Murder, suicide and fatal workplace accidents leave emotional and psychological scars for colleagues who have to continue working in offices that became crime scenes.
Those scenes often involve blood, body fluids and other biohazards that have to be cleaned up before a home or workplace can function again.
Casper’s John Sleep, co-owner and general manager of the SERVPRO franchise, said his company gets a dozen or so calls a year, often from police victim’s services units, asking if his team can clean up a crime scene.
And it’s never an easy task.
“Maybe the biggest thing is that we need to be quick and quiet, just discreetly take care of this,” he said. “And get the property turned back over to the loved one or the friend or family member. And that's about it.”
SERVPRO offers standard carpet and duct cleaning as well as water and fire damage restoration and more.
Sleep said the crime scene work is unique in that he never makes specific employees work those shifts. He asks for volunteers from his 12-member Casper team and there are no repercussions for turning the assignment down.
“We do offer incentive pay because it is challenging work psychologically,” Sleep said. “And with that, only people who are willing to respond to those jobs go out to it.”
The company typically stays in the Natrona County and Converse County areas for its crime scene or traumatic injury cleanup work.
If a law enforcement victim services staff member is not calling to ask for the service, Sleep said requests typically come from a friend or relative of victims or those directly impacted by a crime scene.
Service Started Because Of Need
Sleep said the SERVPRO Casper franchise was started by his dad, Gerald Sleep and stepmom, Gale, in 1985 as Casper was experiencing a bust cycle and people were losing their homes and jobs. His dad knew that to make it in the business he would have to take any work that came.
And cleanup of crime or suicide scenes was a need.
“Nobody else was addressing these,” Sleep said. “My dad started providing a service, not as a profit center, but in the 80s in Casper, there were no qualified companies doing it. And Casper needed somebody.”
When a call comes to clean up a crime scene, generally the police have already cleared their investigation. While the company often deals with people with flooded basements and fire damage requiring empathy and service, the trauma jobs take their communication and empathy skills to a higher level.
“The trauma scenes are always the most difficult for people, and we really try to be cognizant of that and provide the help that we need without pestering them for too much information or anything,” he said.
When someone calls, such as a friend or relative, Sleep said he stays away from the direct questions that he would ask for a flooded basement or fire scene. He tries to stay very “tactful and will ask “functional questions.”
The company requires that all crime scene jobs have at least two people. The team leader must be certified in trauma and crime scene work. Sometimes there are more staff depending on the scope of the incident.
Once at the scene, most of the cleanup efforts typically occur by hand. They follow the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification standards for trauma and crime scene cleanup. The company must follow OSHA blood-borne pathogen standards and EPA standards as well.
PPE Gear
Staff wear personal protection gear that includes Tyvek coveralls, nitrile gloves, a respirator, and eye protection. All non-porous surfaces such as tile, tables, walls are cleaned with specific EPA disinfectant that can destroy tuberculosis, staph, COVID, and other viruses or bacteria.
The disinfectant solutions are premixed, and when applied, staff must follow the strict guidelines that dictate things like the time the surface is left wet with the disinfectant prior to removal.
“When we deal with porous surfaces, such as carpet, carpet pad, bedding, those items simply need to be removed and disposed of,” he said. The technicians use specific red biohazard bags for that material that have to be disposed of properly.
In Casper, the city’s special waste division offers that final destination service.
The first time Sleep responded to a crime scene several years ago he characterized it as a “system shock.”
“I had nightmares after some, but I found a lot of peace in talking to my coworkers at the time and just talking it out,” he said. “We let our employees know that if they wish to see a counselor, we will absolutely send them to counseling, but it hasn’t come up yet. Normally, our team is pretty tight.”
Sleep said he was able to navigate some of the jobs just by understanding that even though the job and scene was “bad,” he was helping somebody who was going through a difficult time.
While he is cautious when talking about crime scenes, Sleep shared that he has learned that rifles and shotguns have a “kinetic energy” that is “very destructive.”
“The coroner’s office and first responders will take the body and transport it out of there before we get there,” he said. “But on some of your rifle and shotgun incidents, there’s a lot of tissue in small parts left and those are the more difficult ones, really.”
He said his team knows they have to be extremely thorough in their remediation to ensure that any and every trace of the incident is removed and appropriate EPA registered disinfectant properly applied.
Cleaning up a crime scene where blood-borne pathogens exist requires protective gear. (Courtesy SERVPRO) 
Typical equipment used at a trauma or crime scene includes personal protective gear and specific disinfectants that can kill viruses and other pathogens. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Casper’s SERVPRO franchise’s efforts at crime scene cleanup began in the mid-1980s when John Sleep’s dad, Gerald started the business and was asked to provide cleanup for crime scenes because no one else in town was providing the service. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Tactics Needed
Sometimes, the affected object is a couch or chair. They remove the covering and padding down to the frame and put the material in biohazard disposal bags and disinfect the frame of the object before it can be removed and disposed of.
The crew can use one of its truck-based carpet cleaners to do a hot-water extraction on a larger surface area before they apply disinfectant. On some jobs they deploy an ozone generator to deodorize the space.
While most of their traumatic injury and crime scene cleanup occurs in homes, Sleep said he recalls at least once instance where they responded to workplace that was the site of traumatic incident. On another occasion, he was asked to clean up after an incident in a home shop.
“It was a highly organized workshop with many cabinets and containers of small parts, and the next of kin wanted those containers saved,” he said. “We had to pack all of those items back to our shop and meticulously decontaminate them over a couple of weeks.”
In the shop itself, they did a meticulous cleaning and then worked with other contractors for some additional restoration work that included sealing and painting.
While out-of-state companies advertise as being available for crime scene work in Wyoming, Sleep said those firms typically charge much more as well because the crime scene work is their only niche. He views the work more as a community service.
“We try to price up services as modestly as we can,” he said. “We’re not trying to use it as a profit center; we’re trying to provide a necessary community service.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
