SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-116 For MAY 2003 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-116 What is Mass murder? ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal A very shocking incident occurred on 1 June, 2001 (Friday). We all heard that Nepal’s Crown Prince Dipendra gunned down his parents, King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, and six other members of the royal family before shooting himself. Nobody could understand why he did that, although there were some speculations that his family was against him marrying the girl of his choice. Dipendra was reportedly in an inebriated state when he killed his family members. The King is believed to have threatened Prince Dipendra that he would be bypassed in the line of succession in favour of his younger brother if he did not bow to the wishes of the Queen on the choice of his bride. The Crown Prince, battled for life in hospital for some days. Till he was alive, he was named the new monarch of Nepal. His uncle and younger brother of King Birendra, Prince Gyanendra, was declared “regent”. Prince Gyanendra was out of town at the time of the shootout. According to reports, the 29-year-old Crown Prince fired indiscriminately in a fit of rage as the royal family sat for dinner at the Narayan Hity palace around 11 p.m. (local time) on June 1. The persons who were killed were the 55-year-old King himself and Queen Aishwarya, 51, their younger son Prince Niranjan, 22, daughter Princess Shruti, 25, Princess Sharada Shaha and Princess Shanti Singh, sisters of the late King, Kumar Khadga Bikram Shah, Princess Sharada’s husband, and Princess Jayanti Shah, cousin of the late King, were shot dead. Three others injured in the shootout were Gorakh Bikram (Princess Shruti’s husband), Komal Shah, the late King’s cousin and Prince Dhirendra, the King’s youngest brother. As the heated exchanges continued, the Prince stormed out of the dining hall but soon returned in battle fatigues with an assault rifle and a pistol and opened fire indiscriminately. The Queen was reportedly opposed to his decision to marry because of a warning by astrologers that if he got married and begot children before turning 35 his father would die. Many people in this part of the world believe in such predictions. The Queen wanted him to wait for six more years. According to some additional reports, the Queen was opposed his choice of bride, a daughter of a former minister and member of the aristocratic Rana family that ruled Nepal till 1951. Dipendra thus killed eight persons and injured an additional three before killing himself. Many people may not know but such murders have a name. These are called mass murders. We will talk about mass murders this time. Mass muder, serial murder and spree murder Let us first differentiate between these three forms of murder. These are all examples of multiple murders, i.e. multicides. In a case of mass murder, as occurred in the above case, all murders occur at the same place and at almost the same time. In a case of serial murder, as occurred in the famous Jack the Ripper case, all murders occur at different times. The place of murder may or may not be the same. In a case of spree murder, the person runs about and goes on killing people. Thus the time of murder is almost the same, i.e. the murders occur in a single incident, but the murders occur at different places. To put the three types of murder in a tabular form: Type of murder Time of murder Place of murder Typical Example Year/day Persons killed Mass murder Same Same Crown Prince Dipendra 1 June, 2001 9 (including himself)+ 3 injured Serial Murder Different Same/different Jack the Ripper From 31 August 1888 (the date of first murder) till 9 November 1888 (the date of last murder) 5 prostitutes according to most estimates. Estimates differ though Spree Murder Same Different Howard Unruh of Camden, New Jersey 6 September, 1949 13 + 3 wounded It will be difficult to deal with all kinds of murder here. But in this piece, I will take up only the first case, i.e. mass murder. In subsequent issues, I hope to take up other types of murder. Mass murders occur when several victims are killed within hours or even moments of each other. In many of these cases, an armed person walks into a restaurant, shopping mall, government office or other such public place and begins randomly shooting innocent bystanders. In April of 1990, for example, a man who had been released only one day from a psychiatric institution went into a mall in Atlanta, Georgia, and began shooting everyone in his way. In recent years, there has been a growing number of cases where a parent or sibling kills an entire family. Additionally, there have been many cases in which people have gone into schools and playgrounds, armed with semi- or fully automatic weapons and shot everyone, including the children. While there has not been a tremendous amount of research on these crimes, mass murderers do share certain characteristic traits and habits. The killers are usually white males. It is the general experience, that this type of murderer tends to have a low-paying, semi-skilled job, usually involving shift work or other routine type tasks. Profile In most cases, there is a particular victim whom has been selected to be murdered, such as an ex-wife, a former boss, a friend. But the killer, when he begins the actual process of the murder, such as entering the building where the victim is located, opens fire on whomever is in the area. Sometimes, however, a person feels overwhelmed and frustrated by a perceived injustice in his life and simply shoots victims who, although not directly related to the killer, represent what he is mentally fighting against. For example, if a man is fired from a job a week after being arrested for an utterly unrelated matter, he may feel the police caused him to be fired. In the killer’s mind, the arresting police officer came between him and success, so now anyone in a uniform, most particularly a police officer, is his target. Characteristics Although their motivations vary from case to case, mass murderers do share some characteristics that may become reasons for the mass murders. Generally, these traits are severe depression, delusional psychosis, violent changes of temperament, alcoholism and the use of pornography. One telltale sign of depression is mood swings. The person suffering from depression may be extremely happy and energetic one minute and angry or sobbing the next. These rapid changes may occur within a day, an hour or few minutes, and are usually set off by something to which the reaction seems extreme. For example, the person may be joking around and accidentally spill some water on the floor, at which point he becomes extremely angry, curses vehemently and smashes the glass against the wall. Lack of interest in what’s going on around them is another indication of people’s depression. They become bored with their jobs, their friends, their significant others and sometimes life itself. They don’t want to leave their homes or their bedrooms, they wear the same clothes day after day and they often neglect personal hygiene. Mass murder may be a way of alleviating this boredom. Similar to their general lack of interest, depressed persons may exhibit a lack of appetite that lasts for weeks. They may eat only their favorite foods or sweets, but even those may become unappetizing to them after a few days. The mass murderer may also exhibit psychotic behavior, having delusions and losing touch with reality. This may be caused by an organic brain disorder, such as a chemical imbalance or a brain tumor, that impairs his ability for rational thought. Or he could simply be psychopathic, with no sense of his moral or societal obligations. The psychopathic killer is a delusional killer who does not believe what he is doing is wrong. Mass murderers tend to have violent changes of temperament. For example, a mild, meek person may suddenly become lividly irate and aggressive once certain trigger mechanisms are set off. This often happens because the person has feelings of inadequacy or feels he is being duped by society once again. Michael Douglas’s character in the movie Falling Down typifies this type of personality. Also, mass murderers often have problems with alcohol abuse. Although it cannot be implied that alcohol causes people to become mass murderers, there is a high rate of alcoholism among these killers. And alcohol does aggravate the symptoms of depression. There is also a high incidence of pornography being involved in mass murders. Although pornography may not play a major role in the crime itself, it is one of the higher ranking similarities between mass murderers and serial murderers. Police raids of these killers’ homes have often revealed many pornographic videotapes and magazines. Again, as with alcoholism, this does not mean an interest in pornography makes one a mass murderer, but it is nonetheless a common characteristic of these killers. Motive: Stress There are some mass murders that appear to be premeditated, as in the case of a Mr. Charles Whitman, who shot at unsuspecting victims from the famous bell tower at the University of Texas in Austin. Whitman carried boxes full of supplies, including food and ammunition, to the top of the bell tower in preparation for his attack on the innocents. Whitman’s crime seems to have been motivated by stress, which is why people under great amounts of stress now joke about “going up to the top of the bell tower.” At the opposite end of the spectrum, some cases of multiple murders involve killers whose fury was ignited by a trivial remark, a minor insult or a small provocation. Whether brought on by extreme prolonged stress or an offhand remark, however, multiple-victim murderers do so in an effort to regain some degree of control and pleasure in their lives. To the observer, this motivation may not appear rational, but to the killer, it makes perfect sense, given his psychological dysfunction. Motive: Hatred of Society Mass murderers often develop a hatred of society, leading to strong feelings of rejection and failure and the anxiety of not being able to survive on their own. These feelings create frustrations for this murderer that inevitably overwhelm him and motivate him to strike back. For many killers, the best way to lash out against a cold, dark society is to destroy its children. Killing children in a school yard provides the mass murderer with not only a much needed sense of power and control but also a way of taking vengeance where it hurts the community the most. Many of these crimes occur in communities with many schools, shopping malls, office buildings and other such crowded forums. Methods The mass murderer often believes that killing innocent people will correct all the wrongs in his life. Since this usually occurs to the killer in a sudden epiphany, he does not usually plan the crime months in advance. Once he does decide to commit the crime, however, he often gathers together more than enough equipment to do the job. In other words, the mass murderer quite frequently has boxes and boxes of ammunition and several semiautomatic or automatic weapons to use to kill suddenly and swiftly. In one famous case, the killer had enough ammunition to reload his semiautomatic weapons at least 150 times. Unlike a serial murderer, who will have enough only to kill the victim and perhaps one or two people at a scene, the mass murderer is prepared to take out as many people as is required to regain his place in the world. He realizes subconsciously that this most likely is his last moment of glory, and he wants to go out with a “bang.” A mass murderer almost never runs out of ammunition or is foiled by a jammed weapon. This is not to say, however, that all mass murderers are this prepared. There are certainly cases on record in which the killers used only one or two guns and gave up or killed themselves after shooting six or seven people. Investigation and Capture Unlike serial killers, the mass murderer seems to give very little thought to his possible capture or death. In fact, many are killed by the police during the attack, while many others kill themselves once they have completed the massacres. In some cases, the offenders surrender to the police and offer no resistance. It is almost as if they are finally at peace knowing they have committed the murders and, they hope, righted all the wrongs in their lives. In cases where families are murdered, the killer usually leaves many, many pieces of evidence that will lead to his arrest. Perhaps because he has killed his loved ones, the familial mass murderer may on some level want to be caught. Captions to figures: 001.jpg: The mass murderer often kills him after the killing incident. Here one can see the explosive effect of a close shot to the forehead - 6.5 mm Mauser rifle. 