Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist

Chief Deputy Englert is the 1111th State or Local law enforcement official to be added to www.police-writers.com.

Chief Deputy (Retired) Rod Englert, a 43-year veteran of law enforcement, retired as Commander of the Operations Division, Multnomah County Sheriff's Office in Portland, Oregon, in 1995. He started his career with the Downey, California Police Department after graduating from the Los Angeles Police Academy. In 1969 Chief Deputy Englert moved to Portland, Oregon and joined the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office. A large portion of Chief Deputy Englert's career has been associated with working major crimes, narcotics and homicide. His expertise is in the area of homicide crime scene reconstruction and blood spatter interpretation. 

Rod Englert received a Bachelor's degree in Police Administration from California State University at Los Angeles and has done post-graduate work in psychology. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, where he was President of the 159th Session. Rod Englert is the author of Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist.

Publishers Weekly said of Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist, “Proving that one person's bloody mess is another's treasure trove of clues, blood spatter analyst Englert takes readers on a fascinating journey into the study of crimson drops. Englert's first encounter with blood—and the stories it can tell—came when, as a young cop, he mistakenly assumed a bloody corpse had been the victim of an ax attack; in reality the victim had succumbed to a particularly nasty case of bleeding ulcers. He educated himself about the behavior of blood by recreating crime scenes in his Oregon barn using cow's blood and attending every available seminar on the subject. Englert presents case studies for each principle he discusses, from the varying velocities of blood spatter to the trajectory of a killer's bullet. It's easy to see why he's a favorite expert witness of prosecutors around the country, even in celebrity cases like O.J. Simpson's and Robert Blake's. With the help of reporter Passero, Englert deftly balances real-life examples and detailed scientific analysis, giving readers a richer understanding of this developing avenue of forensic science.”

Booklist said of Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist, “This book is rather less colorful and intriguing than the ghastly Jackson Pollock look-alikes with which blood-spatter analyst Englert works. Still, it’s highly instructive about his methods, which are the opposite of a perp’s, hence more like Pollock-boosting critic Clement Greenberg’s than the painter’s. Painter and perp are each telling stories through apparently random spattering; critic and analyst are each trying to read them. An early chapter relates how Englert’s acquisition of a cattle-raising operation inspired his interest in blood patterns. With Passero’s aid, he writes lovingly of the intricate splatter patterns resulting from slaughtering, which, once he noted them, he studied. Readers may be challenged by this particular bit of scene-setting, but plowing through it stands one in good stead when discussion turns to the case histories of famous bloody cases. Pretty good as entertainment, this book also has backgrounding value for true-crime and crime-fiction fans in its revelatory detail about the particular component of criminal investigation on which it focuses.”