CASE

#

00-17163

Case #00-17163 is a fictional murder mystery and an experiment in storytelling through documents used in the forensic investigation of homicide. Created for print and incorporating few words, the story relies on evidence collected from the crime scene and then processed and analyzed by experts.

This evidence comprises crime-scene photographs, all arranged in sequence over sixteen pages. DNA analysis, fingerprint records, hair and fiber samples, polygraph tests, chemical probes, transcriptions of surveillance recordings and telephone calls, voice analysis, handwriting analysis, blood-spatter analysis, and investigators’ reports: a mountain of forensic evidence in search of a suspect. Transcribed witness testimonies run horizontally across the pages. A yellow thread winds through the collected materials, plotting the path of an unknown investigator as he or she connects the dots and constructs a theory of the crime. Project advisers included a polygraph expert, a criminalist, a forensic odontologist, a criminal attorney, video technicians, forensic investigators, a psychiatrist, an undercover police officer, a medical examiner, a forensic document analyst, and a blood-spatter pattern-analysis expert.

The project was created for ZONE 6, Incorporations, edited by Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter.