Intro Crime Scene Preservation

Any search for a missing person could be a search for the victim of a crime. In some cases, law enforcement agencies know or strongly suspect the person they are looking for is the victim of a crime. Even if the missing person is not the victim of a crime, but they are found to be deceased, their body and the immediate area must be examined and investigated to determine a cause of death. Searchers discovering a body must properly secure the area around the body.

Finding evidence or a missing person starts with being “aware” while searching and realizing that evidence or bodies may not be obvious or “fit” the mental preconception a searcher has while searching. The SAR jargon for what might be evidence, or evidence of the missing person’s passing or location, is a “clue” or “clues.” A person leaves many clues behind as they travel, and clues are much more numerous than the missing person. Clues may be visual (footprints in mud), auditory (voices, bird alarm calls) or olfactory (smoke or odors of decay, or scents only detectable by dogs). Clues are essential to locating the missing person and potentially could be evidence of a crime, so their location must be recorded, reported to search command and the immediate area preserved or marked so that clues are not destroyed. Since scent detectable by dogs often accompanies clues, searchers should also avoid contaminating the area surrounding a clue in case a trailing dog can locate an exit trail.