Monochrome Monday; …And Now For Something Completely Different!

Two funeral home employees recovering the body of a murder victim, circa 1976. (click to enlarge)
I made a lot of these kinds of photographs in the years I was a forensic detective.
Pentax Spotmatic 35mm camera; SMCT 50mm f/1.4 lens; Tri-X film; Exposure not recorded.

The back story...

I've mentioned in the past that I literally "accidentally" became a police officer in early 1974.  At the behest of two very persuasive officers who became friends, I joined a police force with the intention of doing it temporarily until I started graduate school.  I was in the process of taking a year off after undergraduate school.  (Thirty-six years later, I retired from law enforcement, go figure?) 

With a university degree in a science (geology) and experience and knowledge in photography, I was quickly assigned to be a forensic detective where I could best use my education and experience.  That meant, among other things, that I went out to all sorts of felony crime scenes, identified, photographed and collected evidence including a lot of bodies (over a hundred death investigations).  I regularly responded to rape, robbery, burglary, traffic fatalities, murders, accidental and suicidal deaths as well as anything else at which I was needed.  Additionally, I qualified as a fingerprint expert both in state and federal courts.  

As my photographic skills became known to city hall, I was tapped as the "Official City Photographer,” which was a real thrill for me.!  I was called upon to photograph all kinds of events, ground breakings, museum exhibits, neighborhood redevelopment projects, portraits of elected and appointed officials and on and on and on.  I loved it!  I got to photograph, not have to spend any money on gear and was paid for doing it!  What’s not to like?  Also, instead of off-duty part-time security work for extra money, I photographed for stock, commercially, took assignments and did the occasional wedding.  But I digress.

I don't remember the circumstances of this particular homicide.  The photo shows two funeral home workers, wearing 'gas masks,' so that tells me the body was in the woods for a while and become decomposed.  If you’ve never smelled a decomposed body, consider yourself lucky.  If you ever do, you’ll never forget the smell.  I can see another detective just on the other side of the hearse and is mostly obscured by the roofline.  A patrol officer is writing a report just to center-right.  Onlookers, or gawkers as we called them, were always present.  

I used to tell young patrol officers that if they wanted to be on the local television news, hang close to the funeral home workers as the press videographers always videotaped the body being taken out and put in the hearse.  In the background, to the right of the uniformed officer, you can see a TV cameraman with his huge video camera on an equally huge tripod recording the event.  They always did that back then but as homicides have increased exponentially over the years, they don't get that footage any longer.  They don’t both, I guess.  That says much about our current sad state of affairs.

In any case, being in charge of the darkroom and having a supervisor telling us to practice our photography relentlessly as we had only one shot to get things right (there is no going back and rephotographing a crime scene) and that we better not make a mistake and screw up the film.  So, not only did I get to photograph as much as I wanted with the PD picking up the tab, but I got the opportunity to sharpen my darkroom developing and printing skills as well.  Not to leave you thinking that I always used PD gear and supplies, I had built an 8’ X 12’ darkroom in my garage that was all decked out to make up to 16” X 20” prints.  The PD used 35mm and, at that time, I was mainly using 4” X 5” and medium format along with my 35mm Nikon gear, so I ended up using my own gear for most all of my personal work.

Looking back all the way to February, 1974 and considering all the assignments given me and ranks I attained (even chief of police—twice), my time as a forensic detective is my most memorable and pleasurable time in all my years in law enforcement.  Finding what potentially could be evidence, photographing, properly collecting, processing and piecing the puzzle together was very satisfying.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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