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PubMed2004

Molecular identification of forensically important blow fly species (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in Taiwan.

Forensic entomology is a discipline that mainly uses insects collected in and around corpses to estimate the post-mortem interval in medicocriminal investigations. Among all scavenger and necrophagous insect groups that are related to corpses, blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are probably most important, not only because they occur in abundant numbers but also because they are one of the earliest groups to find corpses. However, most entomological evidence is strongly dependent on accurate species identification. Because identification allows the proper developmental data and distribution ranges to be applied in criminal investigations, species in Taiwan were surveyed from early 2000 and were identified using molecular data. Currently, eight species have been identified: Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius), Chrysomya pinguis (Walker), Chrysomya rufifacies (Macquart), Hemipyrellia ligurriens (Wiedemann), Lucilia bazini Séguy, Lucilia cuprina (Wiedemann), Lucilia hainanensis Fan, and Lucilia prophyrina (Walker). We focused on classifying these blow fly species to establish a knowledge basis for further forensic entomological research in Taiwan. Because molecular data are helpful in identifying insect specimens, especially when no specimen of suitable condition for morphological identification is obtained, we extracted mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) DNA of the preceding blow fly species to study its application value for their differentiation. The cloning and sequencing of the COI gene (approximately 1,588 base pairs) of these eight species were completed, and the data were analyzed. Preliminary results revealed the high support of congeneric groupings of species by using COI data; these sequences were also shown to be highly conserved within the same species. To actually use the database of COI sequences under various specimen conditions, specific primers were also applied for different insect stages, different segments of adults, and specimens preserved for various times. A molecular primer key was ultimately constructed for the purpose of rapid and accurate species identification at the molecular level regardless of which stage or which part of a blow fly specimen is collected.

Animals↗

PubMed1989

[Biomechanical and morphologic reconstruction of a questionable case of child abuse].

A 3-month-old baby died 8 days after admission to the hospital as a result of injuries received under unknown circumstances. The forensic autopsy revealed a fracture of the scull and a severe blunt injury to the head and brain. Histological investigation of the reactive changes at and around the edges of the fracture showed that the trauma could not possibly have been congenital. According to the defendant, the baby boy had been lying on the table used for changing his nappy and almost fell off it. The defendant moved "instinctively" to catch him, and this "reflex movement" caused the injuries observed. The event was then reconstructed by the criminal investigators and this reconstruction, coupled with the authors' biomechanical experiments using stroboscopic recording, revealed that the defendant's statement could not be true, as the force necessary to inflict the injuries was much greater than could be explained by an attempt to catch the baby.

Biomechanical Phenomena↗

PubMed1992

Luke May of Seattle--"America's Sherlock Holmes".

This paper provides a brief biography of Luke S. May (1886-1965), whose pioneering work in forensic science in the United States has not received full recognition. May began as a private detective in Salt Lake City, Utah, shortly after the turn of the century and later established his own agency, the Revelare International Secret Service, which he moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1919. Although basically self-taught in scientific matters, May built a solid reputation among police agencies and attorneys in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada as a serious and effective scientific investigator in the era before public crime laboratories. This reputation as "America's Sherlock Holmes" also led to his being consulted on the establishment of the first American crime laboratory at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and on a laboratory for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Regina, in Saskatchewan, Canada. He contributed to a landmark case of court acceptance of toolmark identification, invented specialized instruments, and founded an institute to teach scientific criminal investigation to police officers. His earliest associates were John L. Harris and J. Clark Sellers, both of whom became recognized document examiners on the West Coast and were followed by a second and a third generation of practitioners.

Forensic Medicine↗

PubMed2001

Founding editorial--forensics and TheScientificWorld.

At the beginning of a new millennium it seems a good idea to stop for a moment and take stock of the current state of forensic science. As a field of scientific research and scientific application, forensic science is a little more than a century old. Forensic science may be said to have begun in 1887 with the simultaneous publication of A. Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet and Hans Gross's Handbuch f1/4r Untersuchungsrichter. Conan Doyle's novel introduced to the world the character of Sherlock Holmes, whose literary career would popularize the use of physical evidence in criminal investigations. Gross's manual for examining magistrates suggests ways in which the expertise of chemists, biologists, geologists, and other natural scientists could contribute to investigations. Gross's book was translated into a number of languages and went through various updated editions during the course of the century. The intervening century saw the development and application of fingerprinting, firearm and tool mark identification, forensic chemistry, forensic biology, forensic toxicology, forensic odontology, forensic pathology, and forensic engineering. Increasingly, the judicial systems of the industrial nations of the world have come to rely upon the expertise of scientists in a variety of disciplines. In most advanced countries, virtually all criminal prosecutions now involve the presentation of scientific testimony. This has had the beneficial effect of diminishing the reliance of courts on eyewitness testimony and defendant confessions.

