This episode contains descriptions of crime scenes and may not be suitable for everyone. Please use discretion. I have this disease to plays as Oprah would say, and I have the need to sort of help, people through their issues or help people with their problems and so if the funeral home. I was really really in my element. I could just to help people through talk them down make, and feel more aids. After what they've just paid through him in nineteen eighty seven Sandra Pankhurst was working at W D rose and son Funeral home in Melbourne, Australia, where she says she pretty much, did everything she prepared bodies for viewing help, families

plan all the details of the funeral and then oversaw the ceremony itself. She says it was the perfect job for her because she isn't afraid of death or dead bodies and she loved the work. It was at the funeral home that she met the man she'd later Mary, the joke of it is and as serious as it is, people is Satomi. How did you meet your husband? I got buried his wife, you know over there joke it was sort of serious in center, same they've been dating for awhile Sandra set down and said she had something to tell him and he said to me well come tell me what's going on, tell me what's going on and I on well, Georgia said: looked the way he say me is not always the way of Bane the civil what he says the same room. I don't quite know how to explain it to you. I said that I had to be a

exactly and hence to become the best in the e se me as a and with that we just went daily life any sitting last. I met Sandra, I family, Sandra and I'm going to marry Sandra Sandra being Trans in Australia in the 1970s and 80s wasn't easy. She says he trouble finding work where she felt comfortable people didn't always treat her well or take her seriously. She thinks it in a way that turned her into an especially hard worker everything I do I one hundred and fifty percent, because I was so

c, hiding my identity and just concentrate on way that that's how I lived she worked in a laptop. She worked as a taxi dispatcher. She worked in the sex trade. She was in her thirties when she was hired by W D rose and son funeral home, and she says it was the first time she felt like she could be herself and be not only accepted by her colleagues. But given more and more responsibility. She was one of the first women in Australia to become a funeral director being that close to death, constantly Sandra started to notice something families with

say to her that they didn't know if they could handle going back to the place where their loved one had died. After a crime occurs or when someone dies, the police aren't responsible for cleaning up, that's not their job. The corner takes the body, the police conduct their investigation, and then everyone leaves, but the blood and the rubber gloves and the uneaten food in the refrigerator is all left behind. Sandra didn't like thinking about that. She didn't think anyone should have to walk back into that so. She decided to clean it up. I'm Phoebe judge. This is criminal. I thought a guy. I would.

Hi this nation market and see how I got she said she started by buying a van I'm just confused. I all you have to do is get a van and some cleaning. The and then in the beginning you can just start well, it was block that it 'cause. It was a nation in straight. No one was really doing it here in Australia. She stay pushed herself as a trauma cleaner, sometimes called an aftermath technician here in the United States, they're often called crime scene cleaners for the last twenty six years. Sandra has owned and operated her own trauma cleaning business under business card. It says excellence is no accident, we do deceased estates. Would you pay and hold a clay naps? We do use Kuala and trashed houses. We pay Himes for the high and help the agencies to attend. We do

the other control, homicide, suicide and attended death scenes mold flood thigh remediation, meth, lab cleaning, Bio cleans for the cells in the vehicles for the place and industrial accidents, so. That's a pretty wide range of things that we do. The trauma cleaning industry really took off in the 90s when people began to be worried about the transmission of HIV before that family and friends would be the ones who would take care of the aftermath of a crime or a death. Now these types of cleanings are often covered by insurance and victim funds Sandra says, she's never said no to a job, so you know you say some pretty gruesome things and some you think this said that you know like the place to go, or this is one of the worst ones we've seen and when we get there within

god you should get out more often. This is AC unit, see you get up to a crime scene and and everyone all the police are outside and they're saying this is bad. I we've never seen anything like the Listen and you say, don't worry boys we've got it covered, yet we make them feel com uncomfortable and everything as well, and we talked to the family and say: look we're here to to restore the house to its former claw. Pray for you, it's not just a cleaning job. It's looking after people's mental health. Instead, committee as well, I believe 'cause we're not just playing. She said she could get a call anytime at three in the morning. While she's working on another job, while she's eating dinner, she is two hours to get to the scene. This morning, Add a call at three hundred and thirty this morning for to wake a team up, get them out, get a job done

We're not allowed to discuss the jobs in particular that we do 'cause parallel our privacy concerns. That we had a team at three hundred and thirty this morning. So you can say even had a lot of sleep and then up at six hundred and fifteen this morning to get ready and look like a normal person. Her first case came to her from former colleagues at the funeral home, a man with a hoarding disorder had passed away in his rental property. The clean up took seventy two hours. It was a rat infested, filthy den of iniquity, that I'd never seen the likes of because I used to Nick Name is sparkle, because my house is always tip top shape and to walk into this place. He was like, oh my god. I can't believe people could live like this rats and mice, running ITALY. You felt like it had to be. You know a field officer to deal with the animals that were there.

It was just really really spooky, but in the end we had to do. I think the fifth layer of flooring to come off in the kitchen because it was so contaminated and with that was slicing the last bit of vinyl poor, in boiling water ever to break the glue down and then pulling space and rich sort of lift it up, but not only is it glued down. It was riveted down, and so every time we here reverse. It would ricochet on our hands and our hands ended. People cracking right the size of watermelons and we sorry gang are my God, we're in so much pain and like would finish the job and will I was really depressed, and I thought I don't think I can do this. I really don't I can do this, but then you get over it

smart and then you move on. She says people think you need a bucket of water and a cloth to do this job, but we need crowbars rakes and a such an we'll be right back support for criminal comes from zip recruiter was zip. Recruiter hiring is simple, fast and smart. In tours Seo Dylan Masko it's needed to hire director of coffee. He went to zip recruiter, posted his job and found the best person for the role in just a few days. Zip recruiters technology finds people with the right experience and invite them to apply to your job, Forada five employers who post on zipper

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That's twenty percent off your first purchase with promo code criminal at need of deodorant dot com Sandra Pankhurst now operates her trauma, cleaning business with twenty four employees and nine vans. She says she gets calls every single day and that when it comes to hiring new people, she says she likes to hire people like her who come from as she puts it the school of hard knocks when she meets with someone for an interview. She shows some photographs of the kinds of scenes they might encounter and she watches their face to see how they react to the photos. She's. Looking for empathy, she says it takes a

special kind of person to handle blood and to do it with empathy. The next step is to shadow her on a job, and she says it doesn't take long at all to determine whether someone is cut out for this type of work. If they're not no trouble, she says she would never tell someone to quote: take a teaspoon of concrete and toughen up. She knows it's not for everyone. When she does hire someone, she tells them to prepare to work harder than they've ever worked in their lives. She tells them they can cancel their gym membership, they won't need it. Each employee goes through a four day, training course. The first three days they study theory and equipment and how certain solvents interact with body fluids. On the fourth day, they practice Sandra, gets blood from a slaughterhouse and pours it over furniture and carpets

when they go into crime scenes you so take a lot of photographs of how looked before and after, and that they have a system in which each person's work is double checked by someone else. Her greatest fear is missing something and having a family member see something that might scare or upset them. So let's say you go call that you're going to a crime scene. Tell me the steps that you go through after you get that call razzo what do then, if I bring the staff members involved to go that are going out on the job, and I can't use could be always may till the last couple of years and we'd go there and I'd say now. This is what we're going to be confronted with. If I was on the tools- and I would go in the house- see what it is come out explain to the star- this is what you

it can be confronted with. Are you ok with this, and there go yep yep Batavia occasion where we've had a staff member this just broken down, and they can't do it and they might in a fairly newbie person and and we sort of ok, that's alright, it's not for everybody. So just got and wait out in the car and we'll get this job done here. So it's we go through the scenario of, what's in the house, what to expect what how things have happened, the place of he still be there. Our is named the body's gone forensics. Dane they've, taken all that the testing and that fingerprint dusting and everything that they want to do, and then we have Restore the house back to somewhat is Mcalary, which sometimes is challenging, because if we have to remove carpet, we then have get permission to do that. We can't just pull up

the apart without ask them the Department of Justice or whoever's, employing ask full technician of everything, that's going to happen, but in the same, by the way, I'm not too late. The saying, if there's any bacteria, passage in selling the property and then after We moved down the job we look at, That side is where cleaning and the equipment and putting out taking a suits. Gloves and masks and all this sort of stuff off that we would have a chance and have a a a a talk around. Quite often we go and stop off at a high channel. Something like that. I would have a drink for a capitais or for something like that and and just chew the fat and sort of have a a general conversation. And how did you find that had you've? How do you feel about that because sometimes you'd, find things that would be quite confronting like a gentleman. One stage blew his head off and he's due

manage to live. So we tried it again because that is half of the roof of his mouth was on one side of the room in his is where, on the other side of the room brain map, I was on another part of the room, and- and this is quite a large room and then he ended up doing it again and yet still lived. What is it like to see someone's brains on the wall? I'm it's just another job, I know that sounds cruel, but it would be a difference to Sorry, if you knew the person and if near the person you wouldn't be loud. I wouldn't let you do the job. What do you wear into the crime scene am while, where we've got like the big white suits, we've got foot coverings on our face. We have

hairnets on we have goggles are in her mouth corn and we had were double gloved that's how we would go into a that. We look like Nothing out of the aliens: what do you do about the smell? Are the smells? Nothing once you get rid of the source and the chemicals and things that we leave. The house smells the fresh, Is the daisy by the time we've gone? That's not an issue and like if it's been there for some time and as a decomposition. Yes, yeah the funk master. We I said I we put on a as machines that might have to run for a couple of days and I feel how old a and so it can eliminate a lot of that. But if it's been a daycamp, the bodies, the gases and everything set up been released from the body go on? over the wall, so the walls all have to be washed down the main pro

from Venice, the fabrics that absorb the odor and that's when would you use the machines to dispose if the smell? What's the worst smell. Death, lot long term death where they've been there for quite some time and no ones. Now back, then they in there just now, you're, never ever ever forget when she gets a call. She's, not only told what happened, but she's also told who's at the scene. Sometimes they could be a family there to help it on wanting to go into the house, but we have to talk them down and make them feel like you know, this is not how your picked a surgeon. Do you your parents again. I said GOP Xavier, is this? The last name is that you do you? Do you think your parents want every year and on nine nine nine, but we just need to say I said no you just need to say, but that's not really

you will not want to leave with, because this is the last memory of ever gonna have. Let us just cover the area over and show you roughly where it happened and we'll get say out, get permission to get some linen out of a linen press and we cover the area over and show them roughly where it happened, and they use really quite satisfied with that, but sometimes that Take a narrow, two outta talk family down Sandra says this is the part of her work. She cares about most protecting the people who are left behind. It's our job to sort of make sure that they had mental health is low,

doctors well Xander told us that if someone dies in a particular part of a room, she won't just cut the carpet out in that spot she always gets permission to take the carpet out of the whole room so that when she's done and the family returns to the house, they never know exactly where the body was found. Sometimes she sets things the site that the families may want things. That may mean something things at hand. Writing pictures birthday card. What's the most important thing that you've learned from this work, don't judge anybody. You never know when it's what's gonna happen to you next, just you know just. Show some compassion and care because, as they say,

By the grace of God, it could be used in Iraq. She sixty five now and has no plans to retire. She says: she's had a long, sometimes difficult life and she's happy to have found work that makes her feel like she's contributing and she puts it. Looking after people correctly Criminalist created by Lawrence for me, media will and as our senior producer Susanna Robertson is our assistant producer, audio mix. Hi rob Byers. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of criminal. You can see them at This is dot com where, on Facebook and twitter at criminal show

is recorded in the studios of North Carolina, public radio, W Wun see we're proud member of radiotopia from Prx a collection of the best podcasts around I'm Phoebe jet. This is criminal radio to.