University of Leicester announces world first forensic technique

Traditionally 2 types of radiology are used in mass fatality and temporary mortuary investigations -that of fluoroscopy and plain x-ray.

These techniques however are time consuming, yield limited information and are a health and safety hazard to those working in the environment due to the use of radiological equipment outside their normal working area. They are also not undertaken at the scene of the incident.

As far as we know, for the first time in the world a new radiological system was used recently at a mass fatality investigation. A team of researchers led by Professor Guy Rutty of the University of Leicester Forensic Pathology Unit used a mobile MSCT scanner at the mortuary for the examination of the victims of a vehicle mass fatality incident.

This instrument provided superior information in 2 dimensional plain film (AP and lateral) and 3 dimensional multi-slice examination with on-site soft tissue and bony reconstruction. The system proved faster then traditional temporary mortuary radiology yielding greater information related to identification, health and safety, autopsy planning and cause of death.

Professor Rutty said: "The demonstration of the ability to utilise mobile MSCT technology under these circumstances may result in a complete rethinking of the type of radiology to be used in temporary mortuaries or mass fatalities scenes. The work presently being undertaken by my research team within the Forensic Pathology Unit at the University of Leicester in this area is hoped to develop new approaches to mass fatality radiological investigation which may be adopted throughout the world."

Gun databases fail

Seven years ago, New York started a database of "ballistic fingerprints" for all new handguns sold in the state. The bill's backers sold it as a crime-solving device, arguing that the state would now have a sample of a spent shell and bullet for every new gun sold. This, they said, would help police connect future evidence from crime scenes to specific guns.

Since then, the authorities have entered 200,000 newly purchased guns into the database and spent $1 million dollars a year on the system. Yet it hasn't led to a single solved crime. The only other state with such a database, Maryland, can attribute at least one conviction to the system since it was created in 2000-more than zero, but few enough that the state's own Police Forensics Division has suggested scrapping the program because of its demonstrated lack of benefits.

This hasn't come as a surprise to gun rights activists, who pointed to several potential problems when the databases were originally debated. Among them: The markings left by a gun are not guaranteed to be the same over the long term and can be deliberately changed with simple expedients such as filing inside the barrel; the vast majority of guns used in crimes are stolen or otherwise obtained in a black market, not used by their original legal owner; devoting so much record keeping to every gun sold guarantees wasted effort, since less than 1 percent of all guns sold will ever be used in a crime.

In 2003 a report from the California Attorney General's Office recommended against launching such a program because of its likely ineffectiveness in crime solving. And a March 2008 study from the National Research Council recommended against a national version of the New York and Maryland databases. In addition to noting the obvious ways in which such a program could be easily circumvented by criminals, the study said the theory behind the ballistics databases—that every gun marks shells and bullets in specific, stable, identifiable ways—has not been scientifically proven.

New Technique Developed To Date Forensic Death Based On Corpse Microorganisms

The Article “New Technique Developed To Date Forensic Death Based On Corpse Microorganisms” discusses a new way to determining ETD.  Developed at the University of Granada, this new technique uses thermo-microbiology.  This can more accurately determine ETD for deaths that have not occurred under controlled natural conditions, which is the case for most murders.  The thermo-biology establishes correspondences between the parameters of micro-organic growth on cadaverous remains and dates the time of death of such remains, as well as their relation with their temperature.  This method was tested by analyzing about 240 microorganic samples taken from bodies from the Institute of Legal Medicine of Granada and 352 from living donors. The aim of the research work was to bring criminalistic techniques, “closer to the analysis of the phenomenons caused during the stages of cadaverous decomposition and putrefaction,” in order to reach a better approach to the ETD.  They wanted to establish a microbiological indicator of time of death.  

Increasing Use of Brain Scans in India

India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from a brain scanner. The scanner is able to produce images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question. Since the September 11 attacks, the U.S. has spent money to produce more counterterrorism investigations by brain-based lie detection. This technology has not been accepted as evidence except in India, where judges have begun to admit brain scans. Electrodes are placed on the suspect's head to measure electrical waves while an investigator reads aloud details of the crime and the resulting brain images are then processed. When the crime's details are recited, the brain lights up in specific regions, showing measurable changes when experiences are relived. The inventors of the technology claim the system can distinguish between people’s memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they committed. The Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test, or BEOS, was developed by Champadi Raman Mukundan, a neuroscientist who once ran the psychology department of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bangalore. Maharashtra and Gujarat, two states in India, have been impressed enough to set up labs using BEOS for their prosecutors. If brain scans are widely adopted, they would cause legal issues, such as implicating the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and 14th Amendments in the U.S. Constitution. In the past, methods of eliciting truth have been problematic: truth drugs made suspects babble while polygraph tests measured anxiety and not deception.

New Technique Developed to Date Forensic Death Based on Corpse Microorganisms

A group of scientists of the University of Granada has developed a new technique of forensic dating based on thermo-microbiology, which will allow to determine more accurately the time of a death which has not occurred under controlled natural conditions or as a consequence of a crime.
This new system, of great interest in the field of criminology, establishes correspondences between the parameters of micro-organic growth on cadaverous remains and dates the time of death of such remains, as well as their relation with their temperature.
The study has been carried out by Professor Isabel Fernández Corcobado and supervised by Professors Miguel Botella López, of the Laboratory of Anthropology of the UGR, and Eulogio Bedmar Gómez of the Zaidín Experimental Station (CSIC). The purpose of the project was to establish the initial methodological basis to create a protocol of general application in the field of Forensic Termography and Microbiology in order to provide new complementary tools to existing criminalistic techniques.
Such protocol would provide a new criminalictic approach to the traditional techniques already used in the microbiological analysis of samples of all kinds. The researchers report that, in the analysis carried out with this new technique would provide information resulting of the new and fast contrast elements during the criminalistic investigation to the forensic and political and judicial investigation teams.
To carry out this work, the authors analysed about 240 microorganic samples taken from bodies from the Institute of Legal Medicine of Granada and 352 from living donors.
According to Isabel Fernández, the aim of the research work was to bring criminalistic techniques closer to the analysis of the phenomenons caused during the stages of cadaverous decomposition and putrefaction, in order to reach a better approach to the estimate of the time of death.
They have used new thermographical and weather measurement tools and they have applied traditional microbiological methods with a new approach. The purpose was to make easier the analysis of the stages of cadaverous decomposition and putrefaction, connecting them with the model of growth/death of the micro-organisms, responsible for the post-mortem alterations. The aim of this work, in short, is to establish a microbiological indicator to determine the time of death.
Therefore, scientists have tried an alternative method of approach to the estimated time of death in order to reduce the present margin of error in the application of other different methods and limit to the maximum the moment of death.
The results of this research, which will be extended after its preliminary results in order to definitely validate the method, have been published in the Journal of the Biologists’