DNA↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Homicide in the elderly. A study of homicide in the aged based on an Aachen autopsy sample of the 10-year period 1976-1985].

Investigations on the peculiarities of homicides of the elderly are missing in the German literature up to the present date. Therefore we undertook an evaluation of the case files collected at the Aachen Institute of Forensic Medicine from the ten-year-period 1976-1985. Among 3736 autopsies we found 183 cases of homicide with 35 victims of 60 years and older. We collected peculiarities of modus operandi related to victim, suspect and offence and compared the data with such from police criminal statistics and partially with German population statistics. Two types of homicide of the elderly can be differentiated: One is independent of the victim's age whereas the other exploits the living conditions in the higher age (living alone, socially isolated, ailing, helpless etc.) For these latter cases the name "Gerontocide" is proposed. The paper deals with the peculiar difficulties of criminal investigation and clarification in such cases, resulting on the one hand from the lack of suspicion if elderly people die, on the other hand from the more difficult detection of causal relationship between offence and death--especially in the presence of severe illness of the victim.

Aged↗

PubMed1997

A large community outbreak of salmonellosis caused by intentional contamination of restaurant salad bars.

CONTEXT: This large outbreak of foodborne disease highlights the challenge of investigating outbreaks caused by intentional contamination and demonstrates the vulnerability of self-service foods to intentional contamination. OBJECTIVE: To investigate a large community outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium infections. DESIGN: Epidemiologic investigation of patients with Salmonella gastroenteritis and possible exposures in The Dalles, Oregon. Cohort and case-control investigations were conducted among groups of restaurant patrons and employees to identify exposures associated with illness. SETTING: A community in Oregon. Outbreak period was September and October 1984. PATIENTS: A total of 751 persons with Salmonella gastroenteritis associated with eating or working at area restaurants. Most patients were identified through passive surveillance; active surveillance was conducted for selected groups. A case was defined either by clinical criteria or by a stool culture yielding S Typhimurium. RESULTS: The outbreak occurred in 2 waves, September 9 through 18 and September 19 through October 10. Most cases were associated with 10 restaurants, and epidemiologic studies of customers at 4 restaurants and of employees at all 10 restaurants implicated eating from salad bars as the major risk factor for infection. Eight (80%) of 10 affected restaurants compared with only 3 (11%) of the 28 other restaurants in The Dalles operated salad bars (relative risk, 7.5; 95% confidence interval, 2.4-22.7; P<.001). The implicated food items on the salad bars differed from one restaurant to another. The investigation did not identify any water supply, food item, supplier, or distributor common to all affected restaurants, nor were employees exposed to any single common source. In some instances, infected employees may have contributed to the spread of illness by inadvertently contaminating foods. However, no evidence was found linking ill employees to initiation of the outbreak. Errors in food rotation and inadequate refrigeration on ice-chilled salad bars may have facilitated growth of the S Typhimurium but could not have caused the outbreak. A subsequent criminal investigation revealed that members of a religious commune had deliberately contaminated the salad bars. An S Typhimurium strain found in a laboratory at the commune was indistinguishable from the outbreak strain. CONCLUSIONS: This outbreak of salmonellosis was caused by intentional contamination of restaurant salad bars by members of a religious commune.

Contact Tracing↗

PubMed2005

Individualization of tiger by using microsatellites.

In investigating criminal cases of poaching and smuggling involving tigers (Panthera tigris), the number of tiger individuals involved is critical for determining the penalty. Morphological methodologies do not often work because tiger parts do not possess the distinctive characteristics of the individual. Microsatellite DNAs have been proved a reliable marker for the individualization of animals. Seven microsatellite loci derived from domestic cat (Felis catus) were selected to individualize tigers, namely F41, F42, F146, Fca304, Fca391, Fca441 and Fca453. A reference population containing 37 unrelated tigers were used to investigate alleles, allelic frequencies, genotypes and genotype frequencies of each locus. Consequently, the data was used to assess the validity of the combination of seven loci for tiger individualization. All loci were polymorphic and easy to amplify. Three out of the seven loci were significantly departure from the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (P < 0.05). Cumulative discrimination power (DP) calculated with observed genotype frequencies was 0.99999789. Match probability of an individual in the reference population with a random individual in seven loci ranged from 7.34 x 10(-9) to 2.77 x 10(-5). This suggests that combining the seven microsatellite loci provides desirable power to individualize tigers. The combination of seven loci was applied to a case of tiger bone smuggling. Genotypes of all samples were identical in all seven loci, and the P(M) of the evidence samples in the seven loci hit 5.63 x 10(-7), provided evidence that the bones belong to a single tiger.

