The Protectors® Podcast

#467 | Amber Hynes | From The Street to CSI | Behind The Scenes

November 16, 2023 Dr. Jason Piccolo Episode 467
The Protectors® Podcast
#467 | Amber Hynes | From The Street to CSI | Behind The Scenes
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Join us on a riveting journey from theater stages to real-life crime scenes with  Amber, a seasoned actress and a former deputy coroner, now CSI. Amber takes us through her intriguing life story, starting from her early theater days at age five to her unconventional career shift into law enforcement.  Amber walks us through her daily routine in the coroner's office, breaking down the roles of medical examiners and pathologists, and her own role in crime scene investigations. She even gives us a sneak peek into the cutting-edge technology used in forensic investigation.

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Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo


Speaker 1:

Let's just say record. Hey, welcome to the protectors podcast. What's going on, amber? How are you doing? I'm doing great. We're just talking about our favorite past time of trying to break into the acting field coming from the protectors community, which is a little interesting, and it's not really the breaking into it, it's just having fun.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So what was you like? You did theater.

Speaker 2:

I did yeah ever since I was five.

Speaker 1:

Oh, no way.

Speaker 2:

Yep, my mom put me in was my first play. It was Wizard of Oz. I was a munchkin.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, and I was a poppy and evil and nice poppy.

Speaker 2:

So we had like half her makeup was evil and half was nice, oh my gosh, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And then you do in high school as well.

Speaker 2:

I did in high school. I did theater all through, all through high school, yeah, from freshman year to senior year. And then in my senior year we had to write our own play. Actually, we had to write our own sections of a play that we all put on together. It was quite fun.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh. So what's next? Are you gonna like just keep trying to do breaking?

Speaker 2:

Whenever I have free time, I just go to Atlanta or Savannah and do background stuff.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, atlanta's huge.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Atlanta's massive now with Marvel.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, and then Wilmington's right down the road too. Which one Wilmington.

Speaker 2:

North Carolina.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but I think a lot of people have moved from like Wilmington now Atlanta is like the hub, it's like Hollywood.

Speaker 2:

East Savannah's coming up too.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, savannah does a lot of old time things.

Speaker 1:

So like a lot of you know slave and stuff like that, but it's really interesting. I put in. The last one I put in for was right before the strike. It was at her banks. My daughter and I were gonna do it and I was gonna be a construction guy and she was just gonna be like a teen. So like I'll do any of that stuff, it's fun.

Speaker 2:

In Charleston, you said Wilmington.

Speaker 1:

Now, that would have been Charleston, yeah. I saw that one, yeah, yeah, everybody's like seeing it. So there's like what backstage? And then there's like direct submit. Yeah, there's all sorts of different ones you could do there's.

Speaker 2:

Rose Lock casting. They do Savannah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, we can write this down.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's an. I think there's a Rose Lock in Atlanta as well, but yeah, there's, there's quite a lot of.

Speaker 1:

I'll be on the Savannah all the time you want me to. I'll be the construction worker.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll be. What else can I do? I could be the old guy I can. I'll grab. I'll be Santa Claus, I don't care you can be a news reporter. Yeah, there we go.

Speaker 1:

They see all types of extra stuff and you never know one is going to be like you know the break where you get your. I met so many people who do background, like when I did a background for an FX series is coming out next year. Just talking to the different people and how they get their sag cards, like because they're doing so much background, like can we do this? Yeah, and a lot of people from the LEO community do it because it's creative.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is something to do when you're not working.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Something completely different.

Speaker 1:

You know that's one thing I've noticed about people in the like the protector field the first responder field is like they like to give back to the community, but they're also very creative.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like one of the singers, like singers, artists a lot of artists, lots of artists, and then a lot of people like acting too. Because you're I think it's because you get used to talking to people and you get comfortable talking to people. Then there's sudden you're like huh, I got a decent voice. Are they start podcasting? There we go, boom. How many people are they podcasting?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And that you know what I always tell people to podcast because it's more about a network. So like, when you get into these things, like you and I are talking today because of a podcast, you know, but you have a really cool background and you know it's like LEO and then forensics.

Speaker 2:

And that's also a deputy corner for a little while.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's one thing I want to talk about today too is like like it, fast forensics and and death investigations fascinate me and I don't. It's not just a true crime thing, it's always has and it has to say I mean, true crime is like huge and everybody wants to be something to do a true crime podcast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, I lot, I know if I change this into a true crime, I'd probably be like a million error. Yeah, yeah, what did you? What drew you into the protector field, like being, like you know, helping the community, give him back.

Speaker 2:

My dad was in the Air Force. Um, he was in the Air Force since I was born, so ever since then I guess, just seeing kind of what he did, I was like you know what? That's kind of interesting, I kind of want to do something like that. But I never knew exactly what he was doing, because he did stuff that I couldn't know.

Speaker 2:

And then I would always watch CSI New York with my mom and I would always solve it, basically before it was like even over. And then, when I was 10, there was one episode that I solved like within five minutes and my mom was like how'd you? I was like I don't know. It was just, I knew, um. And then I job shadowed um. I job shadowed police departments here and got to go on a dig with them for forensics and um, it was really fun. And then I was like, yeah, this is what I'm gonna do.

Speaker 1:

I think it's the puzzle too.

Speaker 2:

It's like yes, I love puzzles.

Speaker 1:

You know it's like when you talk about like CSI and stuff like that. I love those shows just because it's like it's fun. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the technology is way out there, but it's just fun it is and to pick it apart, it's like, okay, are they gonna throw a zinger at me or am I gonna be able to figure this out right away?

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, like I think it's this, but then it ends and it's something completely different.

Speaker 1:

And CSI Miami with David Caruso, come out with the glasses. Yeah, I think someone is in trouble you know, it's just funny as hell. And then I would start watching a one. They just came out with CSI Vegas again too yeah, that was really cool, but it gets you it, it peaks your interest. You know, and I think that's what a lot of TV and a lot of true crime peaks people's interests, and they're like I could do that. Did you? What did you go to school for first?

Speaker 2:

Um. Originally I went to school for performing arts and but my minor was going to be well, you couldn't minor with forensics, so I was going a double major for performing arts and forensic science, but it was a lot together. So then, I ended up switching to a minor in performing arts and a major in criminal justice and forensic anthropology.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a. You know performing arts and forensics not so much it's not the same yeah and going down a path of, like you know, pd and and working in law enforcement was that kind of like hey, you know what, I'll get my foot into law enforcement and then I'll kind of work my way into investigations and forensics.

Speaker 2:

I actually never really wanted to be on the street before, but basically in order to get any kind of experience in forensics, you kind of have to do the street part and then go to forensics. And then when I was on the street I was like you know what?

Speaker 1:

I actually kind of really like this, so it wasn't a bad one thing I've learned about the street too is, like you know me, coming from the federal world do everything's investigations, obviously, I mean if you're a special agent, but yeah, there are so many investigations that people on the street too like officers on the street yeah like not everybody has.

Speaker 1:

You can call a detective in for everything. You're doing investigations, you're collecting samples, you're collecting fingerprints, you're collecting this, you're collecting that. But you're also interviewing people, you're writing reports. You're, you know, unless you're like just out there running and gunning and yeah, I don't care about anything else, you know, spell check, who cares? But if you take it serious and you're like, okay, I want to learn and and get everything I can have that, being on the street, you can get so much out of it you can yeah so you run a street for a while and you're like, hey, you know what?

Speaker 1:

huh, now I have my experience. Did you get in? Where'd you go from there?

Speaker 2:

um, I actually went to the corner's office after I had been on the street for two and a half years. I went to the corner's office because the corner at the time he actually reached out, and so I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. I never thought about it before, but sounds interesting.

Speaker 1:

So that's where I went, and then I ended up coming back for crime scene when you, you know, and here's the thing, I like me, I'm like, and I like bringing up the fed thing, because a lot of people think, like you know, they think feds, they think the movies and they think, oh, they've done everything and this and that. But you know, you work particular crimes. Now when you're on a street and you're dealing with dead bodies, did you get used to that on a street, did you see?

