“We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow.” – Ted Bundy
Curiosity landed me in a Crime Scene and Crime Lab class at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs my senior year in high school. At the time, I thought I wanted to become an athletic trainer seeing as I had a background in sports as a varsity soccer player and swimmer; but my career goals quickly changed after studying with a private investigator in that college course. We quickly began learning the past murder cases of my hometown, some of which were from early years in my childhood, and some, like the Columbine shooting and the Jon-Bonnet Ramsey, that were fresher in my memory—and that my professor had actually worked on. We heard audio clips, saw some videos that the perpetrators were dumb enough to create, and saw some pretty gruesome police photographs. Soon we were learning how to analyze bloodstains in order to tell what force was used on a body and where the body was when it was struck.
My career choice was slowly moving to that of a private investigator when one class we ended up at the Criminal Justice Center: here we toured the evidence facility and learned what is collected from a crime scene and how long that evidence must be held before being destroyed. There were rooms of guns, money, drugs, and computers; all of which were crucial to different cases—some of which we had been analyzing in class. The final stop at the Criminal Justice Center, the part that many in my class were dreading but that I had anticipated was—no not the jail—but the morgue (yes I said it, its not a typo!). As we entered the building much of the class fell silent, and cast their eyes downward, yet I was excited to learn more. We went through the toxicology and histology lab where they analyze the blood and tissue samples from all bodies, and then we hit the floor.
It particularly reeked that day since there were two heavily (you will understand in a minute) decomposing bodies in there. They were green and black and one even had maggots coming out of his face. The other had major skin slippage—where the materials that connect the skin to the rest of the body have decomposed so if you touch the skin it will slide right off. From where I was standing, I could see right down the spinal column, through his skull, of Mr. Maggot. That was when I knew that becoming a Forensic Pathologist was what I was meant to do. Another gentleman was taken out of the freezer and we briefly looked over his insides like we would if we were doing a formal autopsy.
By far, the trip to the Criminal Justice Center was the most enjoyable part of the class, however, we were also assigned to study a certain serial killer (hence Ted Bundy) and that just reaffirmed that I wanted to work in this field. Since that day, I have been back to the morgue to get more educational questions answered and that is how (at least partially) I ended up at Trinity. In order to become a forensic pathologist I need to get my Doctorate degree and from there go to specialty school. I chose Trinity because I thought that it would be the best possible preparation for Medical School.
I hope that through my experiences at Trinity and personal knowledge about Forensic Pathology, I will be able to share the experiences of the road to Medical School while imparting knowledge into why this career field is often taboo, but also interesting.
