Between dinner and seeing Persepolis last night, four of us got into this discussion re: the Heath Ledger death though only as a backdrop. Here's the scenario:
You come into a friend's house. He's lying dead in his bed. It's almost certain, he has died from a drug-related and self-induced incident. Strewn around his bedroom are other illegal drugs, pornographic material, letters from his mistress (his wife lives in his other house), a computer open to his email screen or to a porno cite, a cellphone that probably has calls to a drug dealer, a mistress, etc. on it. Would you tidy things up for him? Would you get rid of some of the damaging objects in his room? Or would you regard it as a possible crime scene and sacrosanct?
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11 comments:
I hate cleaning. :)
But in this scenario, tidying up might not matter. If you call it in as a suspicious death and the place becomes a crime scene, there'll be yellow tape between the wife and the embarrassing material. If you don't make the call (or clean up before doing so), the death will probably still be considered suspicious and prompt an investigation, so cell phone records, drugs stashed elsewhere in the house, etc. may still come to light.
Also, don't discount the possibility that the wife knows what's going on.
We split 3-1. Three of us would touch nothing. We know the CSI protocol too well to touch stuff. My husband, a rebel if there ever was one, said a good friend should get rid of any incriminating evidence for his friend. I'd be afraid to remove evidence of a crime. It may not initially look like one but could be found to be that later.
What a great question!
I suppose it would depend on how I *really* felt about the person...and it seems to me that I might not know until that moment of horror tested and revealed it.
If you cleaned up, you could well be charged with the crime of interfering with a police investigaition. I wouldn't touch a thing. Besides, maybe it would be nice to die with a porno web site on your screen. His obiturary might say that he lived life to its fullest right up to the end.
Okay, Chuck. What it was your father dead in his bed and what you found in his bedroom would break your mother's heart? Or what if it was your son-in-law's bedroom. Whoops, that's getting a little too scary.
Well, a younger me would minimally collect samples of the pharmaceuticals. And probably the porn. I'm reminded one time, years ago, a friend and I were hitch-hiking through Canada and a friendly, family man picked us up and drove us to his house in Montreal and had his wife feed us and make a bed for us for the night. My buddy hit the medicine cabinet and scored some Ty-3s. The next day we moved around downtown Montreal feeling like one of those glass medical jars stuffed with clean white cotton balls...But now, going back to the original question, I have a real life situation. When I was around 17, I found the elderly lady next door lying dead, half in her bathroom, half in her hallway. The water was running from the fawcet. The toilet was left unflushed with a bowel movement. Her dress was hiked up, underwear at her ankles and some shit on the floor between her legs. Me and a quick-arriving relative cleaned up the shit, flushed the toilet, hiked up her underware then called Warren Police. We straighten up, we had to, it was a dignity thing. But the cops investigated for an overdose/suicide.
Lucky lady to merit some dignity from a neighbor's hand at the end.
I'm awful. I might clean up, but the first thing I'd so is go through snooping to see if they had anything about me written anywhere to see what they really thought of me.
I love that this is your dinner conversation though. Good stuff.
It's a nice change from the election patter, which we talk about most of the time. The problem of living and working with political scientists.
I've been tsk-tsking over the plot line on "The Wire" where they're tampering with the crime scene, creating a serial killer who does not exist.
Hmmm.. my closest friend, a man I loved like a father and a highly decorated retired cop died under shall we say awkward circumstances (let's just say he died "happy" and the woman he was "with" was not his wife). The responding officers (including my ex-BF) were delayed because the gal hestitated in calling 911. Anyway, the cops totally covered up the circumstances.
As a future forensics investigator, I'd have to think long and hard about that - first, if there was someone else with me - even a colleague - or even just a friend - no way - they would basically own you, or get you in worse trouble if they blabbed.
The first thing we were told when we started grad school, is that we must be like Caesar's Wife - above reproach, but I don't know - if it was me who was part of the group of officers who responed to my best friend's death, then yeah, I probably would have gone along with what was done, or at least agreed not to tell about the cover-up.
I recently heard that the dead basically have no right to privacy - sad but true in this "information age." People made bad choices in life haveto live with the consequences in death.
Great question! And some very interesting answers.
The dead may have no right to privacy but I wonder if the living do. I think I would tend to leave a site untouched for fear of it turning into a murder scene, but it must be tempting to make the death scene look "above reproach."
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