You are a property and evidence technician for a law enforcement agency and are requested by detectives to assist with evidence collection on a homicide. The crime scene investigator and the coroner investigator are on scene. The team on scene briefs you and advises that there are several items of evidence on the scene and that all items have already been documented through notes, photography, video, and a sketch. Your assistance is requested to recover the evidence, package the evidence following best practices, and take custody of the items for chain of custody because the detectives, coroner investigator, and the crime scene investigator are immediately headed to the autopsy. Specifically, you are told that there are three items of evidence on scene, as follows:

• A wet, bloody shirt
• A 9 mm pistol (cleared, one round of ammunition removed from the chamber and 13 rounds of ammunition in the magazine) with a fired 9 mm cartridge case on the floor
• Hair that is in the hand of the decedent

The coroner investigator is on scene and gives you permission to remove the apparent hairs from the decedent’s hand prior to body transport to the morgue.

For this discussion, you are to do the following:

• Before collection, what steps must be completed?
• Describe how you would collect and package the bloody, wet shirt, the firearm and the related ballistic evidence, and the apparent hairs. These would be packaged separately and should follow procedures outlined in your assigned reading and in the standards set forth by the International Association for Property and Evidence Technicians (IAPE).
• What tools you would use to collect the evidence, including your own personal protective equipment (PPE)?
• When the items of evidence are submitted by to the crime lab, what types of tests could be run on this evidence, specifically the blood on the shirt, the firearm and related ballistic evidence (including the fired cartridge case), and the apparent hair?
• Describe how you would reconstruct this scene.