fandomhigh | Forensic Science Fifth Period 3/7

In place of the overhead today there was a flat screen TV set up in the lab and Abby was busying talking to an older gentleman as the students entered.

	"Hey everyone, this is Ducky." Abby waved towards the flatscreen. "Dr.Donald Mallard is the chief medical examiner for NCIS. He's British."
	"Really, Abigail, you didn't even bring up my glory days at Eton."Ducky leaned closer to the screen. "I used to be quite the cricket-"
[Unknown site tag]	"It's an hour long class, Ducky." Abby smiled. Hopping up on the counter, she looked at the class. "Ducky's going to teach you the different ways to discover when people died. We've talked about temperature but that's just the normal way."
	"Here at NCIS, we excel at the abnormal." Ducky said with a smile and cleared his throat. "Now, most TOD's can be determined by liver or rectal temperature. That's only an option for the recently deceased.The decomposed, the skeletons, the men and women who suffered, those poor souls don't avail themselves to simple thermometer checks. Once we happened upon a poor general who had fallen beneath the icy waters of a lake. Of course her temperature would indicate that she had been dead for a long period of time when in actuality, she had only perished hours earlier."
	Abby pointed to the table in front of the lab. On the table were calculators, decomposition worksheets, food spoil data, insect diagrams and other forensic equipment. As Abby held up an item, Ducky explained how they were used.
	"I understand that Abigail has prepared a crime scene for you in which the poor victim didn't perish immediately. In those cases you need to become more of a detective. You see, those with the badges aren't the only ones finding a killer. The medical examiner and the forensics technicians are an important cog in the wheel of justice."
	"Damn straight." Abby said with a grin. "Does anyone have any questions for Ducky?"

After the questions, Abby pointed towards the door. "Now to the crime scene!" She opened the lab door onto the side of a hot summer road. The blacktop wavered with shimmers of heat and nearby was a bridge, a small tarp hanging from one side to protect the corpse from the elements.

"The police found Conner alive this morning. He lived just long enough to tell them that he was the victim of a hit and run by a red car." Abby looked over at the tarp. "Then he died. The police can't catch the killer without more to go on. That's where you come in."

[ooc: plz to be ~~waiting for the ocd!~~ playing!]

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Questions for Abby and Ducky

Handout
Time of death:
Cause of death:
Specific injuries
Objects to take back to the lab for testing:

[ooc: Handout = things to find out in crime scene]

Lucas approached Abby as soon as he got a chance. "Uh, sorry about missing the last class."

"Is everything okay?" Abby asked, concerned.

Lucas actually looked sheepish. "I found a portal that went back to the 1800s, went through, got stuck there and had to fight off samurai fishmen with the locals and Katara while waiting for a rescue party."

Abby blinked for a long moment.

"I don't suppose you brought me back a souvenir?"

"Oh. Yeah actually, I did." He went to his bag and pulled out an arrow. It was broken, but not entirely snapped, and was silver-tipped. "I stole it off some guy named Van Helsing. I thought it was pretty cool."

Parker frowned, looking thoughtful. "How long is it before that temperature thing is no good for telling when someone died? A day or two, or longer?"

"There are a lot of variables to consider in the answering of that question." Ducky replied, starting to pace a little. "The condition of the body, the elements surrounding the scene, the method of death, even the wind and sunlight on the day of the crime and the following days all factor-"

Abby coughed loudly from her spot on the counter.

"Oh, right." Ducky smiled at Parker. "In a normal case, my dear, you can determine a TOD within the first 24 to 36 hours. You can measure in the 48 to 72 hour range but of course at that duration of time you won't be able to calculate a specific time and other methods would work better to determine TOD."

Parker blinked her eyes wide as Ducky got started, then relaxed as he became more specific. "Got it. So after three days, it gets a lot less certain. Thank you, Dr. Mallard. And thanks for assisting today."

"Not a problem at all. Anything I can do to help Abigail and her young progeny." Ducky said. "Are you looking to pursue a career in forensics?"

"No," Parker said carefully, "But I'm going to be working security for a large international firm at some point, probably. There's a lot of troubleshooting in that job, and I'd like to know what to look for if the worst happens." As it inevitably would. "Plus it's just very interesting. Much better than a chemistry class."

"So, what other methods for determining time of death are there?"

Forensic Science Fifth Period 3/7

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