How do You Become a Successful CSI?
Nancy Sulinski
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, miles to travel before I sleep.
Jared Bradley
Welcome to all things crime.
Nancy, Hey, welcome to all things crime.
Nancy Sulinski
Hey, Jared, thanks so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here on your video cast.
Jared Bradley
Oh, it’s absolutely my pleasure. So for those of you that don’t know, Nancy has been a crime scene investigator for years, and has pretty much seen it all. So she has got expertise that I think a lot of people are going to be interested in hearing about, you know, there’s a reason that shows like CSI absolutely exploded. And that’s because everybody is so interested in the true crime genre. But hearing from an actual crime scene investigator, I think is is something that we’ve we’ve really been looking forward to. So Nancy, why don’t you introduce yourself? And tell us a little bit about your background, and then you know, your history with being a CSI?
Nancy Sulinski
Okay. All right. Sounds good. So my name is Nancy Sulinski Stephens, and I am currently in my second career right now. So I work for an organization called IPTM, which is an acronym for the Institute of Police Technology and Management. So what this is, it’s a police training organization located in Jacksonville, Florida. However, we go across the nation and beyond, training various law enforcement functions to different agencies across the world. So what I do here is I am a forensics training coordinator. And what that entails is that I teach on the forensic side of the house. And I also oversee all the criminal investigations forces as well. So all the homicide forces, suicide forces, things of that nature, interviews, interrogations, that kind of thing. But my specialty lies in my first career, which was as a forensic investigator. So forensics is my specialty. And that is, that’s kind of what I’m doing right now.
Jared Bradley
So how did you get into that?
Nancy Sulinski
So that’s kind of an interesting story. My law enforcement career started in 1998. And I’ll take you back to my days of high school where I thought I knew everything. And I was kind of getting bored with school and kind of going down a bad path, skipping school a lot. I decided, with all my knowledge at age 17, that I was going to quit school. So I am in fact a college dropout, or a high school dropout, rather. And I went and got my GED. And I think my parents started to see that I was going down on a less than ideal path. So they suggested that I get a job at a local sheriff’s office. So sure enough, they had a position opened at the jail. So my very first job, right out of high school is at the county jail, I would book in inmates take their property, things of that nature. I ended up going to college and getting my formal education. From there, I ended up transferring over to the the unit that investigates child abuse cases. And as you can imagine, working in that particular type of a unit is very stressful, you can only watch so many children getting abuse before you start getting burnt out.
And traditionally 24 to 36 months is about the lifespan of somebody who’s in that unit. So I was there for about five or six years, and I decided that I was kind of having enough of it. And I went back to school and got my degree in forensics. From that point, I transferred over to our forensics unit at that same sheriff’s office. And I worked in that unit until I left and I eventually became the forensics supervisor in there. And during my time there in the forensics unit, I really kind of honed my skill sets, you know, between my training and just my experience with so many different calls, I kind of became a generalist, so I was able to do a lot of different things with crime scene processing anything from a burglary investigation all the way through a homicide investigation. And I ended up becoming very proficient in different aspects of forensic science, crime scene reconstruction, crime scene processing, blood stain pattern analysis, shooting reconstruction, buried bodies, forensic photography, kind of all those aspects that you kind of need to have to be a forensic investigator. So that’s kind of where I kind of honed my skill set. And then in 2018, IPTM, the organization that I work for now, recruited me to come over and kind of use my knowledge to train law enforcement professionals across the nation. So that’s kind of a little bit of background.
Jared Bradley
Wow. You know what I would say, especially based on where you’re at now, I would never have guessed that you had dropped out of- hadn’t finished high school. That’s incredible.
Nancy Sulinski
Yeah, it definitely was a story and like most teenagers, they think that they know everything. And luckily my parents had the wherewithal to kind of steer me and I’m very headstrong, so they have the wherewithal to steer me in a- kind of a better direction. And then from there, I kind of opened my eyes to different things and said, you know what I really need to get my life together. And I need to start being a professional. And I did a 20 year career, and loved every minute of that working in the law enforcement agency.
Jared Bradley
Yeah, especially what you were describing, you know, working for- with kids. And even though the part that you were working in is seeing the absolute worst circumstances that you can possibly imagine for kids, it still ultimately is helping them and that that had to be really fulfilling?
Nancy Sulinski
Absolutely, I think a lot of us in the law enforcement profession, we don’t have this job to make a lot of money, because there there really is not a lot of money to be made. You do it because you have this sense about you that you want to help other people. And I think that’s, that’s the biggest driving factor. And although some of the days and some of the investigations that you do can be difficult. I think that altruistic sense that you would have that you want to give back more to others, I think that really kind of pushes you on those days, you’re like, “Man, I’m just having a really hard day, and this is a really tough case”. And I think you kind of dig down deep and you and you realize what you’re there for, and that passion kind of, you know, renews yourself year after year.
