FBI Wins Marathon in Sprint

source: www.cagle.com

Congratulations to the FBI, I must admit I thought quick arrests in such complex situations only happened this quickly on television. A piece of a back pack, an old stove top cooker and a grainy photograph and the forensic scientists have all they need.


The backpack narrowed it down to students, tourists, cyclists or terrorists. How many of them could there be in Boston? A college city, on a public holiday, during a major sporting event? The evidence of a backpack did rule out hipsters as they all have shoulder “mailbag” style bags. And they never would have left the bag behind. They do not leave it anywhere, even their own home. Going to the movies, shoulder bag, dinner, shoulder bag, ride on a vintage bike with a front basket whilst wearing your grandfather’s trousers, button-down pattern-print shirt with tie and loafers – shoulder bag. They could be going to a black tie Broadway premiere and be walking the red carpet in a tuxedo they would still have their slightly worn shoulder bag firmly in place. You never know when someone is going to give you an important document that needs to be filed!

The cooker helped narrow down the search. Students often only have one pot, that also serves as a plate, cereal bowl, casserole dish and meth lab. Law enforcement agents now just had to visit all of the student accommodation to see which ‘kitchen’ no longer had a pot. (insert marijuana joke here).

The grainy photograph showed a person wearing a hoodie. One could easily be mislead to believe that this offers no assistance to investigators. If so one is forgetting the computer geek every law enforcement has lurking in a back room just waiting for their moment to shine during one scene approximately 2/3 of the way through the episode.

A click of a button here, a scroll of a mouse there then project it up onto a multifunctional, interactive screen and the photo is suddenly as clear as if the suspect had posed for one of those airbrushed, soft-focus-lens studio portraits that only girlfriends and mothers ever seem to enjoy.

To complicate this investigation, the crime took place outside in broad daylight. From all of the police dramas I have ever seen clues can only be found in the dark, with the assistance of a very small torch. When will criminals learn not to leave clues that glow in the dark?

And semen?

On television, regardless of the crime there is always semen, irrespective of the crime. Burglary, semen. Murder, semen. Assault, semen. White collar investment fraud, semen. Except rape, inexplicably there is never any semen present in cases of rape, or other sexual crimes. I am sure some criminals do get sexually aroused as a result of their actions, but struggle to believe that they are all spontaneously climaxing at the scene. Alternatively are criminals masturbating during their crimes? Burglars are demanding cash from the 7-Eleven attendant, gun in one hand, erection in the other.

The Boston police would have needed a lot of blue lights to find the semen in such a large crime scene. I pity the person that then had to sort through the samples to determine which belonged to possible suspects and not just runners pleasuring themselves as part of their own personal celebrations for completing the marathon, or exhibitionistic spectators trying to heighten their arousal by having a quickie in such a public space.

Investigating officers did get to use infrared cameras. Not that they really needed them. A guy noticed blood on his boat sitting on its trailer in his back yard. He pulled back the tarpaulin to find a young man covered in blood hiding inside. His suspicions were further heightened when he realised the stowaway was wearing a hoodie and looking for cooking equipment amongst the stored camping equipment.

The property owner calls the police. The police attend. He tells the police that the suspect is lying in the back of his boat, near the camping equipment and that no-one has left or entered the boat since I first pulled saw him in there. The police are all “that’s here-say and speculation, we need to prove it for ourselves. Besides we have these really cool goggles and cameras we want to use. So far in this investigation we have not been able to use our torches or semen lights, we have to use something.”

The case did have a shoot out with one of the suspects. All the case needs now is a car chase and a love interest and this is a ready-made Hollywood script. Producers are hoping that during the trial it is revealed that the motive for this violence was that the two brothers were both jilted lovers with the a head chef (hence the cooking pot – come one keep up) of an inner city restaurant who coincidently had won the marathon some 10 years earlier and was now financially profiting from the boost in tourism the race brings to the area.