Reality becomes fiction when a real-life detective, who makes his home in St. Petersburg, embarks on a new career advising the CBS crime drama, CSI: Miami.
By DAVE SCHEIBER
Published January 1, 2004
[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
John Haynes, pictured in his St. Petersburg home, is a full-time consultant to CSI: Miami.
David Caruso is Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami. John Haynes says the character is “loosely modeled” on him.
[Photo: CBS]
[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
John Haynes and his wife, Krista Potthast-Haynes, a former nurse who serves as assistant to CSI: Miami producer-writer Elizabeth Devine, savor their trips home to St. Petersburg. “We love it here,” she says.
ST. PETERSBURG - John Haynes doesn't resemble a grizzled, hard-nosed detective in the mold of TV tough cops Andy Sipowicz of NYPD Blue or Law & Order's Lennie Briscoe.
Tall and lean, with youthful good looks, Haynes has more of the polished demeanor of, say, crime-fighter Horatio Caine of CBS hit CSI: Miami, now in its second season as a spinoff of top-rated CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
No surprise there. Haynes, a resident of Venetian Isles in northeast St. Petersburg, is a decorated, former Los Angeles detective and inspiration for the Caine character, portrayed by actor David Caruso.
Haynes, 45, worked the Southeast L.A. gang unit in the 1980s as street warfare raged and murder rates soared. Later, he went undercover to do surveillance of prison gangs, and became one of the youngest homicide detectives in the department's history.
In 1995, he was promoted to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department bomb squad, later teaching FBI agents nationwide how to work bombing scenes. But an explosion ended his career, and, ironically, led to a new one in television.
Today, Haynes is living a script with wife, Krista Potthast-Haynes, that's right out of Hollywood. Haynes is a full-time consultant to CSI: Miami, which is a Top 10 hit in the Nielsen ratings, and his wife, a former Winter Haven nurse, serves as assistant to producer-writer Elizabeth Devine. They stay in rented digs in Los Angeles during production, but savor their trips home over holidays and in the summer.
"We love it here," says Potthast-Haynes, 42, sitting with her husband on a recent afternoon for a two-week stay, before heading back to Los Angeles to begin filming.
They moved into their waterfront house in March 2002, with no clue that network TV was about to come calling. We spoke with Haynes about the unexpected turn of events.
Times: People probably don't guess you were once a tough, big-city detective, do they?
Haynes: I'll tell you a funny story. Krista and I got home on Wednesday (Dec. 17) and on Thursday I went to check out the new Publix, and I got carded in there buying a six-pack of beer. Carded in Publix! I'm almost 46. But I guess that's a compliment.
Times: So how did you hook up with the show?
Haynes: Krista was working for Johnson & Johnson, and they offered her a position in the Tampa Bay area. And since Krista's family (two brothers and her mother) lived here and we loved the area, it was really a no-brainer. So we moved here and purchased a home in March 2002. And lo and behold, a few weeks later, I got a call from our friend Elizabeth Devine, a writer-producer for CSI and CSI: Miami.
She said, "You're not going to believe this: CBS is spinning off the show, and it's all about Florida and Miami." They wanted to hire me as a consultant. And the rest is history.
Times: How did Devine know you?
Haynes: We actually worked together. I was a homicide detective when I first met her in 1990 and she was a criminalist at the L.A. County sheriff's crime lab. We met on a murder case, and from that point on, we worked several murder cases together and became great friends. At the end of my career, CSI was just starting to get up and running in its first season in 1999. There were a few areas of technical expertise that Liz didn't have that I had been trained and educated in. So she called on me to offer some technical assistance. That allowed me some exposure to the executive producers of the show.
Times: Why were you at the end of your career?
Haynes: When I was on the bomb squad, I had an accident. Some explosives blew up in my hands. I was fairly lucky. I lost the feeling in my hands for a while, but it came back. I had some burn damage, and problems with debris in my eyes, and I had a lot of nerve damage in my ears, and I had some respiratory damage all from the blast - I inhaled from chemicals, and developed asthma. I had to have a couple of surgeries in my head.
My boss supported me trying to keep things on the Q.T., but it got to a point where (being a detective) just wasn't meant to be anymore. Consequently, the department retired me. So I was in a situation of, "Okay, what the hell do I do now?" It was very difficult. There was about a year where it was really tough, feeling kind of lost. So we moved here to reflect back and decide what's next. Should I go back to school? Maybe go to USF? I really had no clue. And then, out of the blue, I got the call from Liz.
Times: Both CSI shows seem to go beyond other crime shows in depicting graphic forensic details.
Haynes: I think that most of America is fascinated by (that). You don't just talk about something walking down the hall, but you're showing them something. And not just showing it on the table, but taking it down to the molecular level. And I think people are very interested in that kind of detail. Some people may cover their eyes or look away from the screen, but they have to look back. They're learning something new every week. The science we use is all based on real science.
Times: Still, it can be a bit jolting.
Haynes: Probably the first six to eight episodes, we actually had camera operators who were getting weak-kneed in the "autopsy" room and had to excuse themselves, because of the detail created by Matthew Mungle. He does a lot of our special-effects makeup and builds all those prosthetics, and does all the research on body organs. He portrayed them so accurately that crew members were flipping out and had to leave the room.
