There was a pretty famous murder case in Massachusetts a few years back in which the state police collected a couple of hundred DNA samples--most of the male population of a small town--all voluntarily. It took something like three years to get re...
Emergency room bandages, discarded coffee cups, soda cans, and anything else that might carry your DNA into the dustbin, that can be traced back to you, is all fair game.
Jack's right, I was too brief. Police can test anything discarded, under the "abandoned property" rules. When I said they had to have a court order, I should have added they need it to get samples from your person, such as hair or mouth swabs.
Laws vary, but generally (and what is believable in fiction, I think) the police need your permission or a court order, or to discover the DNA is the normal course of their investigation. Crime scenes, etc. You smoke while the cops interview you, ...
I'll leave this to someone else for the correct answer, but my feeling is that the police can test with the person's permission. Of course, refusing permission does make one look guilty. DNA testing is, I think, expensive and the results are slow ...
Hi all,
OK, this might seem like a simple question, but I'm a simple person. Can the police only test an individual for DNA evidence when that person has been arrested for a felony? So, the authorities can't randomly test people associated with t...
I read once that Dean Koontz was totally against them because it's a clique atmosphere. Even though he hasn't written a good book since Mr. Murder, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to agree with him.
Maybe it would be easier to insert a crime within this background as a sub plot? Easier to place a novel which is in a similar genre to your earlier one.
I'm currently doing a masters in creative writing at a local university.
As part of the course we have a writers' group and we also have an informal writers' group that meets up in a pub.
I found the taught writing group quite useful with some l...
I found writing groups very useful when I was completing my first two novels. One was an online group organized by Sisters in Crime. We critiqued a chapter at a time, using the editing program available in Word, and the feedback was invaluable. Th...
I'm a fan of writing groups, or at least the one I'm a part of. It's a small group all working in different genres. This tends to be a blessing--they pick up on things that I wouldn't otherwise notice. When they give advice that obviously runs aga...
I am semi-retired after working for the VA as a medical claims examiner. I am widowed and have a 24 year old daughter who is in graduate school. I love reading, writing, traveling, and am a big film fan.
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Best regards
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Book Synopsis:
The sleepy town of Newbury, Connecticut, is shocked when a little girl is found brutally murdered. The town s top detective, perplexed by a complete lack of leads, calls in FBI agent Leia Bines, an expert in cases involving children.
Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Gram, a psychiatrist at Newbury s hospital, searches desperately for the cause of seven-year-old Naya Hastings devastating nightmares. Afraid that she might hurt herself in the midst of a torturous episode, Naya s parents have turned to the bright young doctor as their only hope.
The situations confronting Leia and Peter converge when Naya begins drawing chilling images of murder after being bombarded by the disturbing images in her dreams. Amazingly, her sketches are the only clues to the crime that has panicked Newbury residents. Against her better judgment, Leia explores the clues in Naya s crude drawings, only to set off an alarming chain of events.