Homicide Detective Fact Checks Crime Scenes from 'Breaking Bad' to 'CSI' | Vanity Fair

as the hollow side detective I work over 250 murders of the cases that was primary investigator I solved all of them today rod is going to break down what's right and wrong in Hollywood crime scenes [Music] crime scenes can be very tricky there are a lot of different details that can be easily missed so what we're gonna be doing is looking for things that are telltale things it actually happened versus things that don't first clip instant arrow pet detective and this scene ace arrives at a crime scene uninvited I heard a scream so I called the manager now place was empty except for that damn dog in the other room open the door this scene is highly inaccurate and the fact that there are a million people at this crime scene and that would never happen crime scenes are really controlled and the number of people to contaminate a crime scene is closely monitored animals can sense evil who let dr. Dolittle in jail mr. Robinson this is official police business we'll let you know if the coroner finds a tick the crime scenes are often guarded by a patrol officer and when people enter crime scenes their names are taken and they're screened and they're scrutinized so the fact of Ace just popping up in a crime scene and nobody knowing it would probably never happen so you don't think this is an obvious suicide mr. pet detective well I wouldn't say that lord knows there's plenty of evidence here to support your theory except of course for that spot of blood on the railing over there a person collecting blood has to collect the blood from the state of sin has to be photographed and swab and preserved the other thing is this an incredible biohazard no one would ever put their hand or finger in blood to see if it is blood if anything they'd run away from it roger podacter went out after work he had a few drinks and he came home but he wasn't alone someone else was with him in this apartment there was a struggle and he was thrown over that balcony roger podacter didn't commit suicide he was murdered well that's a very entertaining story but unfortunately real detectives have to worry about that little thing called evidence what's cool about the scene is aces sort of the renegade guy was not supposed to be there and everyone else there has the same theory or thought process going on and actually that happens a lot there's always a bunch of people that know so much and one person who is always discounted but that person actually thinks clearly soundproof glass there's no way that neighbor could have heard podacter scream on the way down with that door shut the scream she heard came from inside this apartment before he was thrown over the balcony and the murderer closed the door before he left yes there's a theory that someone screamed or someone heard on the screen and there's something that basically prevents that from being possible then that theory has to go out the window and that's clearly what's happened in this case it's pretty accurate as far as the way detectives think in the way Texas investigates sometimes the simplest things are often lost and when we hear them it's almost as if wow why didn't I think of that and that's probably what makes this a little bit more realistic than just mere comedy next up Breaking Bad Saul Goodman sent me come on inside so what's happening in the scene if someone's called in a cleaner and someone to clean up a crime scene so what this cleaner does is is they come and they try to get rid of evidence or key evidence that can link somebody or tie somebody to a crime obviously the person that called the cleaner is the more importance than the person that's actually at the crime scene so it's one of those things where you save them to save the Barrett guy but you really don't care about that person once you call it in the people who show up will be with the office of medical investigations it's primarily who you'll talk to police officers may arrive they may not depends on how busy a morning they're having typically Odie's are not a high priority call when he said to call into the coroner's office in it's gonna take in the wallet they're not concerned with Odie's that's that's really far-fetched any death that's gonna be treated as on the side there's almost never a case in fact there's never a case where someone's gonna report a death and investigate ourselves show up there's nothing here to incriminate you so it'd be amazed if you got placed under arrest however if you do you say nothing you tell them you just want your lawyer then you call Saul Goodman I think the advice given here to ask the speak to a lawyer and say nothing is probably gonna frustrate the investigators as much as a clean down crime scene but it's clearly effective for what it's intended to do and that's to throw a law enforcement off next up Sherlock just moved in what and this scene Sherlock is going to a crime saying that he's clearly not allowed to be at that whatever does that hello clearly Sherlock's not a detective authorized to be here because he has to buzz himself in or get someone to give him access to it so he's not supposed to be at the crime scene doing so is actually against the law [Music] sneaking into an apartment complex or crime scene and climbing through a window breaking and enter and his fellow Gnaeus behavior so it's not gonna happen the part especially where it's kicking in the door is really unrealistic that alters our crime scene way too much and it's just not gonna happen what about this morning there's less as you were looking at fellows yes he was being threatened yeah once it goes inside the apartment and it reaches down the throat of the dead person that would never happen I mean the bodies are always jurisdiction of the coroner the fact that an investigator detect their private investigator would do something like that is actually against the law coffee table on the left-hand side coffee mug handle pointing to the left power sockets habitually use the ones on the left pen and paper on the left hand side of the phone because you picked it up with his right and took down messages with his left you want to go on when a detective goes to a crime scene it works in milliseconds you scan a room you come up with all sorts of things that you don't realize you're