002.jpg: Bullet entrance wound in the palate. This article has (2209) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-115 For APRIL 2003 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-115 Murder in a capsule ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal A few days back in a detective serial over the TV, it was shown how a clever lady kills her husband by opening his capsules and filling them with some poison. The unsuspecting husband – who is a movie director - takes the capsule, while shooting a film, and dies immediately thereafter. Ironically when he dies he was trying to explain a dying scene to a new and upcoming actress. Everybody thinks that he was acting so realistically, while the fact was that he had died actually! This incident strongly reminded me of a real incident which occurred almost 20 years earlier – in 1982. This incident occurred in Chicago, Illinois, USA, in 1982, in which seven persons – two males and five females – died within a span of three days – from 29 September 1982 till 1 October 1982. The cause of death was most strange. They had all taken a very common medicine for headache – Tylenol, which is nothing but paracetamol, which comes by the name of Crocin in our country. An interesting related fact is that Chicago is the city where the first pilot poison center began operation in the United States. It was started in the year 1953, almost 30 years before this bizarre episode. How did they die? Well, the mechanism was similar to that seen in that detective episode mentioned above. Someone had opened the capsules and laced them with cyanide. Who did it and why he did it, nobody knows it till now. The first victim, a 12 year old schoolgirl, died at six o’clock in the morning on 29 September, 1982. Waking up with a sore throat in one of Chicago’s peaceful northwestern suburbs, she had taken an analgesic at her father’s suggestion before dropping lifeless to the floor. A few hours later, in an adjoining verdant suburb, tragedy struck again. A young Polish born post office worker, who had taken the day off to play with his children, took some Tylenols for his aching chest, collapsed, had a convulsion, and died. At the house that evening the grief stricken relatives assembled, neighbors brought coffee, doughnuts, and aspirin, but the family had their own extra strength Tylenol, containing 500 mg of paracetamol, which they passed around. The deceased man’s wife took a capsule, so did his brother, and both died within minutes. When the doctors at the local hospital suddenly found themselves confronted with three bodies they first surmised that some dreadful epidemic had broken out. But that night two firemen discussing the day’s events remembered the paramedics indicating in their report that the young girl had taken Tylenol. Somehow they put two and two together: “This is a wild stab,” said one of them, “but maybe it is the Tylenol.” By the next morning the tests had clearly established that the capsules, all from lot number 2880, contained some 65 mg of potassium cyanide, well above the lethal dose, and the necropsies confirmed that the victims had died from cyanide poisoning. But it was too late to avert other tragedies. On the same day a young woman suffering from headaches also died, as did a young mother in another suburb who had just given birth to her third child. Soon panic spread through the area as officials warned the people against taking Tylenol, but a seventh fatality occurred the next day when an air stewardess was found dead in her apartment with poisoned capsules in her bathroom. The following table illustrates all fatalities. S.no . Victim Sex Date and time A 12 year old schoolgirl F 29 September 1982, 6 am A young Polish born post-office worker, who had taken the day off to play with his children M 29 September 1982, few hours later Above man’s wife F 29 September 1982, in the evening Above man’s brother M 29 September 1982, in the evening A young woman suffering from headaches F 30 September 1982 A young mother who had just given birth to her third child F 30 September 1982 An air stewardess F 1 October 1982 At midnight the mayor held a press conference urging Chicagoans to bring in all Tylenol capsules in their possession. The next day the federal authorities recalled the lots in question; the manufacturer, Johnson and Johnson, offered refunds for the capsules and announced a $100,000 reward for any information that might solve the mystery. The public was warned not to inhale or even touch the capsules because cyanide is absorbed through the skin. Throughout the city trucks rushed supplies of amyl nitrite to emergency rooms. The newspapers disseminated information about cyanide poisoning, and soon everybody knew that the symptoms were vomiting and headache, tingling in the throat, an almond odour on the breath, flushing, and a cherry red coloration of the mouth and lips. Soon the poison centres were swamped with calls: “I have just taken Tylenol, will I die ?”; television stations had their most exciting day since the attempt on Mr Reagan’s life (On March 30, 1981 – exactly one and a half years earlier - John Hinckley, Jr. had attempted to assassinate President Reagan. As the President and several members of his staff walked out of the Washington Hilton Hotel at 2:25 PM Hinckley shouted for the President to look at him then he shot six bullets in the President’s direction). Similarly the stories about the Palestinian camps were quietly relegated to the back pages of the newspapers. Foul play suspected From the beginning foul play was suspected, all evidence suggesting that someone had tampered with the capsules. Investigators noted that the capsules had been unevenly handled, some being filled carefully, others not, as if this were the work of several people or of one person passing through different moods. While detectives tried to obtain finger prints from the capsules the governor of Illinois declared that surely this was the work of a madman, and the newspapers reported that police were questioning several disgruntled shop assistants and were looking for a man arrested earlier for stealing Tylenol from a suburban store. Some people promptly commented on the need to have all over the counter drugs sold in bottles with an inner seal, for after all “they can seal a bottle of antifreeze.” Others said that they would rather live with a headache than take analgesics. It was noted that cyanide could be freely purchased from hobby stores and chemical supply houses, being widely used for plastics, photography, metal plating, galvanizing, metallurgical processes, and even pesticides. Commentators wondered how on earth one would ever find the culprit since the capsules, produced in Pennsylvania and Texas, were distributed widely through wholesale companies before being sent to individual stores. And several lotteries announced that they would accept no more bets on 2880, the notorious lot number of the fatal capsules. At the weekend more than 1000 mourners assembled for the funeral of the three Polish born victims, the new Archbishop of Chicago officiating and other priests addressing the congregation in Polish. There were reports that Chicago Poles had sent hundreds of Tylenol packages to needy relatives in Poland. Across the border in Canada authorities moved promptly to ban the product. Surprisingly, after this incident, lot of similar incidents either began occurring, or were recalled from the past. Reports came from California that a young butcher had developed convulsions from capsules containing a sub lethal dose of strychnine. It was also remembered that in August 1982, a man had burnt his mouth after taking a laxative adulterated with sodium hydroxide and that a year earlier six people had had eye injuries from drops laced with acid and chlorine. During the ensuing weeks there would be scattered reports of people sustaining injuries from contaminated eye drops or mouth washes. Many people thought their toothpaste smelt oddly or their antacids tasted strangely in what pharmacists described as over the counter fear or the Tylenol syndrome. And at a football match some 200 spectators who had drunk soda developed mass hysteria, perhaps from hyperventilation, shouting and complaining of nausea, dizziness, numbness, and chills. In Chicago police reopened the case of a Philadelphia student who had died earlier from cyanide poisoning. Detectives spent all night on the phone with a Canadian psychic who went into long distance trances whenever he was asked a question. Several doctors reported raised cyanide concentrations in their patients, presumably from smoking. One suspect had five unregistered guns in his possession but was otherwise guiltless. A man wondered if the dead squirrels in his yard could have been killed by cyanide. A housewife thought that a man selling cider was the killer because during fermentation the cider had “kicked” a hole in the plastic container. A suburban man threatened to poison all the patients in a hospital unless he received a ransom of $8000, and a similar incident took place later in New Jersey. Another “extortion plot” for $100 000, first thought to be a hoax, eventually led to a nationwide hunt for a bearded man who had once been implicated in a gruesome dismemberment murder. Amid reports that another bottle of MC 2880 Tylenol had been recovered near the store where the air stewardess had bought hers, police produced a surveillance photograph showing the bearded man watching the young woman checking out the capsules but later announced that the picture was too blurred to reveal any “positive evidentiary matter.” And a reporter predicted that the killer would not be a crazed lunatic with raving eyes but a mild mannered man for whom the defense would invoke the insanity plea. Protective legislation stimulated In the Chicago city council the mayor introduced an ordinance requiring internal seals for drugs, cosmetics, and even drug samples, allowing 90 days for implementation and threatening dire sanctions. In Washington Secretary Schweiker said that the poisonings were at the top of his agenda and ordered his staff to work on legislation. Manufacturers doubted whether they could meet a short deadline and warned that confusion would ensue if every municipality enacted its own standards of packaging. Someone wrote that he wanted no seals at all because he could not open bottles with safety caps when he had a headache in the middle of the night. Someone else said that more people died from road accidents but that nobody thought of making cars inaccessible. There was also the question of how far one should go with safety requirements, given that the consumers would have to bear the cost. Chicago newspapers were quick in observing that the publicity was a godsend to officials running for re-election and thought that many were overly melodramatic. Criticizing the politicians’ tendency to fan rather than calm public hysteria, they suggested that the candidates had all but distributed campaign buttons at the victims’ funerals. But they also recalled that protective legislation had often been stimulated by such disasters as the adulteration of quinine for the US military (stationed in Mexico during US-Mexico war) in 1848, the trouble over opium in baby syrup at the turn of the century, the 1937 sulphanilamide tragedy in which 197 people died (diethylene glycol, a sweet syrupy substance had been used as a vehicle for sulphanilamide preparations for children, but it was very toxic), and the 1962 thalidomide episode that caused the malformation of 8000 babies. Meanwhile the business world lost no time in speculating how this disaster would affect the fortunes of Johnson and Johnson and their subsidiary McNeil Laboratories. It was recalled that in 1975, under the pressure of competition, the company had switched Tylenol from being a drug marketed only to the medical profession to one advertised to the public. By spending more than $85m in advertising they had increased their sales to over $400m a year, capturing 37% of a $1 billion a year industry, well ahead of Anacin, Bayer’s Aspirin, Bufferin, and Excedrin. With Americans taking each day some 90 million aspirin and 400 million paracetamol tablets the prize was well worth fighting for, so that competing companies were coming up with ever newer formulations and claims, and there were also constant legal battles over the veracity of advertisements on which aspirin was the best and which analgesic the gentlest. In the wake of the cyanide tragedy the other manufacturers first maintained a suitably compassionate posture, promising not to increase advertising or “make news related adjustments,” because it was not their policy to capitalize unfairly on the misfortunes of their competitors. Johnson and Johnson, in addition to posting the reward and offering refunds, moved to destroy 22 million capsules at a retail value of $80m, halted further production of the product, and allowed customers to exchange their Tylenol capsules for