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nly one thing linked
the murderer and
the victim.
Curtains.
The corpse was wrapped in
part of a curtain. In-
vestigators found a similar
drape in the suspect's home.
They put one and one
together and found two
halves of a matching set.
They had their man.
It might be a curtain. It
might be blood. It might be a
single hair. Somehow,
somewhere, the perpetrator
is going to leave a clue. And
Steven Lorch is going to find
it.
Dr. Lorch is assistant lab-
oratory director of the Mich-
igan State Police crime lab.
It is a place of matching
fingerprints, testing bullets,
sorting through fibers and
isolating hairs.
It is the victim's last hope:
the place where in-
vestigators may be able to
find the one piece of evidence
that points to the murderer,
the drug dealer or the rapist.
Dr. Lorch, of Oak Park,
has served at the crime lab
since 1982. He came to the
position after receiving
bachelor's and master's
degrees in biology from New
York universities, and a
Ph.D. from the University of
Maryland in biochemistry
and plant physiology, the
study of the chemical and
biochemical mechanisms of
plants.
Following post-doctorate
work at Michigan State
University, Dr. Lorch an-
swered an advertisement in
1973 for a drug chemist with
the Michigan health
department crime detection
division. He took the job,
analyzing drugs confiscated
during police raids and
undercover stings.
When the health depart-
ment merged in 1977 with
the state police, Dr. Lorch
was named supervisor of the
section's drug unit. He
became involved in on-the-
scene work, including
violent crimes.
His first homicide scene
was a shooting in Rosedale
Park. One soon after that
was a woman murdered in
her kitchen in Madison
Heights. She wore a white
turtleneck.
"My wife wears white
turtlenecks," Dr. Lorch said.
"And this (dead) woman
resembled my wife. There's
nothing like walking into
somebody's home, seeing a
body and relating it to your
own life.
"Cases with kids are
always hard. But you've got
a job to do — you've got to
help catch the criminal. If
your emotions get in your
way, you can't do your
work."
Doing his job means comb-
ing the crime scene for
everything, even what may
appear to be the most irrele-
vant bits of evidence.
Dr. Lorch remembers one
case where investigators col-
lected the contents of an
ashtray. Their first thought
was to check the saliva on
the cigarette butts, which
contains the same elements
found in an individual's
blood group.
Within the tray, they also
found a small strip of foil
from an open cigarette pack,
"the kind of thing you would
think is trivial," Dr. Lorch
said.
Then police searched
through a suspect's shirt. In
one of his pockets they
hours, three lab administra-
tors take turns being first on
call, which means organi-
zing a crew to go to the scene
of the crime.
"For three years, I was
first on call. Now I'm second,
except on Shabbat," said Dr.
Lorch, a board member of
Young Israel of Greenfield.
"I don't miss those calls at 2
a.m.
The size of the crew and
the lab materials taken to
the scene depend on the
scope and nature of the
crime. If the victim was
stabbed, a hematologist is
brought along. If footprints
have been left, lab workers
take material for copying
the print.
"We are scientists," Dr.
as commonplace as a box of
tissues.
The first stop is the
microchemistry lab, where
blood, semen and hair
samples are tested. At first
glance, it appears much like
any other science lab filled
with test tubes and
microscopes.
But within the large
canisters on the floor rest
uneasy elements. Hundreds
of blood and semen samples,
preserved in liquid nitrogen,
from crimes under in-
vestigation. These samples
may be matched to a
murderer.
A semen sample helped
indict killer Ronald Lloyd
Bailey long after he com-
mitted his first homicide.
`The basic
theory of crime
scene work is
that you
cannot enter a
room without
leaving
something or
taking
something
away. It's just
a matter of
our finding
-- Steven Lorch
discovered a strip of foil torn
from a cigarette pack. They
placed it against the piece
retrieved from the murder
site. It matched perfectly.
"The basic theory of crime
scene work is that you
cannot enter a room without
leaving something or taking
something away," Dr. Lorch
said. "It may be blood; it
may be dog hair. It's just a
matter of our finding it. The
key to crime scene work is
recognizing what could be
important."
Calls from the police to the
crime lab come in any time
day or night. After work
Lorch said. "We're not there
to prove somebody is guilty;
that's up to the prosecutor.
We're there to analyze the
material then write up the
reports."
Once the material is col-
lected, it is taken to the
crime lab in Northville.
The lab is the stuff of every
detective story aficionado's
dream, of every criminal's
nightmare. One room of
chemicals and drug analysis
leads to another room of
blood typing and fingerprin-
ting. It is like a museum of
the macabre, where the
sight of a murder weapon is
Semen, not matching that of
the victim, a young boy, had
been found at the crime
scene of an unsolved murder.
It was preserved at the lab in
liquid nitrogen.
Later, a boy identified Mr.
Bailey as the man who
assaulted him. Mr. Bailey's
semen was compared with
the unidentified sample at
the murder scene. It match-
ed.
Lab workers are precise
and exacting about their
work, where "notation and
documentation are the No. 1
priority," Dr. Lorch said.
When the evidence arrives
at the court, investigators
must be prepared to describe
every step it traveled. So
before it leaves the lab, the
material is heat-sealed in a
plastic bag, with the crime
lab logo embossed at the top
and the analyst's initials on
the bag.
Last year the lab handled
3,600 cases, Dr. Lorch said.
Behind the microchemistry
lab is the instrument room. It
is filled with large but deli-
cate machines that can deter-
mine accelerants — such as
gas or charcoal lighter —
used in a fire. Or the
machines can check for a
drug quantity in an
unknown substance. Or they
can test paint samples in hit-
and-run cases.
At the back of the lab is
the drug evidence room,
where shelf upon shelf
reveals the ghostly partner
inviting a dance with death.
Cocaine.
One plastic bag, sealed and
ready for court, contains two
large chunks of cocaine,
square-shaped and resembl-
ing Styrofoam. It would sell
for hundreds of thousands of
dollars on the street.
But this bag's ultimate
destiny is not the street.
After it serves its purpose in
court, the cocaine will go up
in smoke. Once a month, Dr.
Lorch and a witness destroy
the evidence in an incin-
erator.
Just beyond the drug
evidence room sits a
chamber where guns are be-
ing dusted for fingerprints.
Like every room in the lab, it
bears a sophisticated securi-
ty system.
Methods for fingerprint
evaluation have changed
drastically in the past 10
years, Dr. Lorch said. The
latest find for print testing is
Superglue. When heated,
the glue's fumes can reveal
fingerprints on formerly
unusable materials, in-
cluding plastic bags and
wood.
And don't look for tired
agents sitting at their desks
and comparing thousands of
possible suspects to the
criminal's fingerprint.
"If one person took a print
and ran it against the prints
of all criminals on file, it
would take him 72 years,"
Dr. Lorch said.
Today, testing prints is the
job of AFIS, the Automated
Fingerprint Identification
System. The computerized
system checks the suspected
print against eight million
prints on file, giving the top
10 to investigators, who
make the final comparison.
Fingerprints, along with
blood, constitute almost ir-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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