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We are the only forensic medical center for the state of Maryland and we cover the entire
state from western Maryland to Ocean City and the adjacent waterways.
The law defines what cases that were responsible for investigating and that includes homicides,
suicides, anything by violence, if it's a work related injury, basically other than
somebody who has a known medical condition as being treated by a doctor and if you have
cancer, heart disease or something like that where they know what killed you, then chances
are you're going to come through this office.
So it's going to include motor vehicle collisions and fires and drownings and shootings and
all varieties of violence and about 60% of the cases are natural causes.
It's still the most common cause of death, it's cardiovascular disease so it stands
to reason that that's going to be the bulk of the people that come through here.
We have a one of a kind collection of miniature death scenes that were created in the 1930s
and 40s by Francis Clesner Lee, a wealthy Chicago socialite who had an interest in forensic
science and they were used, they were created, they're basically a 1930s version of virtual
reality and they're still used for training today, the lessons that they hold are just
as important today as they were in the 1930s.
We have a training facility, it's called Scarf Petahouse, it was donated by the mystery
writer Patricia Cornwell and named after Casey Scarf Petahouse who is her protagonist and
it's a life-size facility, it looks I guess like a studio apartment where it's a classroom
really where the forensic investigation department uses it to train the FIs and they stage death
scenes in there and with volunteers living in humans wearing makeup to look like there's
been some violence and then they will go in and train to evaluate and assess the scene
and to process it the way they would any scene.
Basically the state has an interest in knowing why people die so that's an obvious thing
that there's a, in many cases they made criminal matters or it's a rule out that it's a criminal
matter so that's a large part of it too so that the information that is generated is
basically evidence that's used in court maybe used for prosecution but we also serve as
an early warning system for infectious disease for example so that when there's flu cases
maybe identified coming through here first or environmental deaths if there's hypothermia
or hyperthermia and when you hear of a notification that there's been heat related deaths and
that information comes from here so that's another thing that we do is that we have that
public health role.