processing like you you'll come up with the fact that someone's left or right hand it by the way pings of placing in an apartment so that's pretty accurate next up CSI this scene of CSI involves a murder victim in the suspect who's gotten himself stuck in cement found him figured out a free pass and picked his pocket this is a pretty unrealistic she's clearly will happen quite a bit that probably wouldn't have but I mean police officers and detectives we make jokes sometimes but this is kind of over the top who's your lady friend never saw that woman before in my life look you're like going anywhere it'll be a lot better for you if you just cooperate and tell us what happened yeah not real realistic that someone would question somebody whether stuck in the submit' interrogations are really serious deals not only to gather information but to preserve rights and you know one of the biggest things is someone not feeling forced or coerced into making a statement and I think being stuck in the cement is probably qualify it a bit you want to know what happened mm-hmm figure it out yourself that's the fun part so I've never seen anything like this before but I have seen people that committed crimes and it got caught red-handed because they got stuck in one case a guy trying to crawl out of a window got hung up on a glass so things like that are always really really cool to see it's like God delivers them to you next up the fugitive in this scene a US Deputy Marshal arrives at the scene of a crash when I looked up the train was bearing down on us I don't know how kind of hazy somehow I grabbed him and questioned in a suspect or who you may think is a suspect outside and open in front of everyone is probably something that's never gonna happen excuse me Sheriff I'm deputy United States Marshal Samuel Gerard I would like to talk I'll be with you in just a minute locals are not really crazy about federal agents coming in and taking over their crime scenes this is pretty accurate because sometimes there's a lot of tension between the two differ agencies are two different jurisdictions I'd like to recommend checkpoints on a 15 mile radius at i-57 I 24 and over here whoa whoa whoa wait a minute the prisoners are all dead and the only thing checkpoints are gonna do is get a lot of good people frantic around here and plug my office with calls well Sheriff I'd hate to see that happen so I guess I'll tell investigation overall this is completely inaccurate the fact is is that the u.s. marshals recovery or a fugitive task force usually respond after they're called in by local law enforcement in this scene is obvious that it's coming off as it though they have a higher jurisdiction and they can go to a scene and kind of take over an actuality that doesn't happen or will never happen next up the Mentalist in the scene the mentalists arrives to investigate the murder of a college student housemates woke up and found him like this name's tyler Van Camp sophomore studying business practice Quan linebacker you sure about Lisbon to hear it from heard you hear from other people this is pretty interesting because that actually happens you know the conversation has started about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the crime scene and most people around you were kind of bewildered thinking that you have this big deal here and you're talking about something that seems to be so insignificant Oh finally we've been sitting here like two hours dude you guys heard of human rights no such thing it's pretty accurate that sometimes people wait at crime scenes for detectives to show up because they could be at another crime across town or anything can be going on it was all of them the ninja knife wasn't any more than an inch not even up to kill himself why he was drown in a kiddie pool well if someone was helping him along I mean big athletic and I like Tyler I would guess it that would be a job for two people yeah Malloy drowned well probably something to do with the drunken card game that took place here last night they used the toy money as chips it makes policemen look really really cool to be able to come up with such an elaborate process of what happened is probably as far fish's you're gonna ever get you wear your watch on your right hand probably left-handed so judging by the angle and the depth of the wound I would guess that it was you that stabbed Tyler in the back to stop him from throttling Barry here just having Tyler in the back didn't help much made him matter he chased you outside he fell in the pool that's when you tube but the still damn sneakers got on top of him and held him down until he drowned something very inaccurate about is that no detective would ever give a theory to suspects especially although or sitting right there because once you are wrong even a little bit you lose credibility in your case is pretty much blown from that point the other thing is is you know to determine how someone died or the stab wound would never be done without an actual autopsy and you all came inside and cleaned the room now what self-respecting student voluntarily throws away perfectly good vodka can we go now accepted you're all under arrest he doesn't have enough to arrest one of them let's list all of them the fact is is that there's no evidence whatsoever overall the scene is pretty highly inaccurate next up zodiac in this scene detectives arrive to investigate the final murder of the infamous Zodiac killer it's a call that intelli suspect from that window right here a shot no it first saw him in the front seat thought it was a drunk fighting with the driver oldest kid ran downstairs to get a better look from the dining room described him as a white male glasses crew cut stocky wearing a dark jacket wait I thought someone said he was black that's the description that without the radio cars we already corrected it oh well that's good this starts off really well as far as authenticity there's a lot of talk about the suspect and there's a mixup on who the suspect is or description of the suspect which is common it's a big deal because you can have a bunch of people look for the wrong person for all the stuarts the examination the crime scene is pretty much on the money the investigator determines that the victim was rolled and that's determined by the positioning of the blood once