Detective Lori Morgan is the resident forensic expert at the Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Office. Originally a stay-at-home mother, after her children were in school, Lori sought a new challenge and went on to earn her degree in forensics. She is the liaison with the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab and is tasked with the job of finding a piece of evidence that can be used in conjunction with modern day forensics to help solve a case. Her job is being profiled in Discovery’s new crime series Killing Fields, and Morgan let readers in on the nitty gritty details of both the job and the show, which airs on Discovery and Discovery Canada Tuesday nights at 10pm.
CraveOnline: Tell us about Killing Fields.
Lori Morgan: The new series is super exciting. We recap everything we did the first season but with extra information – we’re going to transition into some other cases that (one that happened to come up while we were filming – it was a crazy body dump and Discovery followed us through the entire process), and we take two very old cases that have been sitting in cold case files and revisit those to have a very exciting ending.
How did you get into detective work?
It’s a line of work I’ve always been very curious and intrigued with, so it was always in the back of my mind but didn’t know what career opportunities there were. I stayed home with my children for over 10 years and when everybody went to school I decided I had to get back into school and learn more about a forensics career and what job opportunities there were. Timing is everything, and the Sheriff’s office needed a crime scene investigator right when I was graduating. They say when the stars, moon and sun align, and they aligned for me.
Why do you think this is such a popular series and topic for viewers?
I think a lot of people are intrigued with true crime and forensics, especially because they see the forensics as a means to an end, as a very beneficial tool to putting bad guys behind bars. Whatever part of the forensics plays a part in finding the criminal and putting them behind bars, people are intrigued by that. They like the science of it. A lot of it is science-y to the point where people understand but they don’t quite know how it plays a part and are super curious about seeing how it works into an investigation. I think it’s the the whole unknown and putting that piece of the puzzle into place.
Do you feel that the show is a realistic portrayal of your job?
I think it’s definitely a realistic view of what we do. Our team was very new to cold cases in Season 1 – the way we handled it is the way we could and should handle every cold case we’re going to work through. You never want to let cold cases sit on a shelf forever – you want to readdress it.
Is there anything that the TV depiction misses?
The thing that is not depicted on TV is the actual viewing of the violent crime that’s been committed. In cold cases, they’ve already been committed so we’re trying to revisit it through evidence, videos and photos, but in our day-to-day job when current cases come up, we have to go to these violent crime scenes and see what has happened and actually experience the emotional turmoil of the family.
