“The Enrique Camarena Case: A Forensic Nightmare” Explanation

CRJ 311 Forensics
Instructor: Paul Stein
November 19, 2012

“The Enrique Camarena Case: A Forensic Nightmare” Explanation The purpose of this paper is to discuss what went wrong with the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of a DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) source and Enrique Camarena, a special agent of the DEA February 7, 1985. Crime scenes can be confounding for they are much like a puzzle in which the pieces have to be found then turned until they fit together making a puzzle a complete picture. Sometimes there are pieces that cannot be found but when enough pieces are put together it is easy to picture in ones brain what that piece of evidence contained. No crime is committed without leaving some kind of evidence behind which is why there are different criminalist trained in how to find and charged with the job of studding and analyzing evidence so that even the cleverest of criminals can be found and prosecuted.
There were several things that complicated the case mainly that there was a month between the time the two agents died and when their bodies were found decomposing. This meant that the evidence needed had to begin with the job that the agents were assigned to so that a link could be found from those crimes that tied them in with the death of the agents. Time span proved to be difficult and finding the original crime scene (the area in which the crime was committed before the bodies were relocated to the scene where the bodies were discovered). Because of the time frame other obstacles were faced such as disturbance of the crime scene do to the accessibility to the public along with the obstruction and tampering of the evidence by officials of Mexico. Apparently the house that the torture and murder occurred in, had Mexican Officials living there and it was charged that they