tablets. Notwithstanding these offers, a suburban woman promptly filed a class action suit for $600m on behalf of Tylenol users, claiming that the capsules had been manufactured defectively and packaged negligently. Relatives of the victims also filed suits for $10-15m damages, but the FDA quickly exonerated the manufacturers, and the American College of Legal Medicine likewise announced that neither the manufacturers nor the distributors were culpable, and that because someone was injured did not mean that someone had to pay. For Johnson and Johnson, however, despite all efforts, their sales dropped dramatically, their share of the market declining from 37% to 7% as other manufacturers moved in to fill the vacuum. Copy cat crimes Meanwhile, from all parts of the country came reports of further possible “me too” or “copy cat crimes.” In Denver a man was in critical condition after taking three Excedrins contaminated with mercuric chloride; and a bottle of extra strength Anacin was found to contain the anticoagulant and rat poison warfarin, while other Anacin containers were also believed to have been tampered with. Then a policeman in Florida was taken to hospital after drinking orange juice from a can injected with an insecticide, and a frozen chocolate pie was discovered to contain a tranquillizer. In Chicago and many other communities the councils banned children from trick or treating on Halloween lest they be harmed by poisoned candy. And, amid reports of pethidine in “brownies,” razor blades in hot dogs, pins in candy bars, and glass chips in apple strudel mix, the newspapers deplored the madness unleashed by the poisonings and commented that fear had stolen this year’s Halloween. So a month went by, and the police continued to look for the murderer. In late October they found an eighth lot of cyanide laced capsules among the thousands of returned containers and discovered some promising finger prints, while the newspapers reported how the woman returning the capsules had narrowly missed becoming the eighth victim by taking Bufferin instead of Tylenol for a headache. A further lead vanished when investigations on a woman who had died in August disclosed that she had committed suicide. Then the police found another “prime suspect”; questioned again the man with the five unregistered guns; and received a letter from New York from the bearded man in hiding denying that he had anything to do with the poisoning. “Give yourself up,” retorted the attorney general, but still there was no arrest. Other suspects took lie tests; a relative of one of the victims was questioned but cleared; and as the election day neared the Illinois Republicans were hoping for a quick arrest that would bolster the chances of their candidate for attorney general. But it was not to be; and as bleak November descended over the Windy City the assassin remained at large, a living inspiration to other would be mass murderers, and the people of Illinois, with the help of the Chicago machine, picked a Democrat attorney general. A few days later the federal government issued final regulations on how capsules and liquids were henceforth to be sealed and packaged. The Tylenol task force was scaled down; the bearded man remained in hiding; and Johnson and Johnson launched a new campaign to save their ill fated best seller. “Trust Tylenol,” they asked the public as they offered thousands of free samples in a new tamper proof package, thus saving millions of Americans from the desperate predicament of having to treat their pains and viraemias, their malaise and depression, and possibly even their ennui, with generic paracetamol. Captions to figures: 001-003.jpg: These capsules are similar to those Tylenol Capsules, which were laced with cyanide. These capsules killed as many as seven people. This article has (2765) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-114 For MARCH 2003 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-114 DETECTION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD IN FIREARMS ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal As the incidence of homicides increases all around the world, especially in our country, one finds firearms of various kinds, especially handguns, being involved with much greater frequency than ever before. In addition to homicides, there are many cases in which individuals are superficially or seriously wounded by firearms, and it is necessary for thorough firearms investigation to be conducted in those cases as well as in all homicides caused by firearms. This piece deals with an investigative aspect of firearms investigation that unfortunately is not always undertaken in many jurisdictions, namely, the detection and scientific evaluation of blood particles, stains or patterns on alleged weapons. What can the presence of blood on a firearm tell the investigator and to what extent can it assist him in his examination of an alleged murder or assault with a weapon? What techniques and scientific equipment are available and what level of knowledge can appropriate experts bring to bear in this important and frequent area of investigation? Are there patterns that can be detected that can help law enforcement officers and forensic pathologists better understand the manner in which a particular crime occurred? Can these patterns give information concerning angle, range of fire, etc? The significance of bloodstain evidence is recognized to a much greater extent today than it was some years ago. In fact, prior to a 2 year research project on bloodstain evidence interpretation conducted from 1969 to 1971, very little had been accomplished with evidence of this type. Nevertheless, some mention of the possible evidentiary value of bloodstains was given by the noted Austrian criminologist, Hans Gross, as early as 1893. By 1904 Florence and Fricon, two French researchers, had conducted bloodstain experiments and “had even attempted to deduce the course of a crime from the location and shape of blood spatters.” In spite of these earlier reports, bloodstain evidence was apparently disregarded for many years. In his second English edition, Gross devoted an entire chapter to “Traces of Blood” and even outlined experiments for producing standard blood patterns. However, that chapter was omitted from the fourth and fifth editions. Apparently, while some of the earlier investigators may well have been familiar with bloodstain patterns, their publishers and/or editors may have decided that such information was of little value and simply deleted it from later publications. During the period 1930 to 1954 no articles appeared that added to an understanding of bloodstain pattern interpretation. However, in 1955 Dr. Paul L. Kirk filed his affidavit on physical evidence in the Sheppard case, much of which dealt with bloodstains. That document expanded the scope of bloodstain evidence interpretation far beyond the earlier work of Gross and was, undoubtedly, the most comprehensive report on the subject for many years. Unfortunately, the existence of Kirk’s affidavit was not general knowledge as it was not well circulated. Without question, Kirk was the first person in the United States to apply his scientific knowledge to the practical interpretation of bloodstain patterns. He had given testimony on this subject as early as 1956, and this testimony was recognized as being proper when reviewed by a higher court following appeal. That court stated: Evidence that he had made experiments was introduced to qualify him as an expert in blood dynamics, to show that by training and experience he was able from an analysis of the size and shape of blood spots to determine their source with some degree of accuracy, and to enable the jury to test the reliability of his opinions by revealing their foundation. For these purposes the evidence was properly admitted. Kirk’s testimony during the second Sheppard trial was also regarded by many as being significant. In fact, the jurors were polled after that trial and “it was reported that they considered Dr. Kirk’s testimony very important and his methods extremely careful.” More recently, during the past few years, the value of bloodstain evidence has become a subject of much greater interest among both civil and criminal investigators. Undoubtedly, this interest is largely due to two closely related events. First, in November 1971, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration accepted, had printed, and distributed the report on bloodstain evidence research that had been conducted during the preceding two years. That research had been sponsored by a grant from the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. As a Government Printing Office document that report received widespread distribution to law enforcement agencies throughout the United States and other countries. Secondly, a very experienced researcher Herbert Leon MacDonell conducted many experiments on the blood stain spatters. As is often the case, however, while some answers were obtained from research, new questions were also generated. One such question related to the presence of blood in the muzzle of a firearm. This condition had been observed several times while examining weapons in gunshot deaths. Was there any correlation between such stains and discharge distance? That is the question which prompted a very interesting investigation about which I am going to write. This investigation was done by the most famous researcher on blood stains Herbert Leon MacDonell. OBJECTIVE The process of this research was fourfold. First, targets had to be prepared that would approximate human heads as closely as possible. Second, a variety of weapons which might likely be encountered were assembled. Third, a method for removing residues from a muzzle and testing for blood traces had to be developed. Fourth, whatever correlations that might exist between the various factors had to be established as accurately as possible. EXPERIMENT DESIGN Polystyrene heads normally used to display hair pieces were obtained from a beauty salon supply house. These heads were coronally sectioned using a rip saw to allow a “hollowing out” of a cranial cavity. This was accomplished using a propane torch as shown in Figure 1. The two halves were reassembled using strapping (filament) tape. A 3 x 3 inch panel approximately 0.25 inch depth was removed from the forehead or frontalis region using a soldering gun as a convenient cutting tool. A 0.25x3x3 inch pad of polyurethane was inserted into this void area, which was then covered with a slightly larger sheet of plastic (Saranwrap) secured by transparent tape along its edges. The entire head was given three or four coatings of Liquid Rubber to complete the assembly. A thick mixture of gelatin was prepared to simulate brain matter for the cranial cavity. After preparation, the mixture was poured into the base of each head through a preexisting tapered hole and allowed to set overnight. The tapered hole is evident in Figure 1. Final preparation of a head for test firing consisted of injecting 30 ml of whole human blood into the polyurethane pad. This was accomplished by using a hypodermic syringe and injecting blood through the latex covering at a point near the top center of the pad. The pad had to be subjected to alternate compression and relaxation to promote uniform saturation with blood. After the needle was withdrawn, a simple sealing of the injection hole was effected by using transparent tape as a “band aid.” A completed, blood - saturated head ready for test firing is shown in Figure 2. While no effort was made to simulate bone, it was felt that this was not a serious omission. Our results, therefore, show at least as much, if not more, back spatter than would likely result from a shot into an actual human head. A rather wide variety of firearms was selected. To provide additional scope, several discharge distances were used with each. Only one shot was fired per head. Most of the following were test fired at contact and at 1, 2, and 3 inches from muzzle to target. The following firearms were used. 12-gauge single - barrel shotgun 12 - gauge double - barrel shotgun 16 gauge recoil - operated, autoloading shotgun 20 - gauge recoil - operated, autoloading shotgun .308 Winchester .45 ACP .38 special revolver .357 magnum revolver .22 revolver Some of the above were also fired at 5 inches. TEST FIRINGS Test firings were conducted as illustrated in Figure 3. The test head was placed over a large wooden dowel that was secured in a substantial lead clamp weighing 12 lb. Discharge distance was accurately maintained by resting the muzzle end of each test weapon on a large polyurethane pad that was taped to the pan head of an adjustable tripod. A polyethylene bag was placed over this tripod support to prevent staining from backspattered blood. (In fact, in many cases the person discharging a weapon elected to do so while covered with a large polyethylene sheet for the same reason.) Results of test firing were recorded by both still and motion picture photography. A typical example of the effect of shotgun discharge is shown in Figure 4. Blood may be observed spewing from below the tumbling head in this figure. It was also necessary to develop a reliable sampling procedure to measure the depth of blood penetration into the muzzles of the various firearms. Several initial methods were evaluated from which it was concluded that a sheath system was necessary for inserting a swab into smaller diameter barrels. With care, a sheath was unnecessary when sampling shotguns. The only difference between sampling handguns and longer weapons was the preparation of swabs. The individual procedures are described below. Handguns Depending upon the caliber, one or the other of two sizes of pipe cleaner/ straw combinations was used. Plastic straws are available in 1/4 inch and 5/32 inch diameters. Large (5/16 inch diameter) pipe cleaners may be purchased in continuous lengths from chemical supply houses for cleaning laboratory glassware. This material is used with the larger straws for handguns of .30 caliber and larger. Ordinary pipe cleaners (1/8 inch diameter) are used with the smaller straws for .22 to .30 caliber. Regardless of which combination was used, the following procedure was adopted: 1. A straw is cut about 1 inch longer than the barrel of the weapon. A piece of pipe cleaner is cut about 2 inches longer than the straw (Fig. 5). 