Times: How did you get used to the real gore as a cop?
Haynes: You'd psych yourself out. The first time you go to the coroner's office and you say, "I'm not going to worry about the smell or the trauma. I'm going to look at this as an education - like, I didn't realize that part of the anatomy was there or worked that way." I'd ask questions of the doctors. You'd kind of fool yourself from getting sucked into the negativity. Because you can't survive if you don't do that.
Times: What do you do to consult on an episode?
Haynes: I sit around with the executive producers (Ann Donohue and Liz Devine) and the other producers and writers. I just share life experiences and share things from the world I came from. A lot of it is just talking, and them picking my brain. Then once a world is kind of discovered that the producers feel is of interest, an outline is worked out, and writers will go off and write the script. Liz and I will look at it for technical notes, and the writers' draft will go out.
Times: Do you work with the actors on the set?
Haynes: Yes. I talk with them a lot, demonstrate to them the considerations a crime-scene investigator would have. Say, for instance, walking into this living room you had a body in the middle of the floor. People who aren't used to being around death tend to focus right on the body, like a magnet. But there are a lot of considerations between the door threshold and the body that someone looking for trace evidence needs to consider. The actors want to know everything.
Times: How did David Caruso's character come to be modeled after you?
Haynes: Loosely modeled. I think it happened with Liz just going to the producers and the network and basically telling them my story.
Times: What's your relationship with Caruso?
Haynes: David is very respectful of me. And he's a very smart guy. He's passionate about what he does, and he's extremely quick-witted and funny. He comes to work each day with his game-face on. That guy is prepared. He wants to know, "How can I make this better? What can I bring from myself?" It's a thrill to be associated with somebody like that. He's a voracious reader and very intuitive. And he has a real good handle on the law-enforcement community. His John Kelly character is a classic from NYPD Blue.
Times: What were some of the more dangerous situations you faced on the job?
Haynes: Liz and I did a story last year that I got a story credit for. It was based on a murder case I investigated about an individual who'd been kidnapped and executed. From the physical evidence, we worked the case backward into a very seedy drug world, where this person was in a business dispute with two killers. We found evidence of a struggle, and evidence out of two of the suspects' cars. During the search, we were standing there between two cars . . . and one of our photo ID techs unwrapped a package from one of the cars. He pulled out an object that turned out to be a pipe bomb - and dropped it on the ground between us. It didn't go off. But you want to talk about your life flashing before your eyes!
Times: You worked in the L.A. street gang unit?
Haynes: I started in the beginning of the '80s. Once sales of narcotics took hold in gangs, the gang wars started for territory. And from '83 to '89, it was just unbelievable the amount of murders and shootings we investigated. Then I went to homicide in 1990, and in '93-'94, they had a record year of 525 murders, and half were gang-related.
Times: What's the scariest gang moment you faced?
Haynes: In one case, a gang member had been chased down and executed. The next day, about 70 to 80 members of 10 gangs had congregated around this baseball diamond in Compton. My partner and I had driven down to contact them, and asked for backup. As soon as we out out of the car and starting calling some of these guys over to our car, a third car drove up and three guys jumped out and started shooting. It was one of these dive-for-cover things and then get back up and defend yourself. Fortunately, we weren't shot, and we caught the three guys. That's really not uncommon in South Central and Southeast L.A.
Times: If not for the bomb blast, you'd still be a cop?
Haynes: I would. I'd still be on the bomb squad. A week after I graduated from bomb school in 1995, the explosion at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma happened. It placed a greater focus on the bomb (investigation) community in the United States. It's a very small, close-knit community, and I keep in touch with my former colleagues all the time.
Times: When you were hired, you and Krista had to do a lot of cross-country commuting at first. How hard was that for you?
Haynes: It was tough. Because I was going through my learning curve with this industry, not knowing anything about TV. All of a sudden, I'm on the set with experienced actors and a crew, and they're talking a language I don't understand. And I'm very quickly trying to get up to speed and gain their confidence. And every day, I'm talking to Krista several times a day on the phone. Every other weekend, she'd fly to California. I'd pick her up at the airport, we'd have Saturday, but I'd be prepping on Sunday for work on Monday, and I'd take her to the airport Monday morning and go straight to the set. And Krista would fly home and go to work.
Times: How did Krista become part of the show?
Haynes: She knew Liz through my work on the force. In fact, Liz's work as a criminalist had gotten Krista interested in volunteering for the crime lab. In May, Krista found out Liz needed an assistant and she told her she'd be very interested in the job. It's worked out great for us. I can't tell you how fortunate we feel.
Times: What cop shows did you like as a cop?
Haynes: I loved Homicide: Life On the Street. I loved all of the characters on that show. The reality of it was there, the attitudes were there. And of course, David Caruso in NYPD Blue.
Times: Wouldn't it be easier to move back to L.A.?
Haynes: You know, we had a good first year, won the People's Choice award, and the show looked like it would be around awhile. But we've never once considered selling this house and moving back to L.A. This is our home. We love it here. It's where we live and where we're going to stay.
