On the third floor of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Maryland, in Baltimore, the United States, the chief medical officer and his deputies deliver lectures to trainee police officers on the art and science of crime scene investigation. The medium of choice for such seminars is, of course, PowerPoint presentations, but the instructors have other tools in their arsenal. One one side is a series of 18 glass cases, each containing a dollhouse-like diorama depicting gruesome crime scenes. In one, a lady appears to have been shot dead on the bed while sleeping. A man lies sprawling on the floor next to her, his night clothes stained with blood. The room is in a disarray. Inside another glass case, a body has been violently shoved down into a bath tub with the water running. There is blood on the floor and tiny hand prints on the bathroom tiles.

A miniature crime scene diorama from “The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death”. Photo credit