2. The pipe cleaner is first saturated with water and then inserted into the straw until it is flush on one end. The flush end is inserted into the barrel of the weapon until it extends about 1/2 inch from both breech and muzzle. If possible, insertion should be made from the breech end. This is not possible with solid - frame revolvers, as is evident in Figure 6. It is important that insertion of the straw be accomplished without scraping the inside of the barrel. Such contact could result in possible contamination further down the barrel and would suggest greater depth of blood penetration. Naturally, this applies only when the straw has been inserted from the muzzle end. 3. The plastic straw is pulled back flush with the breech by holding the pipe cleaner about 1 inch from the muzzle and sliding the straw over the pipe cleaner. 4. The exposed pipe cleaner in the breech is bent over and firmly held while the straw is withdrawn from the muzzle end (Fig. 7). 5. A “crank” is formed by making two right - angle bends in the pipe cleaner at the muzzle end. This crank is rotated to wipe the internal surface of the barrel (Fig. 8). 6. The crank is straightened out and cut flush with the muzzle (Fig. 9). 7. The pipe cleaner is withdrawn from the breech end (Fig. 10) and freshly prepared benzidine solution is added to detect traces of blood. In a similar way, rifles and shotguns were also tested. Results of this research were not difficult to interpret. The correlation of data, however, was another matter. Initially, an attempt was made to plot dual curves - - one for traces, and the second for more concentrated deposits of blood. The problem of resolving where a trace ended and a heavier concentration of blood began was strictly a matter of personal interpretation. To simplify this task all results are reported as the maximum penetration of obvious traces of blood. Without exception, heavier concentrations of blood were detected nearer the muzzle of each weapon. In general several results, summarized in Table 1, were obtained that are quite consistent with what was originally anticipated: 1. The larger the caliber or gauge, the greater the depth of blood penetration into the barrel. 2. Recoil - operated autoloading weapons will produce less depth of blood penetration than a weapon whose barrel does not recoil. S. The use of magnum or similar, higher energy loads will produce more depth of blood penetration than standard ammunition (.357 versus .38 spl, magnum versus field, etc). 4. When a double - barrel shotgun is discharged at contact, considerable backspatter occurs (up to 12 cm) into the dormant barrel. Table 1. The Maximal Penetration of Blood into the Muzzles of Various Firearms Weapon Maximum distance* (inches) Standards shotguns, 12, 16, 20 gauge 5 Recoil operated, auto-loading shotguns, 12, 16, 20 gauge 2 .308 Winchester 3 .45 ACP (recoil operated) 2 .357 magnum revolver 3 .38 Special revolver 2 .22 revolver 1-1.5 *Maximum discharge distance at which traces of blood were detected to a depth of 5 mm or greater inside the weapon’s muzzle. In this way, the researchers determined that a relationship existed between discharge distance and the depth to which blood is drawn back into the muzzle of a firearm. However they went ahead to prove that such a relationship works well in actual casework. Its value has been established in several cases. Captions to figures: Fig. 1. Hollowing out a head with a propane torch. Fig. 2. Completed head ready for firing. Note the dark, blood soaked impact area in the top center. Fig. 3. Test conditions for firing. The shotgun is resting on a support to maintain an accurate discharge distance. Fig. 4. Effect of impact a fraction of a second after discharge. Blood is spewing out of the flying head. Fig. 5. Straw, pipe cleaner material, and revolver prior to assembly for swabbing the barrel. Fig. 6. Swabbing assembly inserted into the muzzle. Fig. 7. Withdrawal of the protective straw exposing the barrel to contact with the damp pipe cleaner. Fig. 8. Turning the pipe cleaner inside the barrel to dissolve blood at points of contact. Fig. 9. Cutting excess pipe cleaner at the muzzle. Fig. 10. Withdrawal of the pipe cleaner from the breech. This article has (2501) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-113 For february 2003 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-113 DECEIVING THE ENEMY IN WAR ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal This time I am going to tell you how nations deceive each other in war. They deliberately mislead each other to gain an unfair advantage. For instance a nation may have decided to attack its enemy nation at a point A. If somehow they can convince the enemy nation, that the point of attack was going to be point B, several thousand miles away from A, the enemy nation will send all its forces to the point B. This leaves point A totally unguarded, making it very easy for the first nation to attack. Something very similar occurred during the second world war. We all know that the Second World War took place from 1939 till 1945. Hitler’s Germany, Italy and Japan were on one side. These were known as axis powers. Historians generally see them as evil powers. On the other side were allies, or so-called “friendly nations”. These included Britain and France mainly, but later on USA and USSR also joined them. The war ended in 1945, with the dropping of Atom Bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. This convinced Japan, and the rest of axis powers that they could not take on the Allies anymore, and they surrendered. However defeating Hitler was no mean task. Lots of brains were required to confound Hitler. The incident I am relating to this time, is very interesting, because in this incident, the English managed to convince Hitler, that they were going to hit point B (Greece), while actually they were going to hit point A (Sicily). Once the Germans had surrendered in North Africa, the need for a new disinformation campaign emerged. Although the Allies had decided to invade the southern coast of Sicily to provide a base for later landings on the Italian mainland, it remained essential to keep the Germans guessing. This meant providing them with false information, but in such a way that its veracity would not be called into question. The intention was to convince the Germans that the Allies were planning to invade Greece, as a plausible alternative to Sicily. The problem was that a careless radio message would not be acceptable, and if the Germans saw through the deception, they might conclude that Sicily was the true target. They would know only too well that really important messages were carried in locked briefcases, chained to the wrists of couriers. So how could a courier be made to fall convincingly into enemy hands, with the vital information still intact? Eventually, the Allies decided that the only realistic scenario would be to suggest to the Germans that the aircraft carrying a courier and his secret documents had crashed into the sea. This would account for a case containing sensitive documents being washed up on the coast of Spain, where Allied aircraft regularly flew offshore and where there was a strong German intelligence presence, who were likely to be told of the documents’ discovery. One snag remained, however - the courier’s body would have to be washed ashore still chained to the case. This meant finding a recently dead body, in a condition that would suggest death by drowning, following an airplane crashing into the sea. Enquiries to London coroners produced the corpse of a young man who had died from pneumonia, which would produce similar physical signs to drowning. This allowed the deception plan, known as Operation Mincemeat, to be set in motion. The body was clothed in Royal Marines uniform and given documents that identified him as Major William Martin. In his pockets were letters from his father, girlfriend, and bank manager, together with ticket stubs from a recent performance at a London theatre. His briefcase contained letters from the office of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and from Lord Louis Mountbatten to officers on the staff of General Alexander, commanding in the Mediterranean. The content of the letters was vital. Rather than simply announcing that the Allies were intending to land in Greece, they discussed detail changes in the plan, of which the recipients would already be aware, but which would come as a revelation to the Germans. They cunningly referred to the plan under the genuine covername for the Sicily landings, Operation Husky. The theory was that any references German agents might pick up to this operation would add to their conviction that the information was genuine. In an additional master stroke, they also referred to a deception plan that was being mounted to convince the Germans and Italians that the landings were to be made on Sicily instead, and to certain operations the Allies could not hope to hide, like the practice landings on the Tunisian coast and the heavy attacks on Sicilian airfields, as being designed to add credibility to this plan. The body of “Major Martin” and the vital briefcase were loaded onto a Royal Navy submarine, which surfaced off the Spanish coast on the night of April 30, 1943. The corpse was lowered into the water at a spot where the currents would carry it ashore near the port of Huelva, where German diplomats were particularly active. After two weeks of progressively stronger British representations for the return of the body, and the case and its contents, the Spanish authorities handed them over. All the documents were still in their sealed envelopes. However, laboratory examination showed that they had been opened and resealed, implying that copies of the papers were already on their way to Berlin. By the time the Sicilian landings went ahead, 10 weeks after the submarine cargo was washed up on a Spanish beach, there were only two German divisions defending the coast, reinforced by an Italian garrison of doubtful morale. Powerful German armored divisions had been switched to Greece and Crete, together with naval units that might have disrupted the landing forces. Rommel set up his Greek headquarters on the very day that Allied troops were wading ashore on Sicily, and although the campaign to liberate the island was hard-fought, it ended with the Germans having to flee to the mainland. After the war, captured documents showed that the Abwehr (German military intelligence) had been doubtful about the authenticity of the documents, but Adolf Hitler had been convinced that they were genuine, and the Operation Mincemeat deception campaign was proved to have been totally successful. However, in the long and tortuous history of campaigns of misinformation and deception, the following case is the one that stands unchallenged as the most complex, ambitious, and successful of all time. This is the Fortitude deception campaign mounted by the British and Americans in World War II, which actually resulted in a whole German army being kept out of the Normandy fighting until it was too late. To do this, the Allies had to use double agents, electronic intelligence, radar intelligence, communications intelligence, and false intelligence in a cleverly orchestrated campaign. The dilemma facing both the Allies and the Germans was deciding where the cross-channel invasion would land on the coast of France. There were only two sensible options: the Pas de Calais and Normandy. The former offered the shortest sea crossing from Britain, and the shortest route to the German heartland, but contained the heaviest and most formidable units in the German order of battle. The latter, while being less heavily garrisoned, required a longer and more dangerous sea crossing, and meant that much greater distances had to be covered before Germany itself could be threatened. In fact, the strength of the Pas de Calais defenses had led the Allies to decide on Normandy from the outset. However, a massive deception campaign was mounted to assure the Germans that the landings would take place in the Pas de Calais. First of all, the network of German agents operating under British control sent a series of carefully coordinated messages that enabled the Germans to build a picture of massive forces being assembled in the south-east of England, ready for landings in the Calais area. At the same time, no signs were revealed of the real buildup of troops in the southwest, in preparation for Normandy. The spies’ messages were reinforced by all other channels of information. Large numbers of false radio signals were sent from transmitters in the south-east, and genuine messages from Montgomery’s headquarters in Hampshire were sent by landline to a transmitter in Kent, so that these too could be added to the evidence for the buildup in the south-east. In case reconnaissance aircraft were sent over from France, dummy tanks, guns, aircraft, and landing craft were massed in fields and river estuaries in the east. When Allied aircraft began the huge campaign of pre-invasion attacks on German forces in France, the planners took care that three sorties were made against the Pas de Calais for every two against targets in Normandy. The heart of the deception was to be the entirely fictitious FUSAG, or First US Army Group, the force earmarked for the Pas de Calais landings, to be commanded by the very real General George S. Patton. Calculated leaks revealed his presence in eastern England, and details of individual American units were fed back by the German spies, directed by their Allied spymasters. Even the most trivial snippets of information added to the overall impression. In neutral Geneva, British agents bought all available copies of the Michelin maps of the Calais area, an action carefully noted and reported by their German opposite numbers. The picture was reinforced by a genuine German general too - Hans Cremer, former commander of the Afrika Korps, who was being repatriated to Germany in May 1944. En route to London from a prison camp in Wales, his car was diverted through south-west England. Because all location names and signposts had been removed as an anti-invasion measure in 1940, there was nothing to tell him that he was not being driven through southern and south-eastern England, and he was able to see signs of the huge buildup of men, weapons and materials ready for the invasion. When the landing forces actually sailed, a new deception campaign swung into action. The German radar stations watching the entire Channel coast were destroyed by Allied fighter-bombers, except for two in the Pas de Calais area. These were deceived by two precision bomber squadrons of the Royal Air Force, which spent the entire night flying an exact pattern that allowed them to drop metallic foil strips to create echoes on German radar simulating a huge invasion force approaching across the Channel at low speed. In case the Germans sent naval craft to investigate this ominous radar picture, it was reinforced by a small fleet of naval motorboats, each towing a large radar-reflecting balloon. Sound equipment aboard the boats reproduced the noise of engines, anchors being dropped, loudspeaker commands, and bugle calls. On land, the deception was intensified when large numbers of dummy parachutists were dropped all over the invasion area, loaded with firecrackers to simulate small-arms fire. Small Special Forces teams were also dropped with record players and loudspeakers to create the sounds of pitched battle in the darkness, confusing the German defenders as to the positions of their enemies. It could be thought that the value of all these deceptions would have vanished once the landings had taken place. At that stage, under normal circumstances, the Germans would have known the truth, and could have taken action accordingly. But it was here that the most brilliant twist in the whole campaign was mounted. Messages from their agents in Britain were used to remind the German spymasters of the huge forces still remaining in southeastern England and not used for the Normandy landings. Their worries were compounded by vital information from their most respected agent of all, Garbo. Two days after the invasion, Garbo had been ordered by his Allied controllers to report to the Germans that two units, the British Third Infantry Division and the Guards Armoured Division, were on their way to Normandy, on the grounds that the Germans would soon discover the units’ presence for themselves, and this information would heighten the agent’s standing and credibility. At that moment, when they were on the point of ordering seven divisions to move from the Pas de Calais to crush the Normandy invasion, Garbo sent another message, a marathon two-hour signal, which explained that Normandy was intended as a feint attack, intended to lure the powerful German Fifteenth Army from its positions in the Pas de Calais. Once the Germans reacted to the bait, and moved their most powerful forces westward, the real Allied blow would fall behind them, and with it the Pas de Calais, and the direct route to Germany. This inspiration turned the tables completely. The more determinedly the Allies attacked in Normandy, the more it would appear that they were trying to provoke the Germans into reacting. Only by holding back their most powerful units could they frustrate the Allied plan, so they kept the Fifteenth Army where it was for six vital weeks. By the time the Germans finally realized that FUSAG was a complete fabrication, Patton was in Normandy, leading the breakout from the bridgehead that eventually would sweep through northern France and help drive the Germans back to the borders of the Reich. Captions to figures: 001.jpg: “The body of “Major William Martin” of the Royal Marines, dressed in uniform with a life preserver and showing all the postmortem signs associated with drowning after an airplane crash. 002.jpg: Some of the carefully selected evidence carried on the body to establish “Major Martin’s” identity. 003.jpg: “Major Martin’s” pass, admitting him to Combined Operations Headquarters, accounted for the importance of the documents he was carrying and helped establish that they were genuine. 004.jpg: Maintaining the Fortitude deceptions prior to D-Day meant providing huge numbers of dummy forces in south-eastern England to attract the attention of German reconnaissance flights: This photograph shows a dummy Spitfire fighter 005.jpg: Another devise to confuse the Germans: a sketchy framework for a dummy Hurricane fighter-bomber 006.jpg: This device meant for confusion is probably the most interesting: a framework that could be fitted to a Jeep to make it look like a Sherman tank from the air! This article has (2401) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-112 For JANuary 2003 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-112 Some Misconceptions in Gunshot Investigations ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal This time I am going to deal with some popular misconceptions in the field of gunshot investigation. Indeed there are many misconceptions held by all manner of people (including several laymen) concerning the trauma inflicted by firearms. Many popular misconceptions are spread by popular crime novels, movies and TV serials. The result is that people are always asking me about them. Some misconceptions are encountered so frequently that special mention seems in order. Ten of the more significant misconceptions are discussed below. THE PATH OF THE BULLET One of the most prevalent misconceptions among lay people is that the bullet always travels in a straight line in the body, from the entrance to the exit wound, or wherever it came to rest in the body. This is not necessarily true. Here I may tell you about a phenomenon called ricochet. It is like a shuttlecock rebounding back from the opponent’s racket. Visualize the bullet as a shuttlecock. Just as a shuttlecock can rebound off a racket, a bullet can rebound off a wall or roof. This is known as external ricochet. Similarly the bullet can bounce off bones within the body. This is known as internal ricochet. Since the phenomena of internal ricochet is well-known it is clear that the path of the bullet is not necessarily straight within the body. Internal ricochet can and does occur. When it occurs, it usually results from the bullet striking bone and being deflected from its initial course into a second or a third course. This happens with frequency when the bullet strikes the head, penetrating the skull, allowing the bullet access to the curved inner portion of the skull where it may easily be turned from its original intracalvarial trajectory. (Editor please reproduce figure 001.jpg here. Caption: FIGURE 1. Internal ricochet. A cross section of the fixed brain is shown. The bullet entered the lower left, proceeding upward and slightly toward the right, impacting the skull and ricocheting to the right and downward, and somewhat to the back. The bone fragments carried into the brain by the bullet indicate the inshoot area. This can in fact be another good additional point to differentiate between an entry and an exit wound.) In addition, it is not unheard of for a bullet to strike a fascial plane (as found between two muscles) and to follow the fascial plane gliding along it to its exit from the body or to its final resting place. Size of the entrance wound When a bullet enters a body, it makes an entrance wound, and when it comes out it makes an exit wound. The rule of the thumb is that the entrance or inshoot wound is smaller than the exit or outshoot wound. But to say that it is ALWAYS so, is not correct. This is a popular misconception among the policemen, some forensic youngsters and even intelligent lay people who keep reading crime novels. There is a variant of this misconception which may be stated thus: The entrance wound is always circular and neat, the exit wound is irregular in shape, has a jagged margin, and just looks different. In actuality, the inshoot wound may be larger than the outshoot wound and may be irregular in shape in contrast to the outshoot wound which may be circular and may even have an abraded margin. As an example, contrast a contact inshoot wound with a shored outshoot wound. (Editor please reproduce figure 002.jpg here. Caption. FIGURE 2. Explosive contact and outshoot wounds contrasted. Two pairs are shown. The two panels on the right are of the explosive contact type. The panels on the left represent the outshoot wounds on the opposite side of the head.) Also, consider a noncontact wound of entrance with a shored exit wound when the two wounds are similar in size and shape. Destruction caused by semijacketed bullets Semijacketed or hollow-point pistol or revolver bullets make “hamburger” out of the organs of the chest or abdomen. This misconception appears to have arisen from ignorance of wound ballistics and from confusion of the effects of velocity and bullet design. Semijacketed bullets have long been available for high-velocity rifles. Since the physician or surgeon treating the victim of firearms injury rarely knows the type of weapon employed, but is aware that a semijacketed bullet was recovered (by the surgeon himself), it is logical for him to assume that the massive destruction is due to the bullet, when in fact it resulted from the high velocity of the rifle employed. To obtain cavitation and marked release of energy directed radially, the velocity of the missile must be higher than the highest achieved with a pistol or revolver bullet that leaves the muzzle, perhaps as high as 1600 to 1800 feet per second. Semijacketed or hollow-point bullets leave the muzzle at a lower velocity (at speeds of 1500 feet per second or lower), when fired from most handguns. These bullets are designed to expand or mushroom. This causes a more rapid slowing of the bullet in the body and a more rapid transfer of kinetic energy to the tissues. Moreover, such a bullet is not as apt to perforate the body, passing through it, and maintaining a part of its kinetic energy as it exits. It is the more rapid and more complete transfer of kinetic energy that causes the greater “striking power” or “knockdown” capability of semijacketed and hollow-point bullets. Despite the mushrooming effect of these bullets and more rapid transfer of kinetic energy to the body, the visible wounding of tissues