Young Writers Society

In my current novel a girl has been murdered, and the police are trying to find out who did it.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how the police deal with murders. I would assume they'd look for fingerprints on a gun (the girl was shot) or any fingerprints around the scene, but after that I'm lost.

Anybody know anything? And perferrably Austrlian police, but I doubt it would be much different in other countries.

Procedure, hmmm...complicated.

Well, as regards to basic ones, completely tape off the area, make an appeal for witnesses if none have come forward (not just people that saw something, but heard something), retracing the victims last movements, questioning people close to them in a lot of detail. If it's not clear if it's a random murder or someone specifically targeted one person, a criminal record check of any one in the area who could have done it, records of any similar murders etc.

As for forensics, yes fingerprints, but also ballistic tests (tests on the firearm, bullet etc, you can tell when it was last fired, stuff like that and compare to other crimes it could have been used in), blood splatter patterns etc, to build up a good picture of how the crime occurred. Some sort of medical examiner needs to pronounce death and can make an estimate at the time of death before autopsy (coroner most likely).

Autopsy, obviously, encorporating everything. Determining the exact cause of death, running tests for drugs etc, examing stomach contents (can help determine time of death if it's not certain as well as tracing last movements.) making detailed records of injuries etc.

That's all I can think of right now.

One acronym: CSI

Google + 'murder investigation' = http://www.essortment.com/all/forensicmurder_rxow.htm

^_^ Good luck!