Speaker 2:

that it actually never bothered me. Um, the first, well, the first one I saw did bother me, just because it reminded me of a movie I had seen when I was younger which I probably shouldn't have watched. Um, and so that one bothered me for like a second, but then after that I was like you know what? This is actually pretty interesting. And then any kind of call we had with the body, they always knew oh, they're like sin d'ambe, because you know she wants to go. So I would always go, I would wait for the coroner's office to get there and I would help them with whatever they needed so yeah, so you, you network into the coroner's office?

Speaker 1:

yeah, that's kind of that, how it works. You know that's. That's just talk to people. Don't be talk to everybody and anybody can. When you're in the coroner's office, do you like run me through the process? Like you're hired, boom, like what is your job? I mean, all I know about the coroner's office is this bodies come in, take a look at them, and I'm watching TV. So you know, we must weigh the brain, we must weigh the things I mean. So what do you do at the coroner's office?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so at the coroner's office you have the corner and then you have the deputy corners. So, the coroner's office here is not a medical examiner's office, whereas the medical examiner's office would be the medical examiner and then their assistant. So they don't really have deputy corners if it's a medical examiner, but for the coroner's office you get hired. Do all your training, everything. You have to go to a couple of autopsies.

Speaker 2:

My very first autopsy was a baby a six month old baby and children autopsies are way crazier than a normal autopsy. But you do your training and then you're basically crime scene, but for the body. So the scene is law enforcement, the body is the coroner's office. So you do everything with the body, you. You're the one who manipulates the body to take pictures of certain areas.

Speaker 1:

OK, so medical examiners.

Speaker 2:

They're the ones who do the autopsy, OK yes, and that's the.

Speaker 1:

I've never known that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, medical examiners and pathologists do the autopsies. Ok, I think medical examiners are pathologists, but we have pathologists here, but they do the autopsies as a deputy corner. You do not have to go to the autopsies, but they have a deputy corner who was in the morgue for, specifically for autopsies. They do autopsies and evidence, but the responding deputy corners are the ones that go to the scenes.

Speaker 1:

So you're basically like CSI then. So you're doing the, the fingernails, and OK so let's, let's let's, let's, let's walk you through it. Let's do this. The body comes in. You have no idea. They let's say it's not a GSW, no gunshot wounds, nothing, they're dead. But it's suspected foul play, some bruising hair and air, but you don't know what's going on. So walk us through this thing, let's, let's do this.

Speaker 2:

So you get the.

Speaker 1:

That's what you have a spot.

Speaker 2:

Well, you get the call, so it would come in on the phone.

Speaker 1:

Well, you could collect the body too.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so there's a body removal services? Oh OK, but you get the phone call and then whoever's up is the one that's going to go to that call. So you get the phone call, you go to the call. When you get there, usually law enforcement is there as well and then you analyze everything. So you're taking pictures of everything you know front door, if it's in a house, front door, hallway, living room, bedrooms, everything. When you get to the room that they're in, you'll take rooms, take pictures of the whole room. You don't really have to do the whole room per se for other rooms because you're not crime scene, you're just the deputy for the body.

Speaker 2:

So in that room you're going to take pictures of everything. You're going to take pictures of the body. While they're laying how they are, you're going to roll them, take pictures of their back. You'll like lift the shirt, you know, put on the neck to make sure nothing's wrong with their neck, no bruising or anything on their neck. You look for anything that's out of place in the room, so like, if they have bruising, you're going to be looking for something that's tipped over or something. Maybe there was a fight or maybe they're older and maybe they bruise easily, maybe they fell or something, but we've had those.

Speaker 2:

And then you'll just take pictures of the body, like in detail. So you'll take pictures of the fingernails. You won't do any fingernails scrapings or stuff that's for crime scene, but you'll take pictures of their hands or fingernails just to look for anything under the nails. You'll take pictures of their eyes. If their eyes are closed, you'll open it, take pictures of their eyes. You'll pull down the bottom of the eye because you'll check for a particular kind of hemorrhaging, which is basically a little little white or red dots that you'll see and that could be a sign of strangulation, you know, lack of oxygen.