and organs cannot be distinguished from that caused by other varieties of bullets, provided that the velocity is maintained below approximately 1500 feet per second. Direction of the bullet This misconception appears quite logical in the first instance. In short, the misconception is that when the wound of entrance is higher on the body than the outshoot wound, it follows that the assailant was pointing the firearm slightly downward toward the victim at the moment of firing. Although this appears to make sense, this is quite incorrect. The course of the bullet through the body has nothing to do with the relative positions of the victim and assailant. For example, the victim may have been leaning forward at the time of being shot. He may have been lying on the floor. He may have been climbing over a fence. This misconception is one frequently entertained by the attorney who, in the course of prosecution or defense of the accused, is anxious to establish a relationship between the victim and assailant that will fit the theoretic actions of the two. The most positive derivation that can be made is that the course of the missile in the body is consistent with the firearm being pointed slightly downward toward the victim at the time of discharge. There are many other relationships between the victim and the assailant and manner in which the weapon was held and pointed that are equally consistent. The number and details of such are limited only by the imagination of those anxious to reconstruct the situation at the time of the shooting. Bullets are hot and sterile, or are they? When the bullet emerges from the muzzle of the firearm, it is so hot that it will burn the skin. A variant of this misconception may be worded: The bullet is so hot that all bacteria upon it are killed and the missile is really a sterile object. Neither statement is true. The heat generated by the burning of the powder is intense, but the bullet is exposed to the heat for a very short period of time; moreover, only the base of the bullet is exposed. In addition, the friction generated by the rubbing of the bullet against the bore creates further heat. However, the specific heat and density of lead, the principal material used in bullet construction, combine to require much heat to increase the bullet temperature. Firearms examiners who recover bullets immediately after firing from test boxes filled with cotton waste find warm, perhaps even hot bullets. Nevertheless, the cotton waste is never scorched or burned by the bullet itself. Also, experimental firing has shown that bullets are not sterile after being fired from a firearm. Abrasion collar The bullet shot from a rifled firearm, spinning at a very high rate of speed, essentially drills its way into and through the target. This spinning motion or drilling is responsible, at least in part, for the abrasion ring seen in wounds of entrance. This statement is a half truth. There is no question but that the bullet is spinning. However, the rate of forward motion is so great that during the passage of a bullet through the thickness of the human chest or abdomen, it will make only one or two complete revolutions. The bullet does not “drill” its way through the body. suicidal wounds Many individuals die as a result of accidentally inflicted gunshot wounds sustained while cleaning a firearm. Actually, such accidents occur only rarely. Many times the gun-cleaning kit is at hand because the individual, bent on suicide, desires to make the investigating officials think that the wound was accidentally inflicted. Family members have been known to confuse the scene of death by the simple addition of a cleaning rod, oil, and patch. Sometimes the suicidal nature of the death is indicated by the contact type of wound in a position where accidental infliction would be nearly impossible. right hand or the left hand? Right-handed individuals commit suicide by holding the handgun in the right hand with the muzzle in contact with or close to the right temple. This is not the case. A moment’s reflection will reveal the error. The handgun may be held with either hand, and any finger may be used to actuate the trigger, although the forefinger and thumb are most frequently so employed. Many individuals are not familiar with firearms; they are especially apt not to hold the weapon in the expected, normal, or “proper” fashion. determination of survival It is possible to determine how long the victim survived following fatal injury from an examination of the wound. Unfortunately, this cannot be done. There are many factors which modify the survival time following mortal wounding. Natural disease processes can combine with trauma to shorten life. Alcohol and drugs may certainly contribute to a decrease in the length of survival. The environmental temperature, humidity, and other factors may affect survival. The extent of the wounding is very important, of course, but it cannot always be determined from an external examination of the body. In fact, it may be difficult to determine, even with a thorough autopsy. autopsy on a firearm victim It is a simple procedure to perform an autopsy upon the victim of a firearm injury. All that is necessary is to find the wounds of entrance and exit, locate the bullet, and point out the traumatized tissues and organs. This statement is obviously untrue. It is usually called the king of all misconceptions regarding firearms. These are the common misconceptions people have while reading detective novels, and seeing crime movies. If they keep in mind these basic facts, they will be able to enjoy their crime reading much more. This article has (1913) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-111 no article in october and November For DECEMber 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-111 THE LATEST IN FINGERPRINTING: WHAT IS LIVE SCAN TECHNOLOGY? ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal Through this column we strive to give the latest in crime fighting technology to our readers. This time I am going to talk about live scan technology, which is the latest in fingerprinting. Let us see, what it is. But first of all, some preliminaries. To start with let me ask you, what is an inked fingerprint? This question is a very important part of understanding how most fingerprint identifications are made, and how fingerprint files and databases are created. Essentially, an inked fingerprint is an impression of friction skin made with a medium such as printer’s ink. Ink is applied to the top surface of the friction ridges on the last joint of the finger, the entire palmar surface, or soles of the feet. These inked fingerprints can also be known as exemplar prints. Exemplar prints are those prints from a known origin or source. However, the person’s true identity may not always be known without further investigation. Exemplar prints are intentionally recorded friction skin impressions from a known person. Again, the term fingerprint is an all encompassing term and could be in reference to any area of the palmar surface or even soles of the feet which are called the plantar surfaces. The term inked, as in “inked fingerprint”, is also a generality. A black printer type of ink has long been the standard medium used for recording friction ridge skin impressions. However, it is not the only means of making an exemplar impression. A computer-generated fingerprint image, often termed live-scan, offers a considerable speed advantage when compared to standard ink-type methods. It is common to record up to four fingerprint documents of an individual at a single printing event. Three of the documents may consist of duplicate l0-print cards destined for comparison and filing with local, state, and national government agencies. The court system may also receive documents with inked fingerprints. Live-scan-type fingerprint imaging systems are used to electronically scan fingerprints. These images can then be printed to l0-print cards via a computer laser printer. Current laser printer systems used for fingerprint reproduction print in the range of 300 to 500 dpi resolution. A word about dpi here. Dpi stands for “Dots per inch”. All printed matter is made up of dots. The higher the number of dots are, the better the picture. Do a simple experiment. See an ordinary newspaper under a strong hand lens. Particularly try to see a photograph. You will see a number of black and white dots. These dots make up the photograph. An ordinary newspaper has lesser number of such dots per inch. That is why its photographs appear more “grainy”. If you try to see a glossy magazine under such a hand lens, you may not be able to see, these dots. The reason is that these dots are much smaller in glossy magazines. That is why the pictures appear more glossy. If we talk about 300 dpi, we are talking about a picture, in which every inch has got 300 dots. A 500 dpi picture has 500 dots per inch. These are fairly high resolution photographs, and would appear less “grainy” to the eye, than, say, a picture with 72 dots per inch. Not all electronic images, or image output are defined in dot per inch resolutions. Thus, printed resolutions may vary. Dye sublimation printers, for example, print in “ppi” or pixels per inch. Also, the capture resolution of a fingerprint image also affects the output resolution. With live-scan, the fingerprint scanning process is done only once, and duplicate 10-print cards can be printed as needed. Live-scan systems are fast-becoming the system of choice at larger agencies. Another form of inked fingerprints, albeit nonstandard, may include elimination fingerprints in the form of purposely made and developed latent print impressions. This is an alternate method of recording victim elimination fingerprints when ink is not available. Field officers or a fingerprint specialist will have subjects press their fingers onto a white card stock. This transfers oils and moisture residues from the fingers to the blank card. Then a contrasting color of fingerprint development powder is applied to the card to develop the fingerprints. The card is then labeled with basic case and fingerprint information. Clear tape is applied over the impressions to prevent smearing of the delicate residues. This system works because the powdering is done immediately after the impressions are made. The moisture and oils contained in the fingerprint residues have not had time to evaporate or soak into the card stock. Properly made elimination prints of this type can offer quality similar to regular inked fingerprints. These elimination prints can then be used in comparisons just as inked fingerprints would, although, here the fingerprint record would not be durable enough to withstand entry into a file system and is almost always filed with the latent fingerprint evidence. Major case prints, or major criminal prints, are recorded impressions that represent all areas of friction skin on the palmar, and if necessary, plantar surface of the feet. Major case prints are recorded in addition to the standardized l0-print and palm print cards. The very tips of the fingers, sides of the fingers, and sides of the palms are not always represented in normal printing of fingers and palms. Recovered crime-scene print impressions may be from one of these areas; thus, major case prints are needed before a comparison can take place. All fingerprint impressions represent only a fragment of a whole. Here, a whole print would be the three-dimensional palmar surface of a hand. Generally, most all ink and developed latent print impressions are two-dimensional fragments of a particular sample of friction skin. Major case prints are a collection of overlapping areas of inked friction skin impressions. The only way to record a complete palm impression is to make a three-dimensional mold of the palmar surface. The same is true regarding just the last joint of each finger; the patterned area of a finger, it is still not possible to record a complete impression at one time using standard inking practices. Even if the finger is rolled from one side to the other, the tip of the finger will not be represented because our receiving medium, a l0-print card, is a two-dimensional object. In a detailed report of a comparison of inked fingerprints, one would expect precision in describing the exact area or areas that were compared. An example would be: Inked fingerprint card from Ram Lal was compared with known prints of Shyam Lal ID#123456 with date of birth 16 July 1974. A subsequent conclusion of identification or no identification would follow. Exacting descriptors allows the prints in question to be verified and/or inspected by involved parties. Clerical errors can occasionally be made that allow inaccurate information, in all or part, to accompanying the inked fingerprints. l0-print fingerprint cards contain areas of information that are intended to be filled out at time of printing. Name, date of birth, date of