Animals↗

PubMed1992

[Laryngeal fractures due presumably to tracheal intubation in resuscitation].

In three autopsy cases performed in our department, we observed the throat-skeleton fractures occurring presumably during the tracheal intubation in resuscitation. Case 1. 63-year-old man died of acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis shortly after the quarrel with a suspected person. The autopsy examination showed the fractured hyoid bone with haemorrhage at the fracture site. The question whether direct pressure on his neck by the suspected person results the fracture of the hyoid bone was investigated. Case 2. 75-year-old man treated for senile dementia was clubbed with a walking stick by the other patient treated for same disease and he died of traumatic shock. The fracture of the hyoid bone was also noted like case 1. The strike in the throat and/or the neck compression by the assailant were suspected of being the cause of this fracture. Case 3. 47-year-old man got the severe head injury during the quarrel. He died about two weeks after operation and the cause of death was multiple organ failure. The autopsy findings revealed the fracture of the superior thyroid horn. The neck compression by the suspected person was the questionable cause of this fracture. In all these cases, the asphyxia findings and the signs of the direct pressure on the neck by the assailants were not recognized other than the above-mentioned laryngeal fractures. From the autopsy findings, together with the criminal investigation, we consider collectively that the tracheal intubation in resuscitation induced presumably these laryngeal injuries. In general, throat-skeleton fractures seem to be the signs of homicidal violence against the neck.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aged↗

PubMed1991

Vaginocervical cytology in victims of sexual assault.

To investigate the role of vaginocervical smears in alleged victims of rape, we reviewed the findings in 4,220 consecutive rape victims between the years 1982 and 1989. These rape victims showed a slight increase in cellular abnormalities (1.18% vs. .93%) when compared to a group of 17,187 routine smears from an indigent population in 1989. While the differences in the spectrum of cellular abnormalities were not statistically significant, the increase in abnormal smears is remarkable because of the younger age distribution and lower risk factors for cervical cancer in this group of rape victims (41% of the victims were never seen at our institution before their evaluation for alleged rape and were most probably of higher socioeconomic status and at lower risk for cervical cancer than the indigent population served at our hospital). This finding may reflect the low incidence of vaginocervical cytology screening among the general population of which rape victims are a random sample. Fifty-seven percent of the rape victims with cellular abnormalities who were also regular patients at our hospital returned for follow-up by appropriate repeat smears or biopsies. This was lower than the 95% general follow-up rate of vaginocervical smear abnormalities among the rest of the population screened at our hospital. We detected spermatozoa in 56% of the smears from victims who were examined within three days of the alleged sexual assault. Cytology adds to the criminal investigation of rape cases as we detected spermatozoa in four of 16 semen-negative cases from a random sample of 53 cases evaluated by the state crime lab.

Cervix Uteri↗

PubMed2004

Suspect identification by facial features.

Often during criminal investigations, witnesses must examine photographs of known offenders, colloquially called 'mug shots'. As witnesses view increasing numbers of mug shots that are presented in an arbitrary order, they become more likely to identify the wrong suspect. An alternative is a subjective feature-based mug shot retrieval system in which witnesses first complete a questionnaire about the appearance of the suspect, and then examine photographs in order of decreasing resemblance to their description. In the first experiment, this approach is found to be more efficient and more accurate than searching an album. The next three experiments show that it makes little difference if the witness has seen the suspect in person or only seen a photograph. In the last two experiments, it is shown that the feature-based retrieval system is effective even when the witness has seen the suspect in realistic natural settings. The results show that the main conclusions drawn from previous studies, where witnesses searched for faces seen only in photographs, also apply when witnesses are searching for a face that they saw live in naturalistic settings. Additionally, it is shown that is it better to have two raters than one create the database, but that more than two raters yield rapidly diminishing returns for the extra cost.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

The changing nature of murder in Russia.

