- As a homicide detective, I worked over 250 murders.
Of the cases I was primary investigator,
I solved all of them.
- [Narrator] Today Rod is going to break down
what's right and wrong in Hollywood crime scenes.
[coffee rippling]
[fan whirring]
[TV clicking]
- Crime scenes can be very tricky.
There are a lot of different details
that can be easily missed,
so what we're going to be doing
is looking for things that are telltale,
things that actually happen versus things that don't.
[static buzzing]
First clip, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
In this scene, Ace arrives at a crime scene uninvited.
- I heard a scream, so I called the manager.
- [Manager] The place was empty except for that dang dog
in the other room.
I opened the balcony door, looked over the railing.
- This scene is highly inaccurate in the fact
that there are a million people at this crime scene
and that would never happen.
Crime scenes are really controlled and the number of people
to contaminate a crime scene is closely monitored.
- Animals can sense evil.
- Who let Dr. Dolittle in?
- Lieutenant, he came with Miss Robinson.
- This is official police business.
We'll let you know if the coroner finds a tick.
[laughing]
- Crime scenes are often guarded by a patrol officer
and when people enter crime scenes,
their names are taken and they're screened
and they're scrutinized, so the fact of Ace
just popping up in a crime scene and nobody knowing it
would probably never happen.
- So you don't think this is an obvious suicide,
Mr. Pet Detective?
- Well, I wouldn't say that.
Lord knows there's plenty of evidence here
to support your theory, except of course
for that spot of blood on the railing over there.
- A person collecting blood has to collect the blood
from the state it's in.
It has to be photographed and swabbed and preserved.
The other thing is it's an incredible biohazard.
No one would ever put their hand or finger in blood
to see if it is blood.
If anything, they'd run away from it.
- Roger Podacter went out after work.
He had a few drinks and he came home, but he wasn't alone.
Someone else was with him in this apartment,
there was a struggle and he was thrown over that balcony.
Roger Podacter didn't commit suicide.
He was murdered.
- Well, that's a very entertaining story,
but unfortunately real detectives have to worry
about that little thing called evidence.
- What's cool about this scene is Ace is sort of
the renegade guy who was not supposed to be there
and everyone else there has the same theory
or thought process going on and actually that happens a lot.
There's always a bunch of people that know so much
and one person who's always discounted,
but that person actually thinks clearly.
[rhythmic yelling]
- This is double-pane soundproof glass.
There's no way that neighbor could have heard Podacter
scream on the way down with that door shut.
The scream she heard came from inside this apartment
before he was thrown over the balcony
and the murderer closed the door before he left, yes!
- There's a theory that someone screamed
or someone heard someone scream and there's something
that physically prevents that from being possible.
Then that theory has to go out the window
and that's clearly what's happened in this case.
It's pretty accurate as far as the way detectives think
and the way detectives investigate.
Sometimes the simplest things are often lost
and when we hear them it's almost as if,
wow, why didn't I think of that?
And that's probably what makes this a little bit
more realistic than just mere comedy.
[static buzzing]
Next up, Breaking Bad.
- Saul Goodman sent me.
Come on, inside.
- So what's happening in this scene is someone's called in
a cleaner and someone to clean up a crime scene.
So what this cleaner does is, is they come and they
try to get rid of evidence or key evidence
that can link somebody or tie somebody to a crime.
Obviously the person that called the cleaner is
of more importance than the person
that's actually at the crime scene.
So it's one of those things where you
save them to save the bigger guy,
but you really don't care about that person
- Once you call it in, the people who show up
will be with the Office of Medical Investigations.
That's primarily who you'll talk to.
Police officers may arrive, they may not.
Depends on how busy a morning they're having.
Typically, ODs are not a high priority call.
- When he said you call in to the coroner's office
and it's going to take them awhile
and they're not concerned with ODs,
that's, that's really farfetched.
Any death, it's going to be treated as a homicide.
There's almost never a case, in fact,
there's never a case where someone's going
to report a death and investigators don't show up.
- There's nothing here to incriminate you,
so I'd be amazed if you got placed under arrest.
However, if you do, you say nothing.
You tell them you just want your lawyer,
then you call Saul Goodman.
- I think the advice given here to ask to speak
to a lawyer and say nothing
is probably going to frustrate the investigators
as much as a cleaned down crime scene,
but it's clearly effective for what it's intended to do
and that's to throw law enforcement off.
