Law doctor Werner Jacobs ontfutselt the secrets of the living and the dead: I have emotional involvement to learn afblokken

TV Doctor Werner Jacobs (49) is, as a forensic pathologist attached to the university hospital of Antwerp. Since his first case, the murder of hormonenjager Karel Van Noppen in 1995, he was already involved in a number of high-profile criminal investigations. “I am not better at my job by often in the media. I do this to give people a more realistic look at our work,” he says in the Story.

Doctor Werner Jacobs is this week the central figure in ‘Wetsdokters’ on VTM, the latest addition in the list of programs on the professions that appeal to the imagination. However, it is the work of a forensic pathologist in docuseries as ‘Misdaaddokters’ on Canvas – which he was – and now also ‘Wetsdokters’ stripped of all the myths and misconceptions. Who, for example, thought that the doctor eight hours a day over a autopsietafel bent state to seem to investigate, is not easy. “There are weeks that I have five to ten bodies a week on the autopsietafel get,” says the doctor. “But I do my co-workers and also other things which might be less known, such as on-the-spot when a violent or suspicious deaths. That happens about 600 to 800 times per year. My main occupation is the autopsy on the dead bodies, but half of the time I am also living busy, with perpetrators and suspects of assault and battery: intrafamiliaal violence, child abuse, rape... Brokkenpiloten or recidivists who have been repeatedly drunk or under the influence of drugs behind the wheel were caught by the politieparket or the magistrate also referred.”

Are you sometimes surprised by the ingenuity of that hardleerse verkeerszondaars when they for you, when it comes to the quantity to belazeren?

“Rarely. People often think that they are smarter if they are in front of us, but often it appears that yet against attack. Often the logic or the reasonableness not of tel when people get their sheet trying to save. How someone prepares for his visit here, I'm not interested in, however, what his daily way of life. Also who's sober remains the week before the survey can still easily through the basket fall, if we have his or her hair to examine. Per centimeter of hair on your head, I get about one month of your life. By that hair analysis can I see if someone even occasionally a joint has been smoked, three months ago, while he staalhard is to deny it.”

What are the main requirements to your box, to do good, besides a large anatomical knowledge and an eye for detail?

“knowledge of human nature and experience come me also very useful. And gullible is good, but suspicion is better (laughs) . I like doctor House from the series ‘House MD’ quote: ‘Everybody lies’, everyone lies. That is perhaps a bit exaggerated, but in my box, should I not assume that what you to me will tell the truth. I should be sufficiently critical in what I presented get. Magistrates should, in my report, not the conclusions to expect that they would like to had heard. A law doctor is a neutral expert. I write my conclusions on the basis of what I scientific and technical have been established.”

A Marc Dutroux, Michel Fourniret: we are now already a number of years been spared, but I'm under no illusions. It is a matter of time for someone to rise

Werner Jacobs

You quotes doctor House. We see increasingly often in recent years wetsdokters popping up in fictieseries. Give those characters a real picture of what you are doing?

“Not all series are equally truthful. ‘Silent Witness’, I have always been very good and realistic found. And ‘House MD’ was mainly an outsider within the medical series, but I do love Gregory House and his way of working and thinking to that of the forensic way of thinking. But most of all it was a very funny series. Fictiemakers come regularly at me, waiting to make their fantasies a realiteitscheck. Recently, the writers duo Maes & Wade for their new novel ‘Master of Death’. For something I make, if possible, like time free.”

Kicking at shins

Often have wetsdokters on television a distinctly cynical edge.

“Cynicism is often inherent to the profession of law doctor. We wetsdokters have a very good view on the society, and are daily confronted with the less attractive sides of it. Normally you become as a normal human being with something to face, and when you do have to deal with, always such a personal drama for weeks hanging. That we can't afford. If you to me will tell you that you're home raided, and that you have a gun to the head have been given, I will think: ‘You've been lucky that they are not shot. It still had much worse." For the first time with crime are facing, will have a great impact on you, but such facts, and, much worse, we on a daily basis. And you are often cynical.”

Weigh some things on your mind than others?

“I have emotional involvement to learn afblokken, otherwise you may get this don't work properly. That is, for an outsider, it may be hard to grasp, but I'm a forensic researcher. My research domain is human. What is from a purely forensic point of view the difference between an autopsy on a corpse, a scripture - study or research on a screwdriver that comes with a break-in is used? Nothing! Price you happy that I am that body can investigate without disturbing emotions, goéd studies, in the interest of the investigation of the truth. But also for the processing of the next of kin. I can do the job perfectly my feelings off, and a man depersonaliseren to an object of research. Does that make me hard? Yes, but therefore I love it also for more than twenty years. I have others after only three months, threw in the show.”

Are you in that more than twenty year career also harder?

“Not per se. I have a better perspective. I believe that in the future there are still people like Hans Van Themsche, or Kim De Gelder will come. Not every year, but every so often come to similar facts back. A Marc Dutroux, Michel Fourniret: we are now already a number of years been spared, but I'm under no illusions. It is a matter of time for someone to get up. For a layman, that seems incomprehensible, but for me, that is a certainty. I hear the police sometimes say: we are in urgent need of a new case He is needed. That may be shocking to happen but I understand what they want to say. Only that kind of things makes it possible that sufficient resources are made available for the forensic investigation. This was shown after the attacks of march 22, 2016. Unfortunately, once the media attention weakens, disappear that means. But wetsdokters did not, hey. You can give them anytime from their bed to them at night and no matter what the weather, a place of a crime to investigate. This is a kind of professional pride in our small profession, even though we must sometimes a year or more waiting on the money. For young people who are for this box, want to choose, it is unfortunately not motivating.”

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