Investigating Staged Crime Scenes (2 Day/16 Hour Course)
The concept of staged scenes is a well known event to experienced detectives and understood to occur in a multitude of different types of crimes. However, much of the contemporary police professional literature tends to focus upon a limited areas such as the purposeful staging or posing of a sexual homicide victim within a crime scene. Such as, “where the perpetrator changes elements of the scene to make a death appear to be a suicide or accidental in order to cover up a murder; thereby, altering the scene and often providing false statements in support of the alterations to purposefully misdirect the police investigation.

Although the sexual stylized positioning of a body and changing a murder scene to resemble an accident or suicide are certainly examples of staged crime scenes, these few examples do not adequately explain or define the full continuum of the staged crime scenes. To better understand the dynamics of these events, this course explains the nature of “staging” and explains how to approach the incident from a crime scene and investigative perspective. Students will learn the three distinct categories of staged scenes and how to recognized them. The intent of this course is to provide the crime scene and criminal investigator with a greater understanding and additional data concerning the act of crime scene staging as applied to the investigative equation, “Why + How = Who.”

Course Instruction Topics:
The Concept of Staging

Motives and Types of Staging

Primary Staging

Secondary Staging

Tertiary Staging or Incidental Scene Alterations
Victimology

Investigating Staged Scenes

Staged Property Crimes

Robbery, Kidnapping and Personal Injury
Interrupted Burglaries and Home Invasions
Homicide Staged as Suicide

Staged Sex Crimes and False Complaints

Working with Prosecutors