Crime-based TV shows and movies provide powerful entertainment. But most of them fail to present a true-to-life depiction of how forensic investigators work. According to a former homicide detective, Breaking Bad, CSI, Zodiac, Sherlock, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective all manage to botch significant details about crime scenes.
The forensic details ‘Ace Ventura’ scriptwriters got wrong
In a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair, retired homicide detective Rod Demery revealed several times writers stretched the truth when creating crime scenes for dramatic effect. The former Shreveport, Louisiana gumshoe started by explaining the errors in a clip from the 1994 Jim Carrey comedic romp, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
In the clip, Ventura shows up uninvited to a crowded crime scene. Noting that real crime scenes are carefully controlled spaces, a surprise visitor would never be allowed due to the possibility of contamination. When visitors are allowed, explained Demery, a police officer typically screens them. He would requires their names and other info before letting them enter the scene.
Another thing Ace Ventura gets wrong is the way one crime scene investigator used a finger to touch a drop of blood on the balcony railing instead of collecting the potential biohazard in the proper fashion. That would never happen, said Demery.
‘Sherlock’ crime scene fails
Airing from 2010 to 2017, Sherlock brought Arthur Conan Doyle’s 19th-century classic into modern London. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the oh-so-clever private eye, the Emmy-winning series botched key details about crime scenes and how they are preserved.
For instance, when Holmes shows up at a crime scene and buzzes to be let in, his actions clearly indicate he was not supposed to be there. In fact, says Demery, requesting unauthorized access to an active crime scene is against the law. So is sneaking through a window or kicking in a door to gain access to the scene of a crime. Both of these actions were shown in the clip. Both felonious acts could have landed Holmes in jail if he’d done it in real life.
Another Sherlock clip that Demery analyzed showed the sleuth sticking a gloved hand down the throat of a homicide victim. Again, this is something a real-life detective would not do. Dead bodies are under the jurisdiction of the local coroner. If a private investigator or police detective did anything more than outline or photograph a corpse, they could be prosecuted for breaking the law.
What made retired Detective Demery an expert crime solver
Before Demery joined the Shreveport Police Department and became a detective, his life was forever changed by the murder of his own mother, Barbara Sue Demery. The killing took place in Sweeny, Texas. At the time, the future investigator was just three years old and in the care of his great-grandparents in Louisiana.
Demery and his brother, Patrick, were told their mom had been murdered during a failed robbery attempt. For decades, they believed the story.
Once he was a full-fledged police detective, however, Demery took a new look at the 1969 case. A contemporaneous police report revealed details he’d been unaware of. These included a pattern of abuse against Barbara by her much older husband, Jerry Armstead, who was not her children’s father.
While investigating the decades-old case, Demery also learned his mom had an extramarital affair with someone named “Nelson.” Armstead was friends with the local police chief. The real kicker: Demery found out Armstead had been charged with “murder without malice” — the modern equivalent of manslaughter. The man was sentenced to a mere five months of probation without a proper homicide investigation.
On the TV series, Murder Chose Me, Demery explained further failures of 1969 investigators. These included giving the gun used to fire nine bullets into his mother back to Armstead. The man later used the firearm to pay the lawyer who got him off so lightly.
Ultimately, Demery met face-to-face with Armstead who was close to death. The man admitted he “never meant to hurt” his murdered mom, reports Starcasm. “If your role is to work a murder case and solve a murder case, then you should work it and solve it,” Demery explained. “Sometimes I like to say that I was so devoted because of what happened to my mother, and what my family experienced.”
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