene. Crime scene access is different from state to state, I'm sure, but here in California when a body is found, the cops/deputies establish a crime scene, tape if off, then one officer guards the scene. Anyone entering must sign a sheet of paper, so the investigators know who went in.

You might want to go to the local police/sheriff's station and try to establish a relationship with an officer, pick his/her brains and get it right. There's always the information officer too. All you have to do is tell them you're a writer and they are usually glad to answer questions.

Carlene
www.crdater.com

Rules vary by jurisdiction. Individuals also have different personalities. You can probably justify anything based on those two factors. You can even add to the overall tone of the story by having a strict rule against such things, but have some individuals who believe the rules were made to protect the wrong people and either flaunt those openly or covertly.

Second the vote on evidence contamination. No cop's going to let a reporter on a crime scene and risk getting a case thrown out on a vicious killer who is likely to kill again. Moreover, there is sometimes information about evidence that is not released to the general public because it's used as a screening method (i.e., they leave out details about what the painted writing on the wall says). That way, they can discount the confessions from the crazies easily.

So what other options are available?

Reporter is the one who finds the body.

Reporter gets information from one of the "uniforms" (who are less likely to be as reporter savvy as a chief who has to deal with them all the time). She could easily trip an inexperienced person up.

Report gets information from the person who found the body.

Good Word said:

...or folks with a great imagination

Scene:

Someone is killed in his home. The local law enforcement is on the scene. A reporter (primary character) needs to get into the house for reasons unknown to the police--they think she just wants to get in like any reporter might. The chief and the reporter know each other, but only slightly. She's also the first reporter on the scene--no other reporters or camera crews have arrived yet.

If you were the chief of police and she asked you to get in (the body is still there) for a close look at the house and body, what would you say?

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I always get a kick out of the Murder, She Wrote episodes where the cops step aside while Jessica peruses the crime scene. It don't happen. Normally a reporter would not have access to the inside of a house until well after Forensics has gone over it a couple of times and the yellow tape comes down.

If the place is Podunk, West Virginia, population 50, then maybe the detective might let a reporter have a look, but nowhere else.

If you really want to stick to the cop letting the reporter see the crime scene, maybe you can make it where the reporter is the senior crime reporter for a major city paper (these guys often pack a wallop with the gendarmes), and knows the homicide detective very well, maybe the detective owes him/her a few big favors. But even so, the detective wouldn't let the reporter get a once-over while anyone else is there, maybe at two a.m. a few days later.

Or, if what you need is for the reporter to see some particular evidence, maybe a lot more plausible to have the detective let him/her have a look at a set of the crime scene photos. But if so, it's critical that the cop will tell the reporter that anything from the crime scene photos is off the record, because the cops usually hold back certain details from the crime scene to flush out false confessions.

Here's a thought. Your reporter could hint that s/he can identify the deceased in order to get in briefly before the body is otherwise identified. That might be reason enough to be given a quick look. Then your reporter could spot something that's out of place or connects with some other crime scene if that's what you're after. However, I like better the idea about the reporter being allowed to see the crime scene photos.

DaveKuzminski said:

Here's a thought. Your reporter could hint that s/he can identify the deceased in order to get in briefly before the body is otherwise identified. That might be reason enough to be given a quick look. Then your reporter could spot something that's out of place or connects with some other crime scene if that's what you're after. However, I like better the idea about the reporter being allowed to see the crime scene photos.

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Yeah, I second the photos idea. Even if the reporter could identify the deceased, that's not a reason for the cops to let him/her inside--the deceased can always be identified half an hour or an hour later when they get to the morgue, and that's infinitely preferable to contaminating the crime scene. If there's some urgent need to ID the deceased right away, I would think the cop would take polaroids (or digital pictures) of the body and come back outside to show the reporter.

Of course, the reporter could bribe a lowly cop to take the reporter's camera and use it to photograph the crime scene.

I do have a comment here. If this is a crime scene in the present, then have you considered some of the technology that's available now? There are small helicopter cameras that, though expensive, would be next to impossible to prevent from covering a crime scene that's outside. Even a number of inside crime scenes would be open if there's another entrance that the cops aren't blocking such as a second floor window or balcony door that might have been left open by the perpetrator and hasn't been tampered with until the scene is fully documented.

Lisa,

I guess we're working on similar scenes. Mine is already written. I have the investigative reporter as a buddy to the lead police investigator. They both have a long history and are interested in a series of crimes in Phoenix. I sat down with several senior officers with the Phoenix police dept. and learned the methods and techniques they use during a homicide investigation. Normally they wouldn't let a reporter inside unless there were special circumstances.

Some reporters also act as police photographers, but that's rare today. A homicide detective, as people said, would have a hard time explaining why someone is tracking through the crime scene. But it's plausible if the forensics guys already collected their evidence and the medical examiner hasn't collected the body or bodies.

I do agree that you need to make the scene believable because people will know if it sounds hooky.

Good luck,

Jon