Speaker 2:

And then what else would you do? You usually don't take clothing, clothing, usually stay with the body until the autopsy, which autopsy, depending on what time the call came in, could be the same day or it'll be the next day in the morning, and then you'll call your body removal services and they're the ones that'll come. They will give you the body bag, you'll help put the body in the bag. You have a lock tag that you lock the bag with at the end, and then they're the ones that take it more Chain, a custody of the body?

Speaker 1:

I never thought about that, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yep, you take pictures of your lock, write down your lock number and everything. You sign your bag so it has your name on it and everything. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

Now, okay, so I'm learning photography and when you're saying you're talking about cameras, I'm like huh, and I'm like you can't just use regular lenses and stuff? What's your setup for that?

Speaker 2:

Well, so where I'm at now, we're going to switch to the mirrorless cameras, but we use regular DSL or DS. Is it DSL or DSR? Yeah, the regular digital cameras? Yeah, something well a little bit bigger than that one. Yeah, regular digital camera we use. The lenses are normal. We do have macro micro lenses.

Speaker 1:

That we use for certain things.

Speaker 2:

But cameras are normal they just might be a little more expensive than a large person.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I keep thinking. I'm like every time I see the movies they have, like these fancy setups or like these big flashes on the lenses.

Speaker 2:

No, no, we don't have those Okay okay, we do have an external flash that you can have, but you really only need to use that at night time or if you're trying to take a picture through a window maybe like you can take your external flash and you can put it against the window, and then you put your camera lens against the window as well, and you can see in the window, clear as day.

Speaker 1:

Now is that part of your training like photography and stuff like that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, we can take extra training classes. So I just took a advanced photography class a couple months ago in April was when I took it.

Speaker 1:

That was really, really fun. That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we learned to do some cool night shooting.

Speaker 1:

Like lasers and stuff. Maybe I should do that part time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

If someone I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to. Okay, I'm already, I got foundations. Okay, I'll leave that to be, let the professionals do it. Let's talk about the training. So if someone wants to get into that field, like in the corner field because I'm, like I, some masters of forensic science I have is like I always like assume that, like the medical investigators, corners and everything kind of the same thing, I didn't realize that corners office does, like the body crime scene, you're basically investigating the body. I love that. So if someone wants to get into your field, I mean, obviously you can go your route and get the street and network and stuff like that. But what would you recommend? Someone like okay, I'm out of college, I just got out of the military or whatever, and I want to get into that field.

Speaker 2:

I would definitely make sure, bless you. I would definitely make sure you know what you're getting into before you do it. So say, if you think you want to be a deputy corner, you need to make sure that you can be around bodies every day, all day, because you know people die every day. So you get called out every day. Maybe not every day, but nine times a day. You're going to get called out. It might not be something traumatic, it might be something natural.

Speaker 2:

You need to make sure that you have some sort of sympathy for people because this is someone's loved one that just died. Even if they're a criminal, there's still somebody's loved one. Even if they're older, it's still somebody's loved one. So you need to know that you have to talk to families and be able to do it in a respectful and, you know, feeling way. So first you got to school, make sure you know what you're getting into, because not everybody is set up for deputy corners or even law enforcement, even if they think they might want to do it. But after you get out of school, I say just go for it. You know, apply and see what happens. You don't really need any other experience because you're going to get it there.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's true. Yeah, you're going to get your training, you're going to get on a job experience. You brought up a good point about the families. Now I always assume like, hey, the cops are going to show, they're not going to door and stuff, but a lot of times the families are in the area and they're going to want it answers. And the cops may not have the answers, but you might.

Speaker 2:

So do you?

Speaker 1:

deal with a lot of families.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, as a deputy corner, you're the ones who talk to the family. The law enforcement doesn't do it. Law enforcement might go with you to notify a family, but you're the one who does all the talking because you know all the information. You know when the autopsy is going to be. You're the one who needs to know the funeral home that they're going to choose. You're the one who needs to know the history, like if they committed suicide, what was their history? What were they going through lately, Things like that. So yeah, deputy corner is the one that talks to the family.

