As a member of the State of Minnesota's Crime Scene Investigative Team I investigated murders and officer-involved shootings.  On this particular case I was called to a shooting scene at a rural farmhouse.  The initial responding officers from the local department had been called to the scene by a family member who discovered the bodies of his mother and brother inside the living room.

 

Upon our arrival my partner and I entered to photograph and video the scene prior to evidence collection and processing.  The female victim was in her 70s.  She was sitting upright in a stuffed chair.  Her hands were folded and resting on the bible in her lap.  She looked peaceful except for the fact that the top half of her head was missing.  A slug fired from a shotgun had totally blown away the area above the mouth and ears. 

 

The wall next to her, as well as the ceiling, was coated with sprayed blood and brain matter.  Chunks of her skull were imbedded in the sheetrock.  Her brain lobes were basically intact but weren't doing her much good from their current location on the floor next to her chair.  That brain, and the pieces of skull, would later have to be collected and sent with the body to the medical examiner.  The remainder of her skull and scalp was scattered in numerous pieces along the floor of the room.

 

The male victim appeared to be approximately 50 years old.  He was prone on the floor in front of the sofa in a large puddle of coagulating blood.  His head had also been blown open from a shotgun slug.  The brain matter from his wound was still hanging from the ceiling like grotesque pink icicles. 

 

As we walked around the scene we could not avoid stepping on some of the bloody segments of skull.  It took us a few hours to respond to the rural location and therefore the stench of decomposing body tissue had begun to permeate the dwelling.  

 

My partner and I carried five gallon buckets containing our investigative tools and supplies.  We were hungry from our long drive.  Naturally we sat down in the middle of the scene, reached into our buckets, and grabbed our sandwiches and sodas.  As we started to eat one of the uniformed officers standing by to guard the scene began to pale and quickly covered his mouth as he ran outside of the house.  Apparently he had some kind of aversion to tuna fish!

 

The investigation revealed the scene was a homicide-suicide.  The now-deceased son had been mentally retarded and dependent on his mother.  She had recently been ill with a non-life-threatening condition.  The son believed she would die from her medical condition and that he would be unable to go on without her.  He apparently believed he needed to kill them both.

 

To prove our findings we needed to do a reinactment of the son shooting himself.  He had jammed the butt end of the shotgun into the sofa to stabilize the weapon and then stretched out his arm to reach the trigger while placing his head on the tip of the barrel.  We needed someone to volunteer to attempt the manuever with the same weapon (now unloaded!) from the same position.  That volunteer would be me.

 

I climbed into a thin set of paper disposable coveralls and then sat down where he had been.  I could feel the slick ooze of blood and body tissue under my butt as I held the barrel of the blood-spattered shotgun at my head.  I maintained that position while my partner photographed me.  I was able to pull the trigger which certainly added credibility to our theory of homicide-suicide.

 

Do we get callous?  I don't know.  The sandwiches tasted great!