the person has been shot and post-mortem ly the blood will probably travel in the weight of gravity once that blood fixates then it doesn't move so it's easy to tell us someone's been moved because the blood looks like it defies gravity I'm an idiot I just killed him in for $8.25 just start during the night won't have any animal crackers animal crackers in the car I thought the animal crackers was pretty original because it happens it happens all the time for me it was gummy bears I don't know what it is but there's something calming about I don't know juvenile food or snacks that makes you feel better at a crime scene I guess with all the destruction and death eating a gummy bear makes you feel better so the animal crackers bid is probably pretty on the money sure I was wondering if I'd be able to talk to her children one of the time preferably alone they just saw a man it looked like there were drunken fighting yeah and he had a rag he came on the side of the car he was wiping stuff you get a chance to see his face I need well sort of if I talk to the children of the witnesses is probably done best separately the reason being is because we talked to two witnesses at the same time the other one does not operating off their memory but they can be operating off the memory of what they're hearing and only repeating it so the best way to get a statement is kind of organically each statement is taken separately and kind of compared and contrasted against the other for accuracy next up training day [Music] to investigators at our crime scene and they're still in money from that crime scene and they're trying to get the new rookie officer involved this is pretty accurate elite units such as this one where you can see they're dressed down they get to wear beards and jewelry and undercover work they got the glamorous cool narcotics job and all the narcotics officers get the latest toys and all the money because there's a time or there was a time where law enforcement was focused completely on narcotics investigation and the big seizures and the money involved but uh it became corrupt really quickly a quarter million dollars you holding right then you hang for me in India first day on the job you hit a three million dollar seizure wait he said fourth ah taxation without representation brother nothing's free in this world you're lucky first day buy your wife a minivan with that put the kids through college give me that back this is a really interesting scene for law enforcement because let's face it all police officers are not always right and I think in a case like this that happens probably more often than not narcotics investigations are just don't tour asleep dirty all the way around there's so much potential it's built basically on a lie working undercover you're lying it's just the fact and when you ask that same officer to be truthful and upright you don't know where you're getting so mad you don't want a piece of this huh all right right like this I mean know what's interesting about the scene is that the officers hesitation is not because he's trying to decide if he actually wants the money his hesitation is because he's concerned about what the others are gonna think of him or what they may do to it come on let's wrap this up all right don't touch a thing Harry's still a narcotics buddy is a clean steal there's no way that anyone's ever gonna know how much money they've taken it's basically on the officers honesty I mean who's gonna call the police the drug dealer last up murder by numbers see I figured it was you at the house cuz his Justin wouldn't know him better and then I walk through the white pants that was exactly 3:30 how long did you have to wait for her to come home this scene is kind of really really unrealistic the detective kind of leaned this person through an interrogation just would never happen there's way too much to be lost by pretending to know something that you don't actually know then the fact that if you give someone a narrative or tell them a story and they agree with you then your interrogation is worthless because you have led someone into a story trick is to get them to tell you something that you don't know or that they think you don't know you didn't really kill her at the house I gotta say that was a stroke of genius did did you think it up or was it Justin fact is is that in an interrogation it's to develop intimate details and not provide them the stories validated by someone telling you what they did and how they did it even if you know what they've done you remain silent and listen to what they tell you you can't ever ever ever lead someone into a statement because if they agree with you it's pretty easy to get a false confession an innocent person locked up so people kind of stay away from that kind of tactic but it looks cool on TV I guess I told him you're going to the ATM to get cash for the pizza yes and you did and I did then you hurried back I took five minutes I took five minutes now we're talking but you were gone 15 the way they they've laid out this crime scene is just basically the detectives theory and there's really nothing else there the fact that the detective can say this happened that happened and and come up with this whole story is no it's just that realistic at all the detective actually has no evidence that go off of it all and even if he did he kind of blew it when he provided all those private and intimate details to the person he's interrogate so as you can see sometimes these things are done and right and some are just purely for entertainment so maybe Hollywood should consult with the actual detectives before they start making these types of bills [Music]

Channel: Vanity Fair

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Keywords: true crime, vanity fair true crime, true crime homicide detective, homicide detective, homicide detective reviews, homicide detective reviews crime scenes, crime scenes review, crime scene review, vanity fair reviews, vanity fair true crime detective, true crime detective, csi, breaking bad review, csi review, rod demery, homicide detective rod demery, true crime reviews, criminal expert, crime scene expert, crime scenes, crime scene, experts review, expert, vanity fair

Id: cfuib06M6P0

Length: 20min 30sec (1230 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020