Speaker 1:

There's another assumption out the door, as I always assume, like you know. You see, because it's all the movies, hollywood and stuff, and we talked about CSI before and we see science great for Hollywood, it's great for fiction and stuff, but like the technology isn't quite up to speed, yet Right, it's getting there.

Speaker 2:

It's getting there.

Speaker 1:

I mean think about nowadays. Like you know, just when my law enforcement career started, we were still using flip funds and beepers.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

I know Wow.

Speaker 2:

I've never even seen a beeper. I've never even seen a beeper.

Speaker 1:

I've been containing myself a little bit oh, my gosh. And then it's like and imagine like we were using Thomas guides to find ourselves around, which is like a guide with a map and you'd have a grid square. It's like, oh, we're going to go to this address. We had to look, but nowadays, even with your smartphone, you could do so much. Yeah, apple Maps yeah, and now chat GPT and AI and everything machine learning, I'd say in the next three or four years maybe we will be up to where CSI is.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you know where you can map out crime scenes. You can map out this, you can map out that, because you're talking before about lasers and everything too. It was like you can go in there and get like 360 view of like where the body is and we can do that now. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But we actually have this. Thing is called a ferro scanner. Have you heard of it?

Speaker 1:

Ferro scanner.

Speaker 2:

So it was a 3D scanner and so we'll take it out to with where I'm at now. We'll take it out to shootings and homicides mainly shootings, but any kind of homicide we'll take it out. And basically it's a tripod with this big old square. You put on the tripod and has a mirror in it and so the mirror it spins and as it spins it's reflecting pictures back into its little camera inside it and it makes a whole 3D scan of whatever you're scanning and you can go on the computer and you can literally reconstruct the whole scene in 3D.

Speaker 1:

That's like Iron man 2. Yeah, so if anybody's seen Iron man 2, they have this like scanner where it scans the scene and you're like huh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, that's the coolest thing we have, yeah.

Speaker 1:

What other kind of technology are you using? Um, let's roll through your kit. So you roll up to a scene and what's your standard kit you bring is like a bag of so we have the truck, oh the truck. Yeah, what am I thinking? I'm thinking like you're rolling up with your bag in your hand. You're like, no, you got the truck.

Speaker 2:

Because there's so much stuff we bring so you can't really just bring like a bag. I have a little backpack that I carry and I just have scales in it, my camera, gloves, my lights and different lenses I'll have in there. I will different filters for the lenses, like if it's sunny or cloudy or whatever, I have different filters for that. But you have your truck. It's a crime scene truck. It's basically a giant plumber van. It's got a light on the back. Inside.

Speaker 2:

We have a metal detector. If we need it for anything, we have these big scene lights. We have a laser trajectory kit. That's for shootings. We have a bunch of Well, I have a bunch of gloves in mine. We have body shields to shield bodies from public if they're around. We have tents. If it's raining or super, super sunny, we have tents to put over the body. What else do we have in there? Oh, we have bags, Evidence bags. That's what we need a lot of. So we have like a rolling kit that we have our bags in. So we have plastic bags, paper bags, gun boxes, gun tags, extra gloves. We have a lot of gloves and a lot of bags. I have body bags and the little sheets we put over the body is just because I commandeered them from the corners office. Whenever they come, I'm like can I have another body bag? There's a lot of stuff we have in our truck. We have a lot of scales, a lot of rulers, a lot of tapes.

Speaker 1:

And that's the thing we do have to say. We're not in a major metropolitan. We're not in New York City Right now. We're in South Carolina and we're in a decent size city, but it's not like a major metropolitan. So you're dealing with what the equipment you have on hand and what your budget is. So I'm sure there's got to be budget constraints and you can't get that million dollar piece of machinery that Someone might be able to get a grant for it but, you're dealing with what you have, and that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the plumber van I got it. I need to get a tour of that.

Speaker 1:

Now, when you're working with a body and the family is like oh my gosh, because you're always dealing with like different type people in the but and, like you said, it doesn't matter if they have a criminal background or if they're normal or they just died natural cause or anything, but you're always gonna have to deal with the family and that must weigh heavily on. You must kind of be like yeah, you've seen dead bodies, you've been around dead bodies, but dealing with the family, how does that? How do you deal with that?