printing, addresses, name of printer, and the fingerprints themselves each need to be accurately recorded. LIVE-SCAN TECHNOLOGY Having understood what inked fingerprints are, we can now turn to live scan technology. Live-scan is the computerized equivalent of inked fingerprints. A person’s fingerprints are scanned via a glass mirror reflection and electronic camera, or by such new technology as ferroelectric infrared thermal imaging. There are several different imaging solutions available. With the exception of the reflection mirror live-scan, most of the technology is relatively new and nonstandardized. The ferroelectric infrared thermal contrast system is being developed by the Thomson-CSF company. The information from the fingerprint scans are converted into a digital computer code. Once the 10 fingerprint images are captured, the user can print out duplicate l0-print fingerprint cards on a high-resolution laser printer. Current live-scan technology resides at 300-500 dpi image resolution. We have already talked about dpi resolutions. A 500 dpi is sufficient to reproduce some of the pores that line the tops of the frictions ridges. The lower 300 dpi systems cannot reproduce the pore or ridge edge detail reliably, yet it is sufficient for basic fingerprint identification when the live-scan machines are properly maintained and operated. A live-scan generated l0-print card is similar in appearance to a regular inked card. The differences may include the addition of computer code added to the margin of the card. A gray scale bar and a laser printed operator’s name in lieu of a signature may also be present. Since all machines require a user specific password to access the imaging program, this has not proven to be a problem. This lack of hand written data also increases the accuracy of the data itself by not breaking the electronic chain of combining the fingerprint image data and the personal data during the printing process. Of course, agencies will have to supervise the use of the machine to ensure that other operators do not use the same passwords and log-on name. In large agencies, live-scan electronic images are slowly replacing ink as the primary means of creating a fingerprint record. While ink requires that each finger is inked prior to each impression, live-scan allows each finger to be scanned as repeatedly as necessary to generate a clear fingerprint impression, but the best detailed image need only be captured once. The term capture of a fingerprint is that the image is digitally acquired for further processing and subsequent printing. In general, novice, live-scan, computerized systems operators can produce clearer overall impressions when compared to using ink. Clearer images are the result of the fact that a live-scan operator has no reason to accept and capture a smudged image. While live-scan type print impressions generally result in a clearer overall fingerprint impression database, most fingerprint specialists prefer properly made ink impressions for comparison purposes. Ink allows great detail, if properly done. The problem results from the fact that unsupervised and/or undertrained fingerprint technicians in jail booking areas or public fingerprint counters will often produce a higher percentage of smudged fingerprints using the ink method. The print can be rerolled until a satisfactory image has been made. Once this is achieved, the operator will move on to the next finger until all 10 fingers are rolled on the glass platen, then the plain impressions of each four fingers and thumbs are made along the lower part of the l0-print card. These nonrolled plain impressions will help ensure that the 10 fingers were rolled correctly. This procedure has not changed from the ink process. The fact that it is much easier to reroll fingers with the live-scan systems seems to generate better overall impressions with novice operators as well. Clearer l0-print cards equal a better database and an improved match, or hit rate, on subsequent database searches. ARE THERE ANY DISADVANTAGES TOO The system is not without its disadvantages. The main disadvantages of the live-scan systems are that most are not portable and require high maintenance. The systems and printers must be calibrated often to produce quality fingerprint impressions. Computer-generated artifacts can also be added to a fingerprint impression by the operator, the system software, or by the computer printer. User errors can result in the fingerprint of one individual being added to the information and name of another. These instances are rare they are not unique to live-scan hardware as they can also be found with the traditional ink method. One of the main reasons for errors with computer-based systems may be because the operator may not always know what data the computer is currently processing. A I0-print card could be fed into a printer which is printing a different individual’s fingerprints. Most systems attempt to avoid this problem by eliminating as much handwritten data as possible by keeping the alpha-numeric data and the fingerprint images together throughout the printing process. A similar problem was noted with standard inked l0-print cards. If the descriptor data, such as name and date of birth, was not added to the fingerprint cards immediately after the printing of a person, it was possible that the wrong information could be added. With current systems, the main problems reside with the reprinting of data from electronic storage buffers, or the printing of miscellaneous l0-print cards that are provided by the customers. The most notorious drawback of computer-generated fingerprints is not from the occasional error but an inability to reproduce very fine fingerprint detail. Computer-generated images often lack the nuances of a rolled ink fingerprint. These fine details or nuances are often used to compare fingerprints. So the trade-off seems to be that while computer-generated fingerprint images save time and can enhance the computer database’s hit ratio, they can also prove difficult for use in some of the more challenging fingerprint comparisons. The comparison of crime scene latent fingerprint impressions often rely on the fine fingerprint ridge detail. Generally, exemplar and latent fingerprint impression quality is highly variable. As was mentioned earlier, it is not that uncommon to see crime scene latent fingerprints that are of a higher quality than the exemplar prints on file. Whether the exemplar fingerprint impressions are ink or computer-generated, the actual quality and detail of the print will determine its usefulness in comparisons. This article has (2239) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002no article in october and November For DECEMber 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-111 THE LATEST IN FINGERPRINTING: WHAT IS LIVE SCAN TECHNOLOGY? ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal Through this column we strive to give the latest in crime fighting technology to our readers. This time I am going to talk about live scan technology, which is the latest in fingerprinting. Let us see, what it is. But first of all, some preliminaries. To start with let me ask you, what is an inked fingerprint? This question is a very important part of understanding how most fingerprint identifications are made, and how fingerprint files and databases are created. Essentially, an inked fingerprint is an impression of friction skin made with a medium such as printer’s ink. Ink is applied to the top surface of the friction ridges on the last joint of the finger, the entire palmar surface, or soles of the feet. These inked fingerprints can also be known as exemplar prints. Exemplar prints are those prints from a known origin or source. However, the person’s true identity may not always be known without further investigation. Exemplar prints are intentionally recorded friction skin impressions from a known person. Again, the term fingerprint is an all encompassing term and could be in reference to any area of the palmar surface or even soles of the feet which are called the plantar surfaces. The term inked, as in “inked fingerprint”, is also a generality. A black printer type of ink has long been the standard medium used for recording friction ridge skin impressions. However, it is not the only means of making an exemplar impression. A computer-generated fingerprint image, often termed live-scan, offers a considerable speed advantage when compared to standard ink-type methods. It is common to record up to four fingerprint documents of an individual at a single printing event. Three of the documents may consist of duplicate l0-print cards destined for comparison and filing with local, state, and national government agencies. The court system may also receive documents with inked fingerprints. Live-scan-type fingerprint imaging systems are used to electronically scan fingerprints. These images can then be printed to l0-print cards via a computer laser printer. Current laser printer systems used for fingerprint reproduction print in the range of 300 to 500 dpi resolution. A word about dpi here. Dpi stands for “Dots per inch”. All printed matter is made up of dots. The higher the number of dots are, the better the picture. Do a simple experiment. See an ordinary newspaper under a strong hand lens. Particularly try to see a photograph. You will see a number of black and white dots. These dots make up the photograph. An ordinary newspaper has lesser number of such dots per inch. That is why its photographs appear more “grainy”. If you try to see a glossy magazine under such a hand lens, you may not be able to see, these dots. The reason is that these dots are much smaller in glossy magazines. That is why the pictures appear more glossy. If we talk about 300 dpi, we are talking about a picture, in which every inch has got 300 dots. A 500 dpi picture has 500 dots per inch. These are fairly high resolution photographs, and would appear less “grainy” to the eye, than, say, a picture with 72 dots per inch. Not all electronic images, or image output are defined in dot per inch resolutions. Thus, printed resolutions may vary. Dye sublimation printers, for example, print in “ppi” or pixels per inch. Also, the capture resolution of a fingerprint image also affects the output resolution. With live-scan, the fingerprint scanning process is done only once, and duplicate 10-print cards can be printed as needed. Live-scan systems are fast-becoming the system of choice at larger agencies. Another form of inked fingerprints, albeit nonstandard, may include elimination fingerprints in the form of purposely made and developed latent print impressions. This is an alternate method of recording victim elimination fingerprints when ink is not available. Field officers or a fingerprint specialist will have subjects press their fingers onto a white card stock. This transfers oils and moisture residues from the fingers to the blank card. Then a contrasting color of fingerprint development powder is applied to the card to develop the fingerprints. The card is then labeled with basic case and fingerprint information. Clear tape is applied over the impressions to prevent smearing of the delicate residues. This system works because the powdering is done immediately after the impressions are made. The moisture and oils contained in the fingerprint residues have not had time to evaporate or soak into the card stock. Properly made elimination prints of this type can offer quality similar to regular inked fingerprints. These elimination prints can then be used in comparisons just as inked fingerprints would, although, here the fingerprint record would not be durable enough to withstand entry into a file system and is almost always filed with the latent fingerprint evidence. Major case prints, or major criminal prints, are recorded impressions that represent all areas of friction skin on the palmar, and if necessary, plantar surface of the feet. Major case prints are recorded in addition to the standardized l0-print and palm print cards. The very tips of the fingers, sides of the fingers, and sides of the palms are not always represented in normal printing of fingers and palms. Recovered crime-scene print impressions may be from one of these areas; thus, major case prints are needed before a comparison can take place. All fingerprint impressions represent only a fragment of a whole. Here, a whole print would be the three-dimensional palmar surface of a hand. Generally, most all ink and developed latent print impressions are two-dimensional fragments of a particular sample of friction skin. Major case prints are a collection of overlapping areas of inked friction skin impressions. The only way to record a complete palm impression is to make a three-dimensional mold of the palmar surface. The same is true regarding just the last joint of each finger; the patterned area of a finger, it is still not possible to record