Area police departments turning to HGTC lab to help solve crimes

Joel Mizrahi never wanted to be a homicide detective.

Ever since his high school chemistry class, Mizrahi has always preferred the lab. He even worked at a water testing plant for a few years before deciding on a career in law enforcement.

"I like being part of the process," the Horry Georgetown Technical College student said Tuesday after examining a plastic bottle for fingerprints. "You have a lot of detectives, a lot of patrolmen that’s involved with different cases. So [as a lab worker] you’re just a big piece of the puzzle looking at the overall picture when it comes to solving crimes."

In recent weeks, the same technology Mizrahi uses in the school’s training lab has played a role in analyzing real evidence from actual criminal cases in Horry and Marion counties. HGTC’s system is called RUVIS (Reflective Ultraviolet Imaging System) and it allows investigators to identify and photograph fingerprints without using powders or chemicals.

Once an image of a print is obtained, police can compare it to others in a database or, in some cases, that of a suspect, said Dan Wysong, who oversees HGTC’s criminal justice programs.

"We can pull fingerprints from things that are typically not fingerprintable because of the shape or size [of the evidence]," he said.

The machine, one of a few in the Southeast, handles plastic bottles, glossy placards, notes and a host of other items.

"Paper towels, toilet paper, it doesn’t matter," said Jeffrey Scott, an HGTC professor who teaches a fingerprint science course. "If it’s got a fingerprint on it, it’ll find it."

Although the school has had the $66,000 camera system for a few years, local law enforcement started embracing it after Wysong made a pitch to area police chiefs.

"It’s open to local departments," he said. "We’ve opened it up for all the law enforcement community to use with our supervision."

The benefits of helping police, Wysong said, are two-fold.

"It’s one of those situations where we’re trying to not only teach our students the top-of-the-line, state-of-the art equipment," he said. "We now are also assisting [police], kind of as a public service."

Along with fingerprints, the system can illuminate hairs and fibers that aren’t visible to the naked eye. It can also be used to uncover writing that has been scribbled over and help investigators identify counterfeit money or forged signatures.

Scott said the technology can only aid local agencies.

"What does it hurt?" he said. "It’s not intrusive. We’re not adding a chemical. We’re not destroying anything or altering anything. ...We’re going to look at it through the use of alternate light sources and see if anything comes up. And then we can take a picture of it."

Scott also has the requisite expertise to assist police. He spent more than 14 years working for the Williamsburg County Sheriff’s Office where he served as a crime scene investigator, evidence custodian and training officer.

"I dealt with evidence on a daily basis," he said.

So far, Scott said local officers seem pleased.

The system was used to examine a note investigators had recovered. In one instance, the RUVIS captured a fingerprint on a firearm that traditional methods hadn’t.

"They couldn’t get the quality of print that we could find just by running it through the camera," he said.

Investigators from the Horry County Police Department, the Aynor Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office have stopped by the lab.

"They’re pretty advanced over there," said Aynor Police Chief Bubba Thompson. "It’s a very sophisticated technology."

Thompson said it’s too soon to say if the evidence analysis from the lab will solve any Aynor crimes, but he’s grateful for the assistance.

So is Lt. Peter Cestare, who works in the Horry County Police Department’s Crime Scene Investigations Unit.

“It has helped to identify potential evidence in some cases,” he said of the college’s equipment, “and to rule out items with no forensic value in other cases.”

Horry County Police Chief Saundra Rhodes said local police chiefs have written letters supporting the college’s efforts to secure grants for the lab, which she would like to see expanded.

"It benefits the entire county," Rhodes said. "[Wysong] does have some equipment there that I don’t have in my lab currently and we enjoy that partnership and being able to reach out to them and have them assist."

Helping crime scene analysts is just the latest pursuit of HGTC’s lab. Its primary purpose is to train the next generation of investigators, people like Alyssa Sawyer.

Unlike her classmate, the Aynor student hopes to one day work as a homicide detective. But she does share an appreciation for lab work and said using the same technology as local police gives HGTC students — and investigators — an advantage.

"They get to work with the same things the officers do," she said. "They know what to expect and they know what they’re going to be dealing with whenever they get into the field. And it helps the officers also to know and keep up with what the students are being taught so that way we can all work together."

This story was originally published April 16, 2015 at 4:39 PM with the headline "Area police departments turning to HGTC lab to help solve crimes."