Real crimes, real solutions

By Ed Runyan

Detectives, CSIs and lab technicians work together — but not quite the way it’s shown on television

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

On the popular “CSI” television programs, investigators bring back crime-scene evidence, analyze it in a sophisticated laboratory, enter results into a computer and identify suspects.

The results frequently change the investigator’s theory of what happened, suggest a new suspect and send our modern-day Sherlock Holmes off to a new location to look for more clues.

Over the course of an hour, half a dozen or more theories are formulated and discarded, frequently because of physical evidence analyzed in the lab.

Thrown in to make things interesting are attractive, quirky or brilliant detectives, crime-scene investigators and lab technicians working in the big city.

But serious crime is not just the domain of Las Vegas, New York or Miami. There’s no shortage of shocking, brutal or complex murders in places such as Youngstown, Warren or even Newton Township.

For example, the murder of a 19-year-old Youngstown State University coed went unsolved for 20 years, until scientists used DNA to convict her downstairs neighbor of the killing. Then there was the popular Warren minister and high school basketball coach who strangled his wife in the closet of their home after she told him their marriage was through. A Youngstown drug dealer killed a Warren woman and her mother in a Newton Township house and tried to conceal evidence by starting a fire in the basement.

Though violent crime here contains much of the intrigue of a big-city Hollywood drama, there are significant differences, as Warren crime-scene investigators Mike Stabile and Geoff Fusco well know.

Stabile, a Warren CSI since November 2005, has worked on cases that demanded a swift police response, such as the killing of restaurant owner Fred DeVengencie, 89, during a robbery at Freddie’s Diner on North Park Avenue a year ago.

Stabile and fellow CSI Michael Merritt, now working patrol duties, collected evidence at the scene, including a liquor bottle with blood on it and a bandanna with hair on it.

Detectives followed leads and interviewed suspects. But three weeks into the investigation, the Warren Police Department had not identified Ardeed I. Mitchell, 28, of Youngstown, as a suspect.

Then, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in Richfield, the lab that had received the bottle and bandanna for evaluation, called the department to tell officers that DNA from the blood and hair matched a database sample for Mitchell, who had previously done time in prison.

Mitchell was arrested the next day and later pleaded guilty to aggravated murder. He received a prison sentence of 30 years to life.

Stabile said BCI handled the DeVengencie case as quickly as possible, giving investigators a suspect in three weeks. It generally takes between three and six months for such results. In lower-priority cases, results can take more than a year.

The Richfield lab analyzes evidence for most of Northeast Ohio, including Warren, Youngstown and Cleveland, Stabile said, and limited resources mean that backlogs dictate how fast evidence can be processed.

Warren’s is similar to most Northeast Ohio police departments in that it doesn’t have a crime lab where DNA analysis or other advanced forensic techniques can be performed.

Warren police have a crime lab, about the size of a closet, and its capabilities are limited to comparing bullets, fingerprints and documents and providing Stabile and Fusco with storage space for the tool kits they take to crime scenes to collect evidence.

The department has a device for test-firing weapons, but it is out of commission, so Stabile and Fusco generally use one at the sheriff’s department.

Fusco, who served as Warren CSI from 2001 to 2005 and is Stabile’s backup now, says having most of their lab work done in Richfield means a CSI in a town such as Warren has to get all available evidence the first time.

“CSIs on television or in big cities can grab evidence, take it to the lab, someone processes it and calls and says, ‘We have something,’” Fusco said. “Not us. We’re done.”

“We take it an hour away and drop it off and find out [weeks or months] later,” he said. It limits the amount of interaction between lab technicians and the investigators, he said.

Much of the TV show drama involves twists and turns of plot generated by suspects’ being added or subtracted to an investigation as a result of new physical evidence. That sometimes leads to an interview with the guilty party, who frequently admits the crime and provides the last, juicy details of the crime.

The “CSI effect,” as it is called — average citizens expecting police to use DNA or other sophisticated techniques to solve even minor crimes quickly — creates unrealistic expectations, Fusco said.

“You’ll get something like someone leaving their car door open and someone stealing the change out of the car, and the person wants us to come and do fingerprinting and process the whole scene and spend thousands and thousands of dollars” on the investigation, Fusco said.

The reason the department doesn’t have more lab equipment is simple: cost.

To purchase equipment that analyzes computer hard drives costs around $8,000, Fusco said. To staff a laboratory with people trained in biology and other specialties is beyond the capability of anything but a big-city department, he said.

But while the department cannot analyze its own evidence, Warren doesn’t take a back seat to big cities or the “CSI” television shows when it comes to collecting it.

Most of the tools shown on television — such as brushes and Luminol used to find fingerprints and blood — are available. Warren even has a laser-trajectory kit that helps detectives determine the angle at which a bullet entered a body. They do not have the mannequin that goes with it, Stabile noted.

“Everything they can do at the scene, we can do,” Stabile said.

Stabile concedes there is one difference at crime scenes: He and Fusco probably don’t look as cool as their TV counterparts.

Unlike TV CSIs Danny Messer, Gil Grissom or Catherine Willows, Stabile generally doesn’t collect physical evidence in fashionable clothes.

Crime scenes involve a lot of mess that Stabile doesn’t want to take home, so he generally covers his work clothes with cloth booties, a protective jacket and pants, mask, hair net and latex gloves.

“It’s not the prettiest thing to be in,” Stabile said.

Though the television shows suggest that CSIs and lab technicians do much of the same work and that detectives work shoulder to shoulder with the crime-scene investigators, that’s not how it works in Warren, Stabile said.

The detectives generally stay clear of a crime scene until Stabile has finished collecting evidence. CSIs are well trained to extract physical evidence, and detectives make their living interviewing people and piecing together a case, so their roles are fairly distinct, Stabile said.

That’s not to say they don’t work together, Stabile said.

Cases frequently evolve by having a detective call Stabile to ask whether a statement made by a witness or suspect seems to match evidence collected.

Also, once Stabile has gathered evidence, a detective will frequently suggest other possibilities.

“Just a second pair of eyes. They might see something we don’t see,” he said.

runyan@vindy.com