Trip Notes

 I had a choice at Writers Police Academy/Killercon--it was either take a lot of pictures and careful notes or watch and listen.  I chose watch and listen.  The chance for photos was gone, but I could write up notes from what  I remembered, later.

Once again it was a fascinating weekend with some differences than previous ones.  This year there were several scenarios.  The first showed who came when once a dead body had been found.  While it was interesting, it was also a slow and tedious process that would put you to sleep if it was in a book.  

Actually, Bruce Coffin, a writer and former detective covered that in his workshop.  He said that unless you were writing a police procedural, all the nit picky details weren't necessary, but the information he was giving was more to flavor our books with bits of authenticity.  

The second scenario was set up for us to walk through and work as a team.  The program was held at a technical college and they have stuff to set up a crime scene with.  I saw a room set up like a convenience store. Our set up was supposed to be an apartment.  There dummies as the victims and a living room, bedroom, kitchen and closet set up with props.  We were given the story the police had been told.  The dummies were supposed to be an intruder and the woman who let him in.  The narrative was from the woman's husband who claimed the intruder had killed his wife and he had killed the intruder trying to protect her.  There was also a car outside for us to look at that was supposed to belong to the intruder.

Our top was to see if what we saw matched up with the husband's story and what didn't.  Later we found out that it was based on a real crime with one thing left out.  The husband had a girlfriend.  Even without that, everyone had agreed that his story didn't hold up and that he had killed his wife.  It turned out that he had set up the intruder who was someone his wife worked with.

Another highlight was the workshop put on by someone who sketched suspects from witnesses description.  What I had never understood was that the artist wasn't really starting from scratch, but used  the normal  proportions of a face, correct position of eyes, etc.

But always the real interest for me was to see the personalty's of the presenters.  I always wonder how police officers deal with their jobs.  The most poignant was a detective who started his presentation by talking about his teenage daughter who had been killed by a drunk driver.  He had been on duty that night, but thankfully wasn't on the scene, but he was devastated by it.  I could only imagine how someone whose job was to protect people would feel when he couldn't protect his own daughter from harm.  He made it clear that he had gone through a lot of dark times, but had found a way out of it.  He had written a book about his daughter and all the profits were used for scholarships at the technical college.

The detective who investigated drug deaths was very different.  It was clear that he kept a distance and felt a coldness toward the victims.  But it was also fascinating how he was able to use texts and cellphone locations to zero in on who had provided the drugs and could be charged in the  death.

I met a lot of nice people and even got some insight on what's going on with Romance Writers of America since I'd heard they were declaring bankruptcy.  Apparently, it had to do with a contract with a hotel which it seems has been worked out.

I'm glad I went as it seems like this might have been the last one.   And now to use what I learned in the next Molly book.