I actually got to see a crime scene investigated first hand today. My mum's a real estate agent here in town and someone, we think local kids looking for something to do, broke in and totally trashed a vacant house Mum's office has listed. We're talking spray paint on the walls, beer cans and cig butts everywhere, dog crap, paint spilled on the floor, what looked like milkshakes etc. It coulda been a lot worse, they didn't do anything to the cabinets, appliances, furnace, fire place insert and the like but it's still a major pain.

Now here's the interesting part. We still have snow on the ground. The cops trampled in along the path. I don't know if there were any usable footprints there before but there weren't by the time we got there. They let my Mum and another agent in to look around and see what had been done (and take pictures) before they started processing the scene. And all I saw was a digital camera and some brown paper bags. *giggle* It really drives home the budget restrictions of the smaller departments. Our patrol officers are moderately trained to collect evidence and then they ship it to the state patrol crime lab for processing.
And both my folks thought that they'd do DNA testing. And they don't even WATCH CSI. Sheesh.

I figured out how the kids got into the house before the officers did. *does dance* And found some trace evidence in the kitchen that they had overlooked. Not bad considering I didn't really go inside. :)