[tanksoldier]

Housekeeping in and of itself wouldn’t provide the knowledge of WHAT to clean and what evidence was left that needs to be removed. You’d be amazed where DNA can be found.

Until very recently I was a sheriffs deputy in a small, rural, understaffed and under funded sheriffs office.

When I got an unattended death call my two main responsibilities where to determine if unusual circumstances existed and to keep the scene intact for the coroner. If I thought there was something strange, it was my job to call for a detective... we only had three so usually that meant getting dispatch to contact the on call guy.

I have only the most rudimentary crime scene training. Unless there’s a gunshot wound or a knife sticking out there’s a lot I would miss. Most often I relied on the deputy coroner who responded for their opinion. If I didn’t see anything strange and they didn’t see anything strange no detective would be dispatched and the coroner would conduct their investigation and forward us their findings.

In a few cases their investigation pointed to possible suicide and in one case probable homicide that wasn’t obvious to me just from looking at the scene.

So, it would be possible to hide signs of foul play from a patrol unit.... but VERY hard to hide it from a coroner, and very hard to hide it from a better funded and manned department that had trained detectives and forensics personnel to send to every scene.... not just deaths but robberies, kidknappings, computer crimes. They might not know who did it, but they would know something happened.

...the point being, WHERE you commit your crime matters.