a complete impression at one time using standard inking practices. Even if the finger is rolled from one side to the other, the tip of the finger will not be represented because our receiving medium, a l0-print card, is a two-dimensional object. In a detailed report of a comparison of inked fingerprints, one would expect precision in describing the exact area or areas that were compared. An example would be: Inked fingerprint card from Ram Lal was compared with known prints of Shyam Lal ID#123456 with date of birth 16 July 1974. A subsequent conclusion of identification or no identification would follow. Exacting descriptors allows the prints in question to be verified and/or inspected by involved parties. Clerical errors can occasionally be made that allow inaccurate information, in all or part, to accompanying the inked fingerprints. l0-print fingerprint cards contain areas of information that are intended to be filled out at time of printing. Name, date of birth, date of printing, addresses, name of printer, and the fingerprints themselves each need to be accurately recorded. LIVE-SCAN TECHNOLOGY Having understood what inked fingerprints are, we can now turn to live scan technology. Live-scan is the computerized equivalent of inked fingerprints. A person’s fingerprints are scanned via a glass mirror reflection and electronic camera, or by such new technology as ferroelectric infrared thermal imaging. There are several different imaging solutions available. With the exception of the reflection mirror live-scan, most of the technology is relatively new and nonstandardized. The ferroelectric infrared thermal contrast system is being developed by the Thomson-CSF company. The information from the fingerprint scans are converted into a digital computer code. Once the 10 fingerprint images are captured, the user can print out duplicate l0-print fingerprint cards on a high-resolution laser printer. Current live-scan technology resides at 300-500 dpi image resolution. We have already talked about dpi resolutions. A 500 dpi is sufficient to reproduce some of the pores that line the tops of the frictions ridges. The lower 300 dpi systems cannot reproduce the pore or ridge edge detail reliably, yet it is sufficient for basic fingerprint identification when the live-scan machines are properly maintained and operated. A live-scan generated l0-print card is similar in appearance to a regular inked card. The differences may include the addition of computer code added to the margin of the card. A gray scale bar and a laser printed operator’s name in lieu of a signature may also be present. Since all machines require a user specific password to access the imaging program, this has not proven to be a problem. This lack of hand written data also increases the accuracy of the data itself by not breaking the electronic chain of combining the fingerprint image data and the personal data during the printing process. Of course, agencies will have to supervise the use of the machine to ensure that other operators do not use the same passwords and log-on name. In large agencies, live-scan electronic images are slowly replacing ink as the primary means of creating a fingerprint record. While ink requires that each finger is inked prior to each impression, live-scan allows each finger to be scanned as repeatedly as necessary to generate a clear fingerprint impression, but the best detailed image need only be captured once. The term capture of a fingerprint is that the image is digitally acquired for further processing and subsequent printing. In general, novice, live-scan, computerized systems operators can produce clearer overall impressions when compared to using ink. Clearer images are the result of the fact that a live-scan operator has no reason to accept and capture a smudged image. While live-scan type print impressions generally result in a clearer overall fingerprint impression database, most fingerprint specialists prefer properly made ink impressions for comparison purposes. Ink allows great detail, if properly done. The problem results from the fact that unsupervised and/or undertrained fingerprint technicians in jail booking areas or public fingerprint counters will often produce a higher percentage of smudged fingerprints using the ink method. The print can be rerolled until a satisfactory image has been made. Once this is achieved, the operator will move on to the next finger until all 10 fingers are rolled on the glass platen, then the plain impressions of each four fingers and thumbs are made along the lower part of the l0-print card. These nonrolled plain impressions will help ensure that the 10 fingers were rolled correctly. This procedure has not changed from the ink process. The fact that it is much easier to reroll fingers with the live-scan systems seems to generate better overall impressions with novice operators as well. Clearer l0-print cards equal a better database and an improved match, or hit rate, on subsequent database searches. ARE THERE ANY DISADVANTAGES TOO The system is not without its disadvantages. The main disadvantages of the live-scan systems are that most are not portable and require high maintenance. The systems and printers must be calibrated often to produce quality fingerprint impressions. Computer-generated artifacts can also be added to a fingerprint impression by the operator, the system software, or by the computer printer. User errors can result in the fingerprint of one individual being added to the information and name of another. These instances are rare they are not unique to live-scan hardware as they can also be found with the traditional ink method. One of the main reasons for errors with computer-based systems may be because the operator may not always know what data the computer is currently processing. A I0-print card could be fed into a printer which is printing a different individual’s fingerprints. Most systems attempt to avoid this problem by eliminating as much handwritten data as possible by keeping the alpha-numeric data and the fingerprint images together throughout the printing process. A similar problem was noted with standard inked l0-print cards. If the descriptor data, such as name and date of birth, was not added to the fingerprint cards immediately after the printing of a person, it was possible that the wrong information could be added. With current systems, the main problems reside with the reprinting of data from electronic storage buffers, or the printing of miscellaneous l0-print cards that are provided by the customers. The most notorious drawback of computer-generated fingerprints is not from the occasional error but an inability to reproduce very fine fingerprint detail. Computer-generated images often lack the nuances of a rolled ink fingerprint. These fine details or nuances are often used to compare fingerprints. So the trade-off seems to be that while computer-generated fingerprint images save time and can enhance the computer database’s hit ratio, they can also prove difficult for use in some of the more challenging fingerprint comparisons. The comparison of crime scene latent fingerprint impressions often rely on the fine fingerprint ridge detail. Generally, exemplar and latent fingerprint impression quality is highly variable. As was mentioned earlier, it is not that uncommon to see crime scene latent fingerprints that are of a higher quality than the exemplar prints on file. Whether the exemplar fingerprint impressions are ink or computer-generated, the actual quality and detail of the print will determine its usefulness in comparisons. This article has (2239) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-110 no article in subsequent two issues (october and November) For September 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-110 DEATH FROM A FIREARM: SUICIDAL OR HOMICIDAL? ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal Many times police personnel come to me with a dead body, which has been found with a firearm near it. A shot has gone through its head. The question often asked by the police is, “Doctor, can you tell us if this was a case of suicide or homicide?” This is indeed a very commonly asked question, and in this piece, I hope to dwell on this issue at length. Some general observations may be made on suicidal gunshot wounds. By far, the majority of them are inflicted in the head. Most of such wounds are inflicted in the right temple, usually at a point just above and in front of the ear. In these cases, the gun is usually held directly against the skin or practically so. If the weapon happens to be an automatic pistol, sometimes the imprint of the muzzle and the front sight will be left on the skin, due to the impact from the recoil. Occasionally a person will shoot himself twice in this region. These wounds are not always immediately fatal. It is not at all uncommon for a person to live for several hours or even days after a wound of this kind, and occasionally they will even recover. One should always look with great suspicion on wounds of entrance on other parts of the heed, because they are much more likely to be due to murder. The next most common type of gunshot wound of the head is caused by placing the muzzle of the gun directly in the mouth. If the lips have been closed over the gun, there will usually be excessive tearing of the cheeks. If the bullet has passed through the back part of the brain and skull, it is likely to be fatal much more rapidly than where the front part of the brain has been penetrated. It is amazing how frequently bullet wounds of the head go unrecognized. The hair may be long and matted and if a careful examination is not made, a bullet wound may be overlooked. There is the case of a dying man who had been shot two days before in the left shoulder with a .22 caliber rifle. This man was in a hospital and had been there since the time of the shooting. From the wound which he had received, it was hard to understand why he should be dying in such a manner. Another injury was suspected, and a careful examination of the scalp revealed that he had also been shot behind the right ear. For two days that wound had been unrecognized and unknown. The mere fact that the man had been shot twice instead of once, as had been published in the papers, led to the capture of the murderer a few days later. So the general rule is: If things don't look quite right about a gunshot death, be sure that a bullet wound in the head has not been overlooked. Probably the next most common site where a suicide tries to shoot himself is through the heart. However, when a revolver or pistol is held in the natural manner, it is difficult for a person to shoot himself through the heart. The bullet often ricochets and glances off the breast bone or ribs. In such a case, it does not penetrate the chest at all, but follows around under the skin and comes out in back. Others often miss the heart entirely and penetrate a lung or the upper abdomen. Of the attempts at suicide in this manner, probably one half are unsuccessful. Rifles and shotguns are too long to be well adapted to suicidal purposes; however, they are so used. Nearly always a stick or a string tied to the trigger, which goes around the trigger guard, is used to discharge the weapon. In these cases, the muzzle of the gun is nearly always in direct contact with the body, and the device used for firing the piece makes suicide obvious. Occasionally, some other method may be used to discharge a firearm such as pushing the trigger with a toe. Some rifles, principally .22 caliber, have a barrel short enough to allow it to be fired by hand. However, it is almost impossible for a person to shoot himself in such a manner except in the head. A peculiarity about suicidal gunshot wounds is the reluctance on the part of suicides to shoot themselves through clothing. Particularly when a shotgun has been employed, it is common to find that the clothing has been loosened to permit the muzzle to be placed against the bare skin. Another point, previously mentioned, is the finding of a gun in the dead person's hand. One should not be in a hurry to snatch this gun away, but should examine carefully to see if it is grasped tightly by the dead hand. If it is, one can be certain that it was there at the time of death. It is impossible to place a gun in the hands of a dead man so that it will be grasped tightly after death. Double-barreled shotguns which are in faulty condition will occasionally discharge both barrels when only one trigger is pulled. This fact has been used to explain two widely separated shotgun wounds in a body in an endeavor to establish the cause of death as accidental or suicidal. This explanation is erroneous because if both barrels discharge when only one trigger is pulled, the two explosions are practically simultaneous and the wounds produced are side by side. Hesitation Shots An investigating officer is sometimes confused at finding a