[static buzzing]
Next up, Sherlock.
- Just moved in.
- In this scene,
Sherlock is going to a crime scene
that he's clearly not allowed to be at.
- I love when it does that.
- [Security Guard] Hello?
- Clearly Sherlock's not a detective authorized
to be here because he has to buzz himself in
or get someone to give him access to it
so he's not supposed to be at the crime scene.
Doing so is actually against the law.
[curious music]
- Sneaking into an apartment complex, a crime scene,
and climbing through a window, breaking and entering,
is felonious behavior so it's not going to happen.
The part especially where he's kicking in the door
is really unrealistic.
That alters a crime scene way too much
and it's just not going to happen.
- What about this morning?
Those lessons you were looking at.
[squishing]
Yes.
He was being threatened.
- [Officer] Bag this up, will you.
- Don't worry.
- [Officer] And see if we can get prints off this glass.
- Yeah, once he goes inside the apartment
and reaches down the throat of the dead person,
that would never happen.
I mean, the bodies are always jurisdiction of the coroner.
The fact that an investigator or detective,
private investigator would do something like that
is actually against the law.
- Coffee table on the left hand side.
Coffee mug handle pointing to the left,
power sockets, habitually use the ones on the left,
pen and paper on the left hand side of the phone
because he picked it up with his right
and took their messages with his left.
You want me to go on?
- When a detective goes to a crime scene,
it works in milliseconds.
You scan a room, you come up with all sorts of things
that you don't realize you're even processing
like you, you'll come up with the fact
that someone's left or right handed by the way
things are placed in an apartment,
so that's pretty accurate.
[static buzzing]
Next up, CSI.
This scene of CSI involves a murder victim
and the suspect who's got himself stuck in cement.
- Found him, figured he had a free pass
and picked his pocket. [chuckling]
- This is pretty unrealistic.
She's clearly laughing quite a bit.
That probably wouldn't happen.
I mean, police officers and detectives,
we make jokes sometimes, but this is kinda over the top.
- Who's your lady friend?
- Never saw that woman before in my life.
- Look, you're not going anywhere.
It'll be a lot better for you if you just
cooperate and tell us what happened.
- Yeah, not real realistic that someone
would question somebody while they're stuck in the cement.
Interrogations are really serious deals,
not only to gather information but to
preserve rights and you know, one of the biggest things
is someone not feeling forced
or coerced into making a statement, and I think
being stuck in the cement is probably qualifying of that.
- Do you want to know what happened?
- Mmhmm.
- Figure it out yourself.
- That's the fun part.
- So I've never seen anything like this before,
but I have seen people that committed crimes
and then got caught red-handed because they got stuck.
In one case, a guy trying to crawl out
of a window got hung up on the glass.
So things like that are always really, really cool to see.
It's like God delivers them to you.
[static buzzing]
Next up, The Fugitive.
In this scene a U.S. deputy marshal
arrives at the scene of a crash.
- The bus rolled over several times
before settling at the bottom of the hill here.
I don't know if I passed out, but when I looked up
the train was bearing down on us fast.
I don't know how, it's still kind of hazy,
but somehow I grabbed him and I pushed him out of the bus.
- Questioning a suspect or who you may think is a suspect
outside and open in front of everyone
is probably something that's never gonna happen.
- Excuse me, sheriff.
I'm deputy United States marshal Samuel Gerard.
I'd like to talk to.
- I'll be with you in just a minute.
- Locals are not really crazy about federal agents coming in
and taking over their crime scenes.
This is pretty accurate because sometimes there's a lot
of tension between the two different agencies
or two different jurisdictions.
- I'd like to recommend checkpoints on a 15 mile radius
at I-57, I-24 and over here on Route 13.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
The prisoners are all dead and the only thing
checkpoints are going to do is get a lot of good people
frantic around here and flood my office with calls.
- Well, shit sheriff, I'd hate to see that happen.
So I guess I'll take over your investigation.
- Overall, this is completely inaccurate.
The fact is is that U.S. marshals recovery or
a fugitive task force usually respond
after they're called in by local law enforcement.
In this scene, it's obvious that it's coming off
as if though they have a higher jurisdiction
and they can go to a scene and kind of take over.
In actuality, that doesn't happen or will never happen.
