Day 107 Devil in the Details

March 26, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

"Dark Bathroom," Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death by Frances Glessner Lee at the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore.

Today was a trip to the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore. Happily, we walked in and were not rolled in. We had an appointment with Bruce Goldfarb to see the “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death” exhibit, one of a kind in the U.S.

In the 1940's, Frances Glessner Lee, an eccentric and wealthy woman from Chicago who was interested in murder mysteries, created 18 models of actual crime scenes. These models are one foot to one inch in scale and the scenes are used as training tools for homicide detectives. The attention to accuracy and details is amazing. As the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” Visitors can walk around with a flashlight and magnifier to examine closely the miniature scenes before them.

I found myself becoming a better observer as my new Sherlock Holmes eyes slowly wandered clockwise about each scene. I began to question and wonder why certain things were in or missing from the scene, and what a person had been doing before she was stabbed. I was trying to find truth in a nutshell while enjoying a challenge to my observational skills.

A coincidence (?) today when we picked up Chinese for lunch after our field trip…my fortune cookie said, “Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.”

My gift today was an opportunity to examine tiny murder scenes.

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> Day 108 Hairy Times

Read more here about this exhibit: http://brucegoldfarb.com/the-nutshell-studies-of-unexplained-death

You can read my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html