Speaker 2:

You just have to. You want to talk to them like like they're I mean, obviously, talk to them like they're human being. You talk to them. Think about if it was you who was going through that situation. What are the things that you would want to hear? How would you want to be spoken to?

Speaker 2:

You just kind of put yourself in their shoes and then speak to them how you would want to be spoken to. So that's how I deal with it and then Mentally, I don't know, I just don't think about it. I guess you do it so much you do become desensitized to it. So I just don't really think about it.

Speaker 1:

We'll talk about desensitized. You know we aren't in a major metropolitan, so you might. And you've lived in this area your whole life, or pretty much your whole life, or around here. Well, have you ever run into anybody you've known or been associated with?

Speaker 2:

Oh, so I'm not actually from here. So that was on the military brat.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, that's yeah, from everywhere.

Speaker 2:

But, no, I've never run into anybody I know dead. I have ran to people I know getting arrested.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, but never, just never dead. Oh, that's good. I was just thinking about that too, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think about it too, because I did go to high school here. So I definitely think about what if one of my friends or somebody I knew in high school were to come across though. There it has happened. I just haven't been working that day.

Speaker 1:

So Wow, so what is your like? Where do you see yourself in five years? This is like the interview question now in five years.

Speaker 2:

Let's see how old I be in five years. I want to be still in crime scene, but probably a higher than I am in crime scene right now. So maybe a supervisor in crime scene or something, but I really love crime scenes so I would love to stick with crime scene for as long as I can just keep going up in the ranks.

Speaker 1:

And then what's your most memorial? How do you say that? Memorable yeah what's your most memorable like scene, something it's like Like that. It just clicked in your brain like this is it? This is where I want to work. This is what I want to do.

Speaker 2:

I mean pretty all of them. Really like, whenever I get a call I get really excited to go out to it. I know that sounds terrible, but I get really excited to go out to any kind of call I get. I can't really give details on my favorite one because it is still ongoing but, yeah, I do have a favorite, but I can't give details about it.

Speaker 1:

I imagine it's like like me, I was always, I've always been, obsessed with homicide investigations and you know, I don't know why I never became a cop. I think a lot, just because when you get out of the service you're like, okay, well, I already have these years in service. If I go fed, I could tack that on on my retirement, and it's the wrong reasons. To go fed is for retirement. But if I could go back, I think I'd love to be a detective, at least for a few years in my career. But homicide detective, I don't know why. There's just something about it and it's that puzzle, I think that's. You know, working drugs, everything's great, but it's the same thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah drugs come in, goes to this person, this person goes there, but with homicide you're like huh, who did it? Yeah, I think that's why people love true crimes because yeah, who did it, and a lot of times you're like, huh, I didn't see that coming.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, who did it? Why they do it? How'd they do it?

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Homicide, but now that you have me thinking about the coroner's office and you're basically a homicide investigator.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that was one of my goals when I was younger, like I absolutely loved the coroner's office, but I always wanted to crime scene and I was asked to come back for crime scene, I was like okay, but um, I always wanted to be a homicide detective for I don't even know, since I was like little.

Speaker 1:

I do want to say and this is one thing you know when you've been in law enforcement for a long time when you first get in there, a lot of people do because they, like, they think about the shield and they think about the gun. They think about the badger than a gun. Badger than a gun. Badger than a gun put bad guys in jail. But there are so many different career fields out there. Where you're, you are directly involved with finding the bad guy. And you know the war on drugs.

Speaker 1:

We can have a story about that all day long. We could have stories about this and that and everything. But when it comes to someone killing another person, that's really that's, that's that's effective. That is like you are doing something. Yeah, they take someone bad off the street that could kill someone else, yeah, then, yeah, people conducting crimes die, they get shot, they get killed, but they're still human and you think about they're still a human. It's loved by someone else and when you take away that person, you're taking away so much, yeah. So now that you're in this business, you're doing it, you're going, you're affecting change and I love that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so I mean, this is a whole new career field. I could start like telling when I talk to people, like everything about doing that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what I tell people like some people they're like oh, I really want to do this, but I really like this specific area. I'm like well, you might want to look into the coroner's office If that's what you want to do. Or even body removal yeah, cuz, body removal is a whole another thing too. I don't know a lot about it, but you know they they deal with just the body all the time, like they don't have to do anything else.