Jared Bradley
I’m so glad you brought that up. Because I think that’s one of the things that’s missing in society right now is just kind of the disconnect of- there’s so many people in law enforcement that, yes, they’re doing a job. But at the same time, they have a very human side to them, and nobody’s perfect. But doing doing this job can actually be really, really difficult. Granted, there’s times that you look at law enforcement officers, and you just say, “you know what, you guys are held at a high standard because of the positions that you hold and the authority that you hold”. But at the same time, everybody’s human, everybody makes mistakes. And to think that everybody in law enforcement is going to be just absolutely perfect, and they can’t make mistakes, and if they do, then all hell breaks loose; It’s just an unrealistic expectation, I think. And so hearing some of the side from folks like you is, is really what I’m putting to this whole video cast together, because I want to give perspectives of all the different sides.
Nancy Sulinski
Absolutely. And I think it really is important for people to understand that, at the end of the day, people in law enforcement do go home to their own families, and they’re- what they’re sacrificing, a lot of people don’t realize. I mean, they’re, they’re sacrificing time away from their families, or putting themselves in potential danger. And I think a lot of that gets lost on the general public. And people who don’t realize, they think that they’re in law enforcement, 24/7, and they don’t realize that, you know, they also have families, and they also have lives, and they also have quirks. And they have different aspects about them that, like he said, you know, imperfections and all sorts, but they are the driving factor. And I think the foundational aspect of that of that personality trait is to help people. And I think that it’s so important in this day and age, especially with everything that’s going on, it’s so important to keep that in mind, and what’s really important.
Jared Bradley
No, absolutely. So maybe lighten this up a little bit. Tell me about something that throughout your career, you know, regardless of which agency you worked for- give me a case or a scenario that just- it’s one of those stories you tell at Thanksgiving, that is just absolutely hysterical. And everybody loves to hear.
Nancy Sulinski
Okay, so if- and you know plenty of forensic personnel, so you, you understand the sense of humor that we oftentimes have, and- which is a coping mechanism, it’s a coping mechanism, because the things that we see on a day to day basis is not normal. So we have to make light of a lot of different things. So the things that I discussed at Thanksgiving dinner, you know, my family might be kind of grossed out about it. But we’re amongst friends, right? I mean, we’re talking, we’re amongst friends, so I can share these stories. So I think, in this day and age, television shows are so saturated with crimes, Crime Scene Investigation shows, and a lot of those shows are so fueled by like drama, and excitement and all that stuff. And anyone who actually does this job realizes that it’s not always that fun. And it’s not always that exciting. Real Life CSI is kind of more mundane, and and definitely not fueled by drama. And the the underlying thing is that when forensics is called, we’re called on somebody’s worst day.
So a story that comes to mind is just that it’s it’s a story that could be you know, made for television. It’s a story of horror, it’s a story of resiliency, it’s a story of strength, and there’s a little bit of humor. This is a story about an elderly, senior citizen, and she was a very bright, well educated woman, very successful woman. And this woman came to realize her worst day was about to happen. So a young man had knocked on her door and asked to use the telephone. And she declined him and said, “No, you can’t use my telephone”. So this young man then pushed his way into the house. So he then tries to assault her, during this altercation, this woman is, is just faced with her worst fear. She is an elderly single woman, and she doesn’t know if she’s going to be violated. She doesn’t know if she’s going to be murdered. This guy’s thinking, “hey, this lady is very vulnerable, and I can just take advantage of her and do whatever I want”.
So what’s really neat is at that very moment, that woman made a decision, she made a decision that she wasn’t going to be a victim. And she made the decision that she was going to be a survivor. So she fought back. And it’s really an amazing decision. Because when you’re, you’re in that, and all these things are going on you you’re scared, you don’t know what to do. But you said, You know what, I’m not going to be a victim today. So she was fighting back, this man was trying to sexually assault her. He was trying to pull off her clothes. And she was reaching around trying to get whatever she could. And she ends up grabbing the vacuum cleaner, which was nearby. So as she’s kind of hitting him with this vacuum cleaner, he wasn’t able to get her clothing off. And he released, in his excitement, some DNA evidence onto her clothing. So at that point, he finished he he got up, and he just before he fled the scene, he took something. So a lot of times we’ll we’ll see that the suspects will take things. So Jared, what do you think that this guy took from her?
Jared Bradley
What would a guy that just sexually assaulted somebody, got beat with a vacuum cleaner, take from the crime scene?
