Cops investigating Ramot slayings far from spotlight

Analysis: Commanders will receive updates on intelligence and forensic work and will attempt to draw up leads.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
crime scene_521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
crime scene_521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
An intensive murder investigation into the brutal double homicide of a couple in their home in Jerusalem on Sunday is being managed far from the media glare.
Nurit and Noah Maoz, both in their 60s, were found dead in their home in the capital’s Ramot Bet neighborhood in a bloody murder scene.
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Detectives have slapped a media ban on all details of the investigation and the crime scene, while some media outlets have claimed that the police “have no leads” in the investigation.
In cases such as this, the police investigation is usually centered on two fronts, intelligence and forensics.
On the intelligence front, detectives will seek to identify any potential suspects.
In the meantime, forensic officers will usually take a dominant initial lead in the investigation, entering the murder scene and searching the bodies for evidence that can lead to a suspect or suspects as part of the collection and analysis phase of the investigation.
Forensic officers will attempt to piece together the chronological order of the crime, seeking to figure our how the murder suspect entered the couple’s apartment, and how they left the scene.
Footprints, fingerprints and possible items left behind by the suspects will be searched for by police.
If evidence of a violent struggle is found, and the attacker was injured, forensic officers will seek to distinguish blood stains of victims from those of the suspects.
Within two to three days of the investigation, the forensic process of removing evidence from the scene – the collection phase – should be complete.
The officers will seek to work as quickly as possible to avoid contamination of the scene that could destroy evidence.
The next phase in the investigation is the analysis of the collected evidence, which takes place at police labs.
Biological findings, chemicals, toxins, polymeric materials, plastics, and, if needed, ballistics, are analyzed, as the labs begin the drawn-out process of filtering out findings taken from the murder scene.
Once completed, the analysis should, in theory, provide police with a “direction” for its investigation.
Biological findings such as DNA and fingerprints are run through a database for a search for matches with convicted felons. If none are found, they are stored for a time when a suspect is arrested, and can be used to corroborate or dismantle suspicions against a suspect.
The investigation unit’s commanders will receive updates on both intelligence and forensic work, and will attempt to draw up leads based on the information made available to them.