Crime scene cleaner: I speak for the dead
DONNA Naylor has learned that reality and horror movies aren’t so different from each other ... "but for me life is worth living, even if it means cleaning up after the dead".
Gold Coast
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“EVERYBODY has a story. This is mine. What makes me think my story is worth telling? I speak for the dead.”
AT 160cm and 50kg, Donna Naylor looks more like a Sea World dolphin trainer than a crime scene cleaner.
Crime scene cleaner: the ones in the white suits made popular by CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Their job is clean up blood, bodily fluids and potentially infectious materials from accidents, suicides, homicides and decomposition after unattended death.
It could also include mass trauma, industrial accidents, infectious disease contamination and animal biohazards.
In the years Donna has been a “cleaner”; she has cleaned hundreds of crime scenes. None of them have been the same.
But how did a Gold Coast girl, who left school early to become a hairdresser end up with a ‘secret life’ in the underworld of crime scene cleaning?
It took a TV show ... How Clean is Your Crime Scene? ... determination, a strong stomach and compassion.
“I’ve never been to a crime scene that has made me want to quit ... many have made me sad ... but I genuinely love my job,” she said.
“And it’s not just cleaning — there’s also demolition. I’ve had to jackhammer tiles for 14 hours straight ... cut up floorboards ... and every job is different.
“Some take 30 minutes, some take three weeks ... I literally don’t know what I’m walking into until I get to the job.
“And there are a lot of emotions to deal with ... other people’s emotions. My job is make sure the scene looks like nothing happened here.
“And I want to do that for the families. I make sure I meet all the families.
“For them it’s a traumatic experience and I try to make it as easy as I can ... they are going through so much grief and the most rewarding part of my job is when I get a hug from them ... and I know I have helped them move on.
“I would want somebody to help my family in the same way.”
The 30-year-old said the key to coping with confronting crime scenes was to not buy into the sadness. To look at the positives.
But that said there are some scenes ... and smells ... the mind does not let her forget.
Like SURF washing powder.
“A guy had gutted a woman and covered her stomach with Surf powder to try and cover up the smell,” she said.
“He also spent nine hours trying to clean up his DNA ... but I can’t stand the smell of that brand of washing powder.
“I also don’t find Halloween funny any more ... and bloody handprints on the wall ... and horror movies aren’t so far fetched.
“A girl will run for her room every time.”
More shocking for Donna, is people’s reaction to crime scenes. Or rather, their morbid fascination.
“I know some people think it is a strange job but I tell you what I find strange.
‘I went to a murder scene in which a two-month-old baby died. The dad then tried to kill himself and his wife.
“There must have been 100 people turning up to the front door to have a look — there were mums driving past with their kids in the back of the car.
That’s the behaviour I find strange — why do they want to come and look at crime scene where an absolute tragedy has taken place?
“And people’s behaviour when a family member dies is also strange. I’ve had family members trying to steal from a crime scene — who does that?”
Part of Donna’s coping strategies also include regular debriefings with her sister, who works as a firefighter, and her parents.
“My family are so proud of me ... they have supported me from the start ... but of course there are times they worry about me,” she said.
“Crime scenes can be unsettling but I’ve never been scared ... I’ve always got a sledgehammer with me.”
Cleaning up also includes a magnitude of sanitary and health risks — material is sent away to be burned and Donna takes care with her hazmat suit.
But still there are dangers.
“I did a bad thing the other week ... I thought bodily fluid had gone into the wall, I got on my hands and knees to smell it ... and then got bacteria from the body in my eye ... it’s the first time it’s ever happened and my doctor was not happy with me.”
While clean-up is Donna’s absolute passion — hairdressing is what Donna credit for giving her the skills to deal with distressed and at times, aggressive families.
“I still cut hair — I feel it balances me out and without a doubt being a hairdresser for 13 years has helped my people skills.
“And my older clients love it. One of my clients was an elderly woman in hospital, she has passed away now, but she couldn’t wait to hear what I had been up to.”
Of all the death Donna has seen, issues surrounding loneliness and depression stand out.
“From the outside a lot of people show the world they are OK but under the surface they are riddled with pain and guilt,” she said.
“It doesn’t take a lot to say hello to your neighbour ... to reach out. I see so many scenes where people have died alone and afraid.
“And mental health is a massive issue in our society ... you know I would have as much work as I do if people made them for each other.”
As a means of reducing stress, and also because people kept asking her about her crime scene cleaning, Donna published a book called Bloodstones and Ballgowns.
“When I first started I didn’t really mention my job but in the past couple of years, I’ve become more relaxed.
“And because of that, I started getting more questions — so I decided to put it all down on paper.
“But I think I’m due for a sequel.”
Bloodstones & Ballgowns
On the scene with Donna
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH
We were in Brisbane, all we knew was a man in his 50s had passed away ... no one had seen him for a week.
When people pass away, they all smell slightly different. This guy had been on a liquid diet of XXXX.
The sick man’s blood had soaked into the floorboards next to the bed and cleaning the house took a week. But the missing flatmate who resided in the spare room remained a mystery. Until the lady next door revealed it was his mate, who worked in the mines. I asked if she had his number ... I was going to have to make a call.
CIRCUS CIRCUS
At first I couldn’t help but laugh at the 64 cats, two dogs, donkey, horse, pony, many chickens, ferrets and rabbits that had been allowed to roam in one big house.
And let’s not forget the hermaphrodite. But the house itself was clouded in filth to the point where they had to bring in a bulldozer to remove soil so contaminated was it by hazardous waste — animal and human. Animal cruelty and mental illness ran rampant in this house — I’d need a chainsaw to clean up this scene.
TRIPLE ZERO
I hadn’t heard any news reports so I guessed the reporters hadn’t yet heard about it.
The police asked me to go straight there, no questions asked. All they told me was that a man had been in a gun fight with police, and I needed to be finished in two hours.
On the concrete flooring of the carport I encountered the outline of a man’s body with a bloodstain near the head. As I walked past, an officer said: “Get rid of that body outline ... when his kid comes home she won’t want to see where daddy got shot.”
DADDY’S GIRL
I never realised how alcoholism affects lives until I saw grown men covered in their own vomit and faeces, dead from liver failure, and no one knowing they had died until weeks later.
It had been a break and enter and the intruder had cut himself (or herself). I didn’t know if the intruder had survived. There was as much blood here as in any of the stabbing murders I had attended. He’d been intoxicated which made his blood thinner so the bleeding was heavy ... but the intruder had been her dad.
LOVE AND HATE
You know it’s not going to be pretty when even the police inform you the scene is horrific. We’d been called to a murder, this time south of Ballina.
As we reached the front door, we saw it was smeared with a bloody handprint. After entering, I turned my head and looked down the doorway ... imagine five litres of red paint being thrown down the hallway, smearing your hands along the way. The trail of blood led to the bedroom. The wall next to the bed had skull fragments visible in patches of blood. I thought “that poor girl”.
This story was originally published in 2016
Originally published as Crime scene cleaner: I speak for the dead
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