Death is inevitable. However, a tragic ending to a person's life is when his or her death is surrounded by suspicious events. At such time, a law enforcement agency launches their investigation team to unravel the mystery surrounding a murder case.

When murder is committed, law enforcers follow systematic procedures in order to solve the crime. These procedures are essential in understanding the motive behind the murder, the events surrounding the crime, and how the crime was enacted. The procedures are also vital in identifying the perpetrators.

Of course, all results of murder investigations are dependent on evidences gathered and testimonies or statements of witnesses. Nevertheless, these results would not likely be achieved without undergoing the necessary steps in solving murder cases.

Murder Cases Solved – A Step by Step Procedure

1. Arrival at Scene – First things first. The initial procedure as far as solving murder cases go is responding to an emergency call. Law enforcers arrive at the scene of the crime to scope the area out, check on the victim/s, and look for evidences. Of course, the team that answered to the call need to make sure that the scene of the crime is cordoned off so that everything is kept in place, no evidences are tampered with, and the scene remains untouched.
2. Documentation – The next team will automatically arrive to document the scene by taking essential photographs and sketches. In the documentation stage, law enforcers commonly include capturing a video. It is also a big step in solving the crime. The law enforcer is responsible for taking documentation while the scene is still untouched. At this stage, intial interview of witnesses present at the scene of the crime or those somehow involved with the crime is done.
3. Collecting Data – Next, the investigators will start gathering factual information regarding the murder. This includes collecting potential and reliable evidences found at the murder scene. These evidences include the murder weapon (in case the perpetrator left it in his haste to flee the scene of the crime), DNA samples, fingerprints, blood traces, and other murder fragments. Potential evidence will be tagged, logged, and packaged to be sent off to the laboratory. However, there are murder investigation teams depending on their expertise that may or may not analyze the evidences in the lab.

4. Laboratory Processing – The crime laboratory is a vital cog in assisting the investigation by examining and analyzing all the evidences collected at the murder or crime scene. Once the laboratory results are all in, crime laboratory personnel will endorse all information to the assigned law enforcers or lead detective so they can start building a case based on the gathered evidences.

Of course, not all collected evidences are easy to identify. It’s a good thing that a crime laboratory comprises of people with different expertise that makes it possible to identify evidences, whether it’s DNA samples, traces of blood, handwritten notes, etc. When the collected evidences are challenging and beyond unveiling, the crime laboratory team will forward these to the forensic team, which deals with the more complex processes.

5. Building a Case – Once all evidences are collected, examined, and analyzed, detectives will now have ample arsenal to build a case. At this juncture, they will start analyzing likely and possible scenarios and theories that link back to the murder based on the testimony of the witnesses and other evidences. Each lead detective has his or her own methodology of solving the murder case and these methods can help solve the murder case.
6. Conduct Personal Interview – Based on witnesses’ testimonies, any person that may possibly be linked to the murder will be invited to police headquarters by the detectives assigned to the case for questioning. Any body involved or connected to the crime is considered a suspect unless proven otherwise. During the interview, investigators would ask potential suspects questions in order to establish certain facts that may be crucial to the investigation.
• Where was the suspect at the time of the crime?
• What is the suspect’s relationship to the victim?
• Does the suspect have an alibi?
• Do the suspect have a motive for committing the crime?

The interview will be carefully recorded. Detectives can bring evidences, photos and conduct a background check of everyone linked or connected to the murder. This may include getting access to phone records, financial records, etc.

7. Brainstorming – Lead detectives and key persons in the investigating team will brainstorm and try to connect all gathered evidences, transcripts of interviews with witnesses and suspects, possible alibis, theories, laboratory and forensic results in order to establish the case. This phase is important since this is when the murderer is identified through the process of elimination.
8. Identifying the Murderer – Through the efforts of the investigating team, collected murder data, and laboratory results, it is now possible to identify the offender and prepare for arrest.

These are the basic procedures when solving murder cases.