Nancy Sulinski
Let’s guess, right? We’re thinking like valuables. We’re thinking jewelry items. We’re thinking maybe a vehicle?
Jared Bradley
Yeah, I don’t know, her coffee cup, I have absolutely no idea.
Nancy Sulinski
So as this guy got up, he decides he’s going to steal the vacuum cleaner. So we have a suspect who’s running down the road with a vacuum cleaner. And it’s an upright vacuum cleaner. And this was years ago. So it’s a full size upright vacuum cleaner. And he’s-
Jared Bradley
Didn’t those things used to weigh like 60 pounds? ,
Nancy Sulinski
Yeah. So who knows? Well, we make we may never know the reason why he decided to do that. So after we were done with the investigation, and doing all the evidence collection and whatnot, which there was ample evidence. I also would do the composite sketches for the agency. So I sat this woman down, and I had a really detailed interview with her and trying to get her to recall the features of the face or whatnot. Because at the time, from the description, we were thinking, potentially, Hey, is this a juvenile? And is he even going to be in the system yet? so we really needed to get a nice- glean some information about the the details of his face. So I’m walking this lady through, this elderly woman, and it was absolutely amazing the amount of detail that she was able to give me on all the different features of the face. And a lot of times when I do these interviews, you know, people are scared, they just went through an extremely traumatic event, just, you know, just a really bad day. And she was so calm, and she was so collected. And she gave me such great detail.
So I went ahead, and I pushed out this composite sketch to various media outlets, and to our detectives. And I’ll tell you what, there was a lot of kind of mocking about the composite because the person had a very elongated face. And I’ll show you on the photograph here in a moment. He had a very elongated face and kind of like these, like very unique features about him. So we went ahead and push that out. The detectives did a neighborhood canvas along with the sketch. And the next day, there was a young man who fit the descriptions. But the detective is looking at the sketch. He’s looking at the potential suspects. So he follows him back. So it turns out that this, in fact, was the suspect. So they ended up recovering the- they got the suspect, they ended up recovering the vacuum cleaner as well, still can’t figure out why he took that. And here we were able to get a sense of dignity and almost justice to this woman, by, you know, deploying all these different forensic disciplines that we do. And it just helped her have a better day. It was a very traumatic, traumatic event. So here’s my takeaway from this. Here is the thing that keeps you striving is that again, we don’t do this for money. We don’t do this for any type of accolades or accomplishments or any kind of pat on the back. We do this to help those victims out. We do this job for others. And on those days that are really hard, we try to remember those core values that are important to us, and the reason that we kind of got started in this field in the first place. And that really keeps us going. And I just, I love telling this story- see this composite, and then you can see the suspect, the actual photograph of him.
Jared Bradley
Wow.
Nancy Sulinski
Going through all of that trauma, this woman was able to provide such fine detail that essentially that composite sketch was the thing that kind of led us toward that suspect. And in addition to the forensic evidence, and biological evidence, fingerprint evidence, various types of evidence like that, but those sometimes take you know, a couple of weeks or even a couple of months at that time to process all that stuff. So it’s just really amazing to see the the strength and resiliency of some people, and how they decided, Hey, you know what, I’m not going to be a victim today. And I’m going to be a survivor. And I just, I love telling that story. Because it kind of renews our sense of, you know, fulfillment, as far as you know, why do we do this job, and even on the days that are hard, and long and dirty, and hot, and gross, it just takes me back to those moments. And out of the thousands of crime scenes that I’ve worked. Yeah, there’s just a couple of them that that really stand out that kind of make y’all feel warm and fuzzy. So that’s, so that’s, that’s my story.
Jared Bradley
That’s awesome. I love it. Hey, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you coming on and sharing a little bit. You have an absolutely fascinating career. And honestly, learning that you had dropped out of high school and were still able to accomplish everything that you have in life is- wow, that’s that’s absolutely awesome. And kudos to you. I think you honestly are a great role model for a lot of other people. And I hope that getting this story out and introducing a little bit about you will help others to continue to consider forensics as a profession, because it’s certainly a noble profession. And it’s a very needed profession, and expertise that you’ve developed. I think you’ll be able to use that throughout the rest of your life and whatever you end up doing. So yeah, keep up the great work, and I appreciate you coming on.
Nancy Sulinski
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me on your video cast. It’s been fantastic. And it’s great seeing you again. You take care.
Jared Bradley
Alright, you too. We’ll talk to you later.
Nancy Sulinski
Okay, all right. Sounds good. Bye. Bye.
Jared Bradley
Bye. Thank you for listening to all things crime. We are so grateful for all of our listeners. If you enjoyed this, please give us a positive review so other people can find it as well have an amazing all things crime day.
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai