madamethursday:

TRIGGER WARNING FOR IMAGES OF DOLLS RECREATING CRIME SCENES AND SHOWING THE END RESULT OF VIOLENCE OR SELF HARM!

[Image: A black and white photo of Frances Glessner Lee, an elderly white woman seated at a table with small dollhouse furniture, looking intently down as she assembles something.]

chicagoartnerd:

fuckyeahthebizarre:

At a time when women didn’t have any place among the police or law enforcement, and forensic science barely existed a elderly Chicago socialite named Mrs. Frances Glessner Lee became famous for her crime solving analytical skills, and taught an entire generation of cops how to search for clues…. using doll houses.

The creator of 18 perfectly proportioned dioramas based on real-life crime scenes, these painstakingly crafted dioramas include functioning locks and lights and details such as overturned cups, bullet-holes, and boxes of chocolates as well as miniature corpses in a variety of macabre positions.

They were used by Mrs. Frances Glessner Lee in week-long seminars where the young detectives would scour the scenes for 90 minutes with only the aid of a flashlight and a magnifying glass, trying to deduce the details of the murders through the details of the dioramas. If they had a keen eye, they might spot the tiny bullet lodged into the tiny rafters of the scene, and begin to unravel the clues. 

After Lee’s death in 1962, the models were acquired by the Maryland Medical Examiner’s office and underwent $50,000 in restorations in the 1990s. They are still used as training tools.

[Image: A photo of a small doll in a dollhouse barn hanging from a rope standing on top of a wooden crate.]

[Image: A dollhouse kitchen with a small doll representing a woman who has fallen by her stove, laying on the ground as part of a miniature crime scene.]