Behind the Yellow Tape: On the Road With Some of America's Hardest Working Crime Scene Investigators by Jarrett Hallcox, Amy Welch Page A
Authors: Jarrett Hallcox, Amy Welch
Tags: General, True Crime
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years old. Gall kidnapped twelve-year-old Lisa Jansen as she walked to school, then raped and shot her. That violent crime had an incredible impact on Linda and has stayed with her throughout her life. A Boone County jury found Gall guilty, though he was mentally impaired, and sentenced him to die—the first person sentenced to death after the reinstatement of the death penalty in Kentucky.
The case floundered for more than twenty years on appeals, Gall never paying his penalty, until the case finally wove its way through the court system in 2001. Ultimately, the original decision was overturned because of the unconstitutionality of not considering Gall to be insane. “It’s a true American tragedy,” Linda told reporters after the decision came down. A case like that one is what makes Linda who she is. But even in her wildest dreams, she never thought she would be the commonwealth’s attorney by the young age of thirty. But sometimes destiny cannot be avoided, and things work out for a reason. Married with three kids, Smith wears her prosecutorial blue blazer in court with a pink blouse to “show her feminine side,” confident and considered by many to be the most intimidating person they have ever met. “It’s amazing to me that people think that,” Linda tells us as we joke about a questionable e-mail she forwarded to her male colleagues in the office. To us, she’s just like we are—hardworking but laid back, loves to laugh. Just don’t end up on the wrong side of the fence in her county. As the Boone County CSIs, who are also graduates of our program, say, “She is a bulldog, and she bites.”
In times past, before Linda was elected to office, the defense lawyers in the area ruled the roost. According to Linda, the term prosecutor had become largely trivialized, and defense attorneys took control, informing the prosecution what they would take as a plea deal, instead of the prosecutors making the offer themselves. Often, that’s how the cases would be adjudicated; unfortunately, this is still a common practice. The reasons are many, but it can frequently be attributed to burnout, either from the police making good cases that lazy prosecutors won’t prosecute or from bad cases that the prosecution can’t do anything with. Eventually, one or both give up and take an easy deal. “I don’t think you guys realize the effect the academy has had on building better cases,” Linda goes on to explain. “In the past, the focus was always on making arrests and hoping we got more from there. To be truthful, some of the best evidence we got in murder cases was after a defendant was arrested and he was sitting in jail blabbering to other inmates—jailhouse snitches were our best witnesses in those cases. But that’s all changed.”
Boone County Sheriff’s Department, Kentucky, personnel: Tim Carnahan
and Brian Cochran, along with Boone County prosecutor Linda Tally Smith.
HALLCOX & WELCH, LLC
In 2002 Sheriff Michael Helmig of the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, in Kentucky, decided that his department would have the best crime scene unit in the country—period. In order to do that, he first wanted all of his crime scene investigators to get the best training available, and so he sent them to the National Forensic Academy. Once they graduated from the academy, he dedicated them to working crime scenes exclusively. Today three graduates of the program work in his department, two specifically dedicated to the unit—Detectives Tim Carnahan and Brian Cochran. And Linda works very closely with them, not only to understand the cases they work but to better understand what they do to gather the evidence—and how they do it. That way, she can talk intelligently in court about the case. Many prosecutors across the country view their offices as private islands, completely separate from that of law enforcement. “I’ve never believed that, because I believe it is my job to work closely with them to build
The case floundered for more than twenty years on appeals, Gall never paying his penalty, until the case finally wove its way through the court system in 2001. Ultimately, the original decision was overturned because of the unconstitutionality of not considering Gall to be insane. “It’s a true American tragedy,” Linda told reporters after the decision came down. A case like that one is what makes Linda who she is. But even in her wildest dreams, she never thought she would be the commonwealth’s attorney by the young age of thirty. But sometimes destiny cannot be avoided, and things work out for a reason. Married with three kids, Smith wears her prosecutorial blue blazer in court with a pink blouse to “show her feminine side,” confident and considered by many to be the most intimidating person they have ever met. “It’s amazing to me that people think that,” Linda tells us as we joke about a questionable e-mail she forwarded to her male colleagues in the office. To us, she’s just like we are—hardworking but laid back, loves to laugh. Just don’t end up on the wrong side of the fence in her county. As the Boone County CSIs, who are also graduates of our program, say, “She is a bulldog, and she bites.”
In times past, before Linda was elected to office, the defense lawyers in the area ruled the roost. According to Linda, the term prosecutor had become largely trivialized, and defense attorneys took control, informing the prosecution what they would take as a plea deal, instead of the prosecutors making the offer themselves. Often, that’s how the cases would be adjudicated; unfortunately, this is still a common practice. The reasons are many, but it can frequently be attributed to burnout, either from the police making good cases that lazy prosecutors won’t prosecute or from bad cases that the prosecution can’t do anything with. Eventually, one or both give up and take an easy deal. “I don’t think you guys realize the effect the academy has had on building better cases,” Linda goes on to explain. “In the past, the focus was always on making arrests and hoping we got more from there. To be truthful, some of the best evidence we got in murder cases was after a defendant was arrested and he was sitting in jail blabbering to other inmates—jailhouse snitches were our best witnesses in those cases. But that’s all changed.”
Boone County Sheriff’s Department, Kentucky, personnel: Tim Carnahan
and Brian Cochran, along with Boone County prosecutor Linda Tally Smith.
HALLCOX & WELCH, LLC
In 2002 Sheriff Michael Helmig of the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, in Kentucky, decided that his department would have the best crime scene unit in the country—period. In order to do that, he first wanted all of his crime scene investigators to get the best training available, and so he sent them to the National Forensic Academy. Once they graduated from the academy, he dedicated them to working crime scenes exclusively. Today three graduates of the program work in his department, two specifically dedicated to the unit—Detectives Tim Carnahan and Brian Cochran. And Linda works very closely with them, not only to understand the cases they work but to better understand what they do to gather the evidence—and how they do it. That way, she can talk intelligently in court about the case. Many prosecutors across the country view their offices as private islands, completely separate from that of law enforcement. “I’ve never believed that, because I believe it is my job to work closely with them to build
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