Death as a Living: Investigating Murder in the American Heartland - Softcover

Burke, Doyle; Grieco, Lou

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1950301036 ISBN 13: 9781950301034

Publisher: Inkshares, 2021

Synopsis

"Entertaining and thought-provoking, Burke blends vignettes from his time on the beat with deeply considered ideas on policing." -Newsweek

For more than 30 years, involving more than 1,000 cases, Doyle Burke has been a death investigator, first with the Dayton, Ohio police department, then with a county coroner's office. In this book, he shares his tricks of the trade: how detectives solve cases, what they look for, the importance of forensic science, and the irreplaceable value of instinct.

Along the way, Burke offers humorous trial anecdotes, thoughts on race and policing, stories about the fatal toll stress took on fellow officers, and, perhaps most movingly, details about the three fatal shootings of police officers - one of them one of his first friends on the department, another the son of his sergeant - that he had to investigate.

Part memoir, part police procedural, and part true crime anthology, Death as a Living reveals the inside world of homicide and death investigation--the triumph, tragedy, humor, and truly bizarre situations one finds when working that beat.

About this title

About the Authors

Doyle Burke was midway through his homicide career in 2001 when the National Association of Police Organizations listed him as one of the Top 100 Cops in the nation. He spent 29 years with the Dayton Police Department, the last 22 in homicide. He is now the Chief Investigator for the Warren County (Ohio) Coroner's Office and teaches homicide investigation across Ohio.

Lou Grieco worked as a reporter for the Dayton Daily News from 1993 to 2013, specializing in law enforcement and public safety issues. He covered many of the stories detailed in this book.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

It looked like any other homicide scene. Bright yellow scene tape with the warning “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS” surrounded the area around the house. Outside of the tape were scores of people, including the usual types: concerned neighbors, rubberneckers, news media. Uniformed Officers kept everyone back and held the scene securely. After seven years of police experience, I’d seen death scenes numerous times. But this was only my second homicide as a detective.

Death is always different. Rapes were horrible. Robberies left terrified victims. But death was final, and as I was already learning, it wore you down as an investigator.

We already knew this would be atypical. Most homicides involve one body. But shortly before midnight on Nov. 1, 1985, we got the call. “Homicide at 35 South Ardmore with multiple victims,” the dispatcher said.

As I approached the scene, a veteran officer looked at me and said, “It’s bad.”

His warning resonated. Work as a police officer for any length of time and you’ll get used to seeing some pretty nasty stuff. To survive, you adapt, shrugging off the ordinary horrors that would traumatize the average civilian. But every so often, you will see things that no officer, no matter how seasoned, can ever get used to.

If this veteran officer thought it was bad, I knew it had to be horrible. But I didn’t know how horrible until I stepped inside.

Edition details

• Publisher: Inkshares
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1950301036
• ISBN 13: 9781950301034
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 342