[static buzzing]
Next up, The Mentalist.
In the scene, the mentalist arrives to investigate
the murder of a college student.
- Housemates woke up and found him like this.
Name's Tyler VanCamp, sophomore studying business.
Practice squad linebacker.
- You're sure about Lisbon?
Did you hear it from her
or did you hear it from other people?
- This is pretty interesting because that actually happens.
You know, the conversation has started about something
that has absolutely nothing to do with the crime scene
and most people around you are kind of bewildered
thinking that you have this big deal here
and you're talking about something
that seems to be so insignificant.
- Hello, finally.
We've been sitting here like two hours, dude,
You guys heard of human rights?
- No such thing.
- It's pretty accurate that sometimes people wait
at crime scenes for detectives to show up
because they could be at another crime
across town or anything can be going on.
- It was all of them.
The ninja knife wasn't any more than an inch,
not deep enough to kill him.
So therefore was drowned.
- In a kiddie pool?
- Well, only if someone was helping him along.
I mean, a big athletic guy like Tyler,
I would guess that would a be a job for two people.
- Yeah, but why drown him?
- Well, probably something to do
with the drunken card game that took place here last night.
They used toy money as chips.
- It makes policemen look really, really cool
to be able to come up with such an
elaborate process of what happened.
This is probably as far-fetched as you're gonna ever get.
- You wear your watch on your right hand.
Probably left-handed.
So judging by the angle and the depth of the wound,
I would guess that it was you that stabbed Tyler in the back
to stop him from throttling Barry here.
Now, stabbing Tyler in the back didn't help much.
Made him madder, he chased you outside, he fell in the pool.
That's when you two with the still damp sneakers
got on top of him and held him down until he drowned.
- Something very inaccurate about this
is that no detective would ever give a theory to suspects,
especially all of them are sitting right there
because once you are wrong, even a little bit,
you lose credibility and your case
is pretty much blown from that point.
The other thing is, you know, to determine how someone died,
or the stab wound would never be done
without an actual autopsy.
- And you all came inside and cleaned the room.
Now what self-respecting student voluntarily
throws away perfectly good vodka?
Can we go now?
I've stepped in it.
- Appears so.
- You're all under arrest.
- He doesn't have enough to arrest one of them,
much less all of them.
The fact is is that there's no evidence whatsoever.
Overall, the scene is pretty highly inaccurate.
[static buzzing]
Next up, Zodiac.
In this scene, detectives arrive to investigate
the final murder of the infamous Zodiac killer.
- Kids who called it in saw the suspect from that window.
- They hear a shot?
- No, they first saw him in the front seat,
thought he was a drunk trying to drive.
Oldest kid ran downstairs to get a better look
from the dining room, described him as a white male,
glasses, crew cut, stocky, wearing a dark jacket.
- Wait, I thought someone said he was black.
- That's the description that went out to radio cars.
- Well, we already corrected it.
- Oh, well that's good.
- This starts off really well as far as authenticity.
There's a lot of talk about the suspect
and there's a mix up on who the suspect is
or description of the suspect, which is common.
It's a big deal because you can have a bunch of people
look for the wrong person.
[dog barking]
- [Officer] Who rolled him?
- Stewarts.
[ominous music]
- The examination of the crime scene
is pretty much on the money.
The investigator determines that the victim was rolled
and that's determined by the position and of the blood.
Once the person has been shot and post-mortemly,
the blood will probably travel in the weight of gravity.
Once that blood fixates, then it doesn't move,
so it's easy to tell when someone's been moved
because the blood looks like it defies gravity.
- Can I see that?
- Yeah.
- Hey, I'm an idiot.
I just killed a man for $8.25.
It's his third fare of the night.
Does anyone have any animal crackers?
- Animal crackers?
- They're in the car.
- I'm saving those for later.
- I thought the animal crackers was pretty original
because it happens.
It happens all the time.
For me, it was gummy bears.
I don't know what it is, but there's something common
about, I don't know, chewing on food or snacks
that makes you feel better at a crime scene.
I guess with all the destruction and death,
eating a gummy bear makes you feel better.
So the animal crackers bit is probably pretty on the money.
- Sir, I was wondering if I'd be able to talk
to your children one at a time, preferably alone.
- They just saw a man murdered.
- I understand.
- [Younger Child] It looked like they
were drunk and fighting.
