ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we have all seen the show, "CSI." I happen to be a "Law and Order" addict. It's amazing, isn't it, how all the crimes are neatly solved just in time for the last commercial break. Well, if only real crime solving were so easy. In the sniper case, all of us as spectators must try to separate the fact of police work from the fiction. Here to help us, a woman who's written both, Edna Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize winner with 20 years of reporting experience with the "Miami Herald." She's also written thrillers. Her latest detective one entitled "Ice Maiden" is coming to a bookstore near you and we are pleased that she joins us now from Miami. Thanks for being with us, Edna.

EDNA BUCHANAN, AUTHOR, "ICE MAIDEN": Thank you.

COOPER: When you see a clip like that from "CSI," when you watch these shows, what really jumps out at you as completely unrealistic besides the, you know, the glamorous hair and makeup of all the detectives?

BUCHANAN: Well, I think that, for example, most of the crime scene investigators who have, you know, wear their hair short or tied back because imagine how many long hairs would wind up among the evidence gathered by that crew because the woman there who is one of them has this long hair and they found a hair in the rope. And, I believe in part of that particular show, they said this hair belongs to you, and of course unless there's DNA which has been analyzed, which takes ten to 12 days in the roots, if there are no roots they can't really identify a hair as belonging to a specific person. It's consistent with but it can't be positively identified as theirs and...

COOPER: Sorry. So many people have watched these shows. I mean as I mentioned, I watch "Law and Order" all the time. I think I know a fair amount about, you know, crime solving based on "Law and Order." Do you think that hinders the police in a lot of ways, I mean that in some ways we have unrealistic expectations of what the police can accomplish?

BUCHANAN: Sure, and I think it may give jurors, potential jurors and the general public unrealistic expectations, as well as some police officers who actually think some of these things can be done. But in that particular scene, what they didn't do sort of struck me because the thick rope which seemed to be a tightly woven nylon, they could attempt to take a latent print off that. I think that has been done. They can use a chemical to bring up a latent print and they never talked about the knot, and if the knot is in the back of a hanging victim then you know it's not suicide and there are many things that they can tell from all of that. So what they didn't do there in that particular scene was more interesting to me than what they did.

COOPER: As you look at this unfolding investigation right now in the Washington, D.C. area, what really jumps out at you in terms of the police investigation?

BUCHANAN: Well, I think there's a lot of confusion going on because some of these police chiefs have not been accustomed to having the press of the world nipping at their, you know yapping at their heels, and it's pretty difficult to deal with that at the same time that you're doing this massive one of a kind investigation.

COOPER: Also, talk to us, I mean you have a lot of experience in reporting on crimes over the years. You know when you have all these different agencies, all these jurisdictions trying to work together, how difficult is that? I mean have you come across cases like that where the infrastructure itself, you now, creates a problem?

BUCHANAN: Yes, that's because all of the jurisdictions, and in many cases I'm not saying it's so there, but in many cases that I've seen there are these rivalries often between agencies. They don't cooperate as much as they could have. In fact, in the past I've seen some agencies that were so jealous that they would sooner see a crime go unsolved than have a rival agency solve it other than them. So, it's a tough thing to deal with when it covers so much geography and there are so many different jurisdictions and different agencies involved, ATF, the FBI, the local police departments, sheriff's departments, and I think the different medical examiners' offices.

COOPER: All right, Edna Buchanan, thanks very much for joining us. That's all the time we have right now but real interesting stuff. Thanks for being with us from Miami tonight.

BUCHANAN: You're welcome.

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