Life before high tech forensics.

There is a miniature community of horrors on the third floor of the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office.

A display of 18 exquisitely crafted models of actual crime scenes presents grisly vignettes of violent death.

The models were made in the 1940s by Frances Glessner Lee, a wealthy, eccentric Chicago woman who had been raised on Sherlock Holmes tales and had a lifelong fascination with sleuthing. Lee is reputedly the inspiration for the character of Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote.

Bruce Goldfarb: Small-Scale Tragedies
More (& better) photos here.