Speaker 2:

So some people just want to do that kind of something. Well, look into body removal.

Speaker 1:

Okay, this one's gonna catch you off guard. What's your favorite Marvel movie?

Speaker 2:

Oh, my favorite one.

Speaker 1:

Oh man yeah what's my favorite?

Speaker 2:

I Want to say Do, I want to say black widow, do, or I want to say black widow.

Speaker 1:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

Maybe for now we'll say black widow because I want to say black panther, but I also really like black widow and I like black panther.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

So we'll go with black widow for now.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna go a Captain America Winter Soldier. Okay but then I'm gonna go over to the Netflix and I'm gonna go to Daredevil season 2 Mm-hmm and. I love Jessica Jones. Yeah, that's another one. There's so many like and there's a lot of like the Jessica Jones and stuff ones and iron fist and power man and stuff that are just Haven't seen power man. Oh, not power man. What's um Iron fist? Is partner African-American?

Speaker 2:

Oh, not Luke Cage. No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1:

okay, yeah, I did like they were like really good, and I don't think they get enough kudos.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Because, I think you really have to be like a comic person to like, really like them and me. I'm like, yes, I have 5,000 comic books at home from the 80s and like the late 70s and I'm like all of the marble ones, so I love it. Yeah, I Know Batman's good too. Yeah, but Marvel Iron man, I like Iron man, but but Iron man, like growing up, wasn't like super, super popular, I think just because they found a really good actor to portray.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a really brought up the light.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, now I want to take it back. I'm gonna go with Endgame being my favorite movie.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, or infinity wars between those two.

Speaker 1:

I know the snap. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, cuz in game was so sad, but it was really good.

Speaker 1:

It was really good. I don't know how many times I watched out with my son.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've watched him a lot yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think we watch like endgame and infinity war, like five times writing.

Speaker 2:

It's like just yeah, they are good, they're really good.

Speaker 1:

You know I'm Peter Parker dying.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh my gosh. Come on yeah but Iron man, though that part yeah.

Speaker 1:

You know I gotta go back to watch Iron man one again too, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I need to watch them again too. I need to have a marathon. Watch all of them in order.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love it. Oh, one thing more like. So I want to jump back to corner thing. What's the biggest misconception about like being in the corners Probably.

Speaker 2:

People often think that the body goes to the corners office and it does not. It goes to the hospital in the more. But there there are some bodies at the corners office, but usually they're unclaimed bodies or ones that are going through like probate, or sometimes fetuses and bones, because the corners office here does have an anthropology lab and I was part of the anthropology team as well when I was there.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, bodies do not go to the corners office office cuz families come there. They're like, oh, we need to identify this person. You don't do that either. They don't do any identifications because usually the person either has an ID on them or there is a family member there who's able to identify them, or someone else knows them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, last question you want to get into the acting field. You're gonna be an actor, I know it, but like what show would you want to be on right now on TV?

Speaker 2:

right now I probably want to be on one of the NCIS's.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, nci Sydney boom, there you go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, cuz that's the new one. Yeah, let's do this. I could probably pick up an Australian accent.

Speaker 1:

So Michael Broderick and Jan Marshall out there, who have both been on a show, have both been in, like NCIS is all over the place. So if they're listening, then we have your next.

Speaker 2:

Background or yeah, or star, you know whatever you know background first. That's fine Background with with voice you know you're talking, yes, talking back. I'm speaking just one word, what I call type of background.

Speaker 1:

It's like a feature background.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

And any casting people out there, you know. But I really appreciate coming on Amber.

Speaker 2:

No problem. Thank you for having me.

Breaking Into Acting and Forensic Fascination
TV Crime Shows and Forensic Science
Working at the Coroner's Office
Becoming a Deputy Coroner Career Advice
Career Aspirations and Favorite Marvel Movie
Marvel Movies and Corner Office Misconceptions