The body has been removed, but its outline is preserved on the floor in white tape or chalk. When you're the quiet, careful type like me, they never find the body. When I reached Al, he was at a pretrial conference for a murder case along with two other homicide detectives and a police forensic investigator. While chalk or tape might make for dramatic TV, they also contaminate the crime scene.
Contamination is a major headache for crime scene investigators.
But the practice was halted when it was found that some detectives were re-using the triangles, taking one that had been dropped in a pool of blood at one scene, say, and using it to mark another puddle at the next, ruining the evidence. Now index cards are used and thrown away afterward. They come in, photograph and videotape the scene. They measure where the body is lying from a known fixed point in the room or area. They will also mark a point, usually near the head, using a plastic marker or a small paint spot.