If the body outline beach towel was the Skeletons in the Closet gift shop’s signature item, the crime scene towel was its companion piece. Printed with yellow “CRIME SCENE — DO NOT CROSS” tape graphics and the official Los Angeles Coroner seal, it brought the aesthetic of a police perimeter to the beach, the pool, or wherever its owner chose to lay it down.
Crime Scene Tape as Pop Culture
By the time the coroner’s gift shop opened in 1993, yellow crime scene tape had become one of the most recognizable visual symbols in American culture. Television news broadcasts, crime dramas, and Hollywood films had turned the bright yellow barrier into shorthand for danger, mystery, and the forbidden.
The crime scene towel took that symbol and domesticated it. Spreading it out at the beach was a small act of dark comedy — a declaration that this patch of sand was off-limits, that something terrible had happened here, and that the terrible thing was relaxation.
The Gift Shop’s Dark Humor Playbook
The crime scene towel exemplified the Skeletons in the Closet approach to merchandise. Every item in the shop walked the same line: take an element of death investigation that the public already recognized from entertainment, strip it of its real-world horror, and repackage it as something you could buy for $15.
It worked because Los Angeles had already done the hard work of turning crime into entertainment. The coroner’s gift shop simply closed the loop — if crime sells on television, why wouldn’t it sell on a towel?
Collectors and Critics
Not everyone appreciated the humor. Critics argued that selling crime-themed merchandise trivialized the work of the coroner’s office and disrespected victims. Supporters countered that the shop raised money for drunk driving prevention and that the merchandise was clearly novelty — no one confused a beach towel with an actual crime scene.
The crime scene towel remains a sought-after collector’s item, particularly among fans of true crime and LA history. Like everything from Skeletons in the Closet, it represents a moment when the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office decided that if people were going to be fascinated by death, the office might as well give them something to take home.