This document reports on research aimed at identifying, delineating, and assembling a set of investigative tasks that could and should be performed at every death scene; it also provides detailed descriptions of the tasks required of death investigators as they prepare to go to, and complete their work at death scenes.
This guide, updated in 2011, is the result of work done by a National Institute of Justice committee, in order to perform a technical update to the guidelines. The document provides the original introduction as well as an introduction to the Technical Update. The document aims to present the most updated information about issues facing death investigators, who go to death scenes and act as the eyes and ears of forensic pathologists. The first part of the document emphasizes the importance of standardized guidelines for death investigations, followed by a section on the research and development of the guidelines. The second part of the guidelines research, which has been completed as of the publication of this document, was to identify training criteria for each of the 29 guidelines; for each of the guidelines in this report, “minimum levels of performance” will be developed and verified by the members of the various technical working groups (TWGs). The training guidelines aim to provide individuals and educational organizations with all the required material for establishing and maintaining valid exit outcomes for each investigative trainee. The second part of the document is divided into sections A through F, and covers the following task-related information: Section A, Investigative Tools and Equipment; Section B, Arriving at the Scene; Section C, Documenting and Evaluating the Scene; Section D, Documenting and Evaluating the Body; Section E, Establishing and Recording Decedent Profile Information; and Section F, Completing the Scene Investigation.