- [Older Child] Yeah, and he had a rag.
He came around the side of the car and he was wiping stuff.
- Did you get a chance to see his face?
- [Younger Child] I did, well sort of.
- Any talk to the children or the witnesses
is probably done best separately, the reason being
is because when you talk to two witnesses at the same time,
the other one is not operating off their memory,
but they can be operating off the memory
of what they're hearing and only repeating it.
So the best way to get a statement is kind of organically.
Each statement is taken separately and kind of compared
and contrasted against the other for accuracy.
[static buzzing]
Next up, Training Day.
[lock rattling]
- One, two.
[hinge creaking]
- Investigators at a crime scene and they're stealing money
from that crime scene and they're trying to get
the new rookie officer involved.
This is pretty accurate.
Elite units such as this one where you can see
they're dressed down, they get to wear beards
and jewelry and undercover work.
They got the glamorous, cool narcotics job
and all the narcotics officers get the latest toys
and all the money because there is a time or
there was a time where law enforcement was focused
completely on narcotics investigation
and the big seizures and the money involved,
but it became corrupt really quickly.
- [laughing] That's a quarter million dollars
you're holding right there in your hand.
$4 million in here.
First day on the job, you hit a $3 million seizure.
- I thought you said four.
- Ah, taxation without representation, brother.
Nothing's free in this world,
you lucky first day motherfucker.
Buy your wife a minivan with that,
put the kids through college.
Give me that back.
- This is a really interesting scene for law enforcement
because let's face it, all police officers
are not always right and I think in a case like this,
it happens probably more often than not.
Narcotics investigations are just notoriously dirty
all the way around.
There's so much potential.
It's built basically on a lie.
Working undercover, you're lying.
It's just a fact and when you ask that same officer
to be truthful and upright,
you don't know what you're getting.
- What's a matter, you don't want a piece of this, huh?
- Nuh uh, right?
Not like this, I mean, no.
- What's interesting about this scene
is that the officer's hesitation is not because
he's trying to decide if he actually wants the money.
His hesitation is because he's concerned
about what the others are going to think of him
or what they may do to him.
- Come on, let's wrap this up.
Don't touch a thing, evidence.
- Stealing narcotics money is a clean steal.
There's no way that anyone's ever going to know
how much money they take and it's basically
on the officer's honesty.
I mean who's going to call the police, the drug dealer?
[static buzzing]
Last up, Murder by Numbers.
- So I figure, well, you were at the house
'cause Justin would've known better
than to walk through the wet beds.
That was exactly 3:30.
How long did you have to wait for her to come home?
[door creaking]
- This scene is kind of really, really unrealistic.
The detective kind of leading this person
through an interrogation just would never happen.
There's way too much to be lost
by pretending to know something
that you don't actually know.
Then the fact that if you give someone a narrative,
or tell them a story and they agree with you,
then your interrogation is worthless
because you have led someone into a story.
Trick is to get them to tell you something
that you don't know or that they think you don't know.
[eerie music]
- You didn't really kill her at the house.
[trunk slamming]
I got to say, that was a stroke of genius.
Did you think it up or was it Justin?
- Fact is, is that in an interrogation,
it's to develop intimate details, not provide them.
The story is validated by someone telling you
what they did and how they did it.
Even if you know what they've done,
you remain silent and listen to what they tell you.
You can't ever, ever, ever lead someone
into a statement because if they agree with you,
it's pretty easy to get a false confession
and innocent person locked up.
So people kind of stay away from that kind of tactic,
but it looks cool on TV.
- [Detective] You told them you're going to the ATM
to get cash for the pizza.
- [Suspect] Yes.
- [Detective] And you did?
- [Suspect] And I did.
- Then you hurry back, that took five minutes.
- It took five minutes.
Now we're talking.
- [Detective] But you were gone 15.
- The way they, they, they've laid out this crime scene
is just basically the detective's theory
and there's really nothing else there.
The fact that the detective can say this happened,
that happened and then come up with this whole story
is no, it's just not realistic at all.
The detective actually has no evidence to go off of
at all, and even if he did, he kind of blew it
when he provided all those private intimate details
to the person he's interrogated.
So as you can see, sometimes these things are done right,
and some are just purely for entertainment.
So maybe Hollywood should consult with the actual detectives
before they start making these types of films.