The death rate from homicide in Russia increased rapidly during the 1990 s. It is now about 20 times higher than in western Europe and is among the highest recorded anywhere in the world. However, this issue has received little attention so far from public health researchers or policymakers. This paper describes the changing nature of homicide during the 1990 s in Russia as a whole and, in more detail, in the Udmurt Republic. The study uses data from three sources: routine mortality data for Russia from 1970 to 1999; statistics on criminal investigations and convictions in Russia between 1990 and 1997; and an in-depth study of homicide trial records in the Udmurt Republic in 1989-1991 and 1998.Deaths from homicide increased between 1970 and 1985, falling slightly during the 1985 anti-alcohol campaign and then resuming their increase until 1994. Another fall in the late 1990 s was arrested in 1998, with an increase in 1999. By 1999 the age standardised homicide death rate in Russia was 81% higher than in 1990, an increase almost twice that of all causes of death combined. Throughout the 1990 s about 10% of those convicted of homicide were female. Of those homicides leading to convictions in the Udmurt Republic, 71% of those killed by males were male, as were 76% of those killed by females. Killings of women by men often involved sexual assaults. In Russia as a whole, about 80% of those convicted of homicide were reported to be under the influence of alcohol at the time. In the Udmurt Republic, where data on both offender and victim were available, victims were also commonly intoxicated. The nature of homicide in Russia has changed considerably in less than a decade, with many more now involving aggravating circumstances, such as murder to conceal another crime, in association with robbery or rape, or by a group of people. Although still a small proportion of the total convicted, the number of murders by hired killers is also on the rise. The characteristics of those convicted of homicide have also changed during the 1990 s. They are now younger, less likely to have previous convictions, and to have a more diverse range of educational levels. The previous urban-rural gap, with higher levels in rural areas, has also narrowed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1988

Subtyping of group specific component (GC) in human semen, blood and vaginal fluid by isoelectric focusing in immobilized pH gradients.

The group specific component (GC) is stable and well suited for forensic casework. Isoelectric focusing of common GC variants from semen, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid and semen stains, on Immobiline DryPlates, pH 4.5-5.4, is of practical value in criminal investigations of sexual deliquencies. GC is present in normospermia and azoospermia seminal fluids and found in about 20% of the vaginal secretions. The GC patterns observed were similar and in accordance with the bands of the individual GC type in plasma/serum.

Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Scanning the pressure-induced distortion of fingerprints.

Fingerprint recognition technology is an important part of criminal investigations it is the basis of some security systems and an important tool of government operations such as the Immigration and Naturalization Services, registration procedures in the Armed Forces, and so forth. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the importance of reliable fingerprint recognition technology became even more obvious. In the current study, pressure-induced changes of distances between ridges of a fingerprint were measured. Using calibrated silicon pressure sensors we scanned the distribution of pressure across a finger pixel by pixel, and also generated maps of an average pressure distribution during fingerprinting. Emulating the fingerprinting procedure employed with widely used optical scanners, we found that on average the distance between ridges decreases by about 20% when a finger is positioned on a scanner. Controlled loading of a finger demonstrated that it is impossible to reproduce the same distribution of pressure across a given finger during repeated fingerprinting procedures.

Dermatoglyphics↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Contactless optical scanning of fingerprints with 180 degrees view.

Fingerprint recognition technology is an integral part of criminal investigations. It is the basis for the design of numerous security systems in both the private and public sectors. In a recent study emulating the fingerprinting procedure with widely used optical scanners, it was found that, on average, the distance between ridges decreases about 20% when a finger is positioned on a scanner. Using calibrated silicon pressure sensors, the authors scanned the distribution of pressure across a finger, pixel by pixel, and also generated maps of the average pressure distribution during fingerprinting. Controlled loading of a finger demonstrated that it is impossible to reproduce the same distribution of pressure across a given finger during repeated fingerprinting procedures. Based on this study, a novel method of scanning the fingerprint with more than a 180 degrees view was developed. Using a camera rotated around the finger, small slices of the entire image of the finger were acquired. Equal sized slices of the image were processed with a special program assembling a more than 180 degrees view of the finger. Comparison of two images of the same fingerprint, namely the registered and actual images, could be performed by a new algorithm based on the symmetry of the correlation function. The novel method is the first contactless optical scanning technique to view 180 degrees of a fingerprint without moving the finger. In a machine which is under design, it is expected that the full view of one finger would be acquired in about a second.

Algorithms↗

PubMed1995

DNA diagnosis of human genetic individuality.

DNA studies of the human genome have shown polymorphic variation at thousands of sites, defining an absolute genetic uniqueness for each individual. There are many circumstances in which it may be desirable to diagnose this molecular individuality, as for instance, in criminal investigations or paternity testing. Several techniques can be used for this DNA diagnosis and we can choose among them the one that best suits the specific problem at hand. In this review we describe the main methodologies in current use to investigate human DNA polymorphisms, discussing the best application of each option, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

Bioethics↗

PubMed1989

[Forensic medicine and criminalistics].

The supplementary designation "criminalistics" in the title of certain forensic medical institutes in the first half of this century is to be regarded as a reaction to faulty developments in our specialty, which almost led to the elimination of forensic medicine as an independent scientific discipline in the 1960s. The ability to think in terms of criminalistics and the corresponding working procedures has always been a crucial precondition for the forensic physician, since forensic medicine is the application of medical knowledge for juridical purposes. Forensic medicine originated with the appraisal of cases of violent death by doctors, i.e., reconstruction of the facts in the case. To use the term "criminalistics" in the form of a supplementary designation is thus not required. An attempt is nevertheless made to define "medical criminalistics" as a small but important component of criminalistics. They are subdivided into two phases: the first part begins at the scene of the crime or the place of discovery (local evidence). Here, the trained eye of the forensic physician is indispensable to the criminal investigation department and the prosecutor. Medical criminalistic thinking and working procedures continue at the autopsy. Here, forensic autopsy differs from that practiced by the pathologist. Without knowledge of the situation at the discovery location, the forensic physician runs the risk of not recognizing facts that are important for reconstruction and thus becoming a "destroyer of clues". The second part of medical criminalistics is the actual detection of medical clues, i.e., the investigation of medical clues with special methods, including histological and toxicological investigations.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Crime↗

PubMed2026

pSTRminer: integrated bioinformatic software for genome-wide identification and population-scale evaluation of polymorphic short tandem repeats.

Animal forensic genetics plays a critical role in criminal investigations by providing crucial evidence through domestic animal individualization and wildlife species identification. While human forensic genetics benefits from standardized short tandem repeats (STR) genotyping systems, animal forensic applications encounter significant challenges, including the limited availability of validated STR markers, the prevalence of error-prone dinucleotide STRs (di-STRs), and insufficient integration of population data. To address these challenges, we developed pSTRminer, an integrated bioinformatic tool that automates genome-wide STR mining and polymorphism evaluation. By applying pSTRminer to domestic cattle (Bos taurus), we identified 775,444 STRs de novo from the reference genome and genotyped them using whole-genome sequencing data from 60 Chinese and 111 African cattle to evaluate polymorphism across diverse genetic backgrounds. This led to the development of the cattle STR database (CSDB), comprising loci with a genotyping success rate ≥ 40% and polymorphism information content (PIC) ≥ 0.5. Experimental validation of 30 randomly selected tetranucleotide STRs (tetra-STRs) and 33 di-STRs via next-generation sequencing in a local Chinese cattle population (n = 145) confirmed marker reliability. Although tetra-STRs had lower average polymorphism levels, they exhibited significantly lower stutter ratios (p < 0.05), providing a viable path for identifying discriminative markers with fewer artifacts. Systematic screening revealed that certain tetra-STRs could surpass di-STRs in polymorphism. In conclusion, pSTRminer provides a scalable framework for developing standardized STR panels, facilitating the identification of robust and informative markers in forensic applications.

Bioinformatic software↗

PubMed2005

Behavioral cues to deception vs. topic incriminating potential in criminal confessions.

Coding statements of criminal suspects facilitated tests of four hypotheses about differences between behavioral cues to deception and the incriminating potential (IP) of the topic. Information from criminal investigations corroborated the veracity of 337 brief utterances from 28 videotaped confessions. A four-point rating of topic IP measured the degree of potential threat per utterance. Cues discriminating true vs. false comprised word/phrase repeats, speech disfluency spikes, nonverbal overdone, and protracted headshaking. Non-lexical sounds discriminated true vs. false in the reverse direction. Cues that distinguished IP only comprised speech speed, gesticulation amount, nonverbal animation level, soft weak vocal and "I (or we) just" qualifier. Adding "I don't know" to an answer discriminated both IP and true vs. false. The results supported hypothesis about differentiating deception cues from incriminating potential cues in high-stakes interviews, and suggested that extensive research on distinctions between stress-related cues and cues to deception would improve deception detection.

Adolescent↗