New technology creates 3-D image of crime scenes

Technology being introduced to investigators across Ohio helps them create a 3-D image of a crime scene that will project every detail to scale -- from the paths of bullets to the blood stains.

This new technology comes in the form of a 3-D laser scanner. It sits on a tripod, rotates 360 degrees, captures images and takes laser measurements that will later be put into a computer and translated into a 3-D image of the scene.

The Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation is already using one scanner, shared throughout the state, and four more are expected to be rolled out in October.

"It takes the crime scene and it scans it with lasers and then it's basically a 3-D image," said BCI Crime Scene Unit agent Bryan White. "It will pick up blood stains, it'll pick up bullet holes. It's actually so detailed a couple of the ones we've done outside it'll actually pick up rocks on the pavement."

The scanners can read details up to 900 feet away, although investigators have the power to reduce that if the crime scene is smaller. Officers can view the created image before they leave the crime scene, but for a more polished finished product, they work with forensic animators from the Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission.

But that product is finished quickly.

"One case we used it on ... was a homicide," White said. "It was an outside scene, we scanned it for the agency, and the following morning we were able to sit town with the prosecutors and the investigator and actually walk through the scene and it was very helpful for them to see that early on in the investigation."

The scanners are particularly useful in complex crime scenes -- homicides, officer-involved shootings, etc. They can't bend around corners, but White said investigators can move the scanner and have it take more than a dozen scans if necessary, that will then be stitched together.

One scan takes about five minutes.

Eve Mueller, deputy director of communications for the Attorney General's Office, said OOCIC, a section of the Attorney General's Office, owns the scanner BCI is already using. The other four BCI will purchase for a total of about $260,000.

Once the scanners are implemented, one will be in use in Southwest Ohio, available to aid in crime investigations in Greater Cincinnati.

White, who is based in Southwest Ohio, said the closest the scanner has gotten so far to Cincinnati was Troy. A news release from the Attorney General's Office said the technology has been used about a dozen times throughout Ohio, including a homicide investigation at a Cleveland Heights bar.

White said there are some growing pains associated with the scanners, but officials hope to one day take the technology into the courtroom.

"This new technology helps our agents capture more information quickly when they investigate a complicated crime scene," Attorney General Mike DeWine stated in a news release. "The end product also provides an accurate visual for jurors, which helps county prosecutors with their criminal cases."

The new technology hasn't reduced time at a scene, White said, but it is an additional tool. Investigators always take their own photos of a scene, but if they need a measurement, they can use the projection to take it.

"It's probably one of the best technologies out there right now as far as documenting a crime scene," White said. "You can actually walk though the scene. It's pretty powerful."