Crime Scene Investigations

Crime Scene Investigations

CSI: Episode #3

For this assignment I watched an episode of the original CSI. It was the third episode made and was called “Crate and Burial. Here is a rundown of what happened. It starts out in the desert outside Las Vegas; a man had just finished burying something. He drove away and a woman woke up, buried alive. Fast-forward to Grissom sitting with the husband of the woman listening to a voicemail left on the man’s answering machine. The voice on the message had been changed to disguise the caller’s true voice. It stated that the husband needed to bring two million dollars to a drop off site at his golf club or he would never see his wife alive again. The husband was distraught and very determined to bring that money to the site. The detectives told him to calm down and listen to the message again. They all noticed that there was silence in the background along with a humming sound. From that, Grissom determined that the caller was out of the city and in the desert near a high voltage power line. Grissom had Nick, another detective, take the tape from the machine to the lab to run a reverse algorithmic test on it. This is just the Hollywood way of telling him to go mess around with the audio equipment until the voice sounds like a normal human again. One such piece of audio equipment is called a digital signal processor. This is a “specialized computer processor designed to work with digitized waveforms, often audio clips. It speeds execution and provides for more complex operations such as the compression of voice signals” (Petersen 213). Nick probably used one such device for this. While that was going on downstairs, the rest of the investigating team was searching the house. Signs of struggle included knocked over vases, crooked paintings on the wall, fingernail scratches on the woodwork, and a tore up bedroom. Grissom noted that there was dirt on the bedroom floor, and took a sample. A search outside the house turns up a rag soaked in halothane....

Similar Essays