Funniest Item Requested to be Processed

[Cindy Homer]

A toothbrush from the state prison used to sodomize an inmate (bristle end). Thankfully they cancelled the request. But they reported the inmate had a large cavity.

[Bill Leo]

Tow stolen dolphin statues from the entrance of the closed down Marineland of the Pacific,
and one giant ceramic chicken about 7 feet tall, impounded at a police tow yard.

[Guest]

One of my colleagues processed a Viagra trial packet that had been located in the woods at the scene of an illegal deer kill. Ahh, the mental picture is frightening!

[Shane Turnidge]

A Polaroid picture of the thiefs hairy back-side left at the scene of an electronics store break-in.

(index finger on the rear of the picture )

Shane

[Norberto Rivera]

One of my colleagues received an actual uncooked chicken (I think it was Tyson brand ) along with a request for latent processing. The chicken was left in the driveway of a stalking victim's home with a knife in it. (no luck with the chicken or the knife)

[Tania]

I've had the photocopies of evidence (checks, ID's, etc.) to process. I guess they thought the latents would be copied too?!
Paperclips
toothpicks
bricks

The best is the request to process found property to see if they can determine the owner.....'cause my backlog isn't big enough......

[Isearch4clues]

I have had a number of odd request, but I had an officer bring me a pumpkin to process that had been thrown through a vehicles windshield.

[Ernie Hamm]

I was reading the latest post on ‘funniest’ items and noticed ‘brick’ in the previous listing. While that is funny and somewhat unusual, it has probably a requested item that has been made many times (See Charles Parker post). I just thought people might enjoy seeing about some ‘strange but true’ published successes:

Through development techniques: Cement block, rock, bones, antlers, horns, ivory (fresh, but review Kathy Saviers’ post on finished ivory), cigar, egg shell, bamboo (living), melted nylon of pantyhose, mud, clothing, onion and tree bark. The following were instances of patent prints on unusual surfaces: mushroom, banana leaf and fingernail. There are probably as many unusual surfaces accounts that have not been published.

This is why a good answer to contributors asking, “Can you get prints off…??”, may be, ‘do not know until we try’ or at least see the item.

Ernie

“Everybody sees how you seem, however, only some know who you are.”

[Neville]

Likewise, I had a 2 foot Dildo. Not that that was the problem, in those days we used an Argon Laser at Auckland University, I had a few strange looks from students and professors. But things didn't improve when I went back after staining with Safranine O, for the uneducated this is a red stain!!!!! It got worse; in court I was handed this dildo whilst giving evidence and left standing there for about an hour with this USED dildo covered in red stain, think I went as red as the stain. I was being questioned on why I never had it tested for blood, unfortunately I didn't see that they thought the stain was blood and I knew it was Safranine O.

I learned a big lesson that day.

[Pat A. Wertheim]

Okay, I've had my share. Like the rusty piece of rebar broken out of concrete at a construction site, subsequently thrown over a fence down the block into a swimming pool where it chipped the gunite in the deep end of the pool. The officer wanted me to swim down into the deep end of the pool, recover the rebar, and fingerprint it to catch the vandal who had done it. Oh yes, and he also wanted me to fingerprint the weathered redwood fence the criminal had pitched the rebar over.

Today another one came in. I opened the evidence envelope to find a 9 mm slug that had been shot into a brick wall. Now I know the philosophy we subscribe to -- "You never know until you try." Sorry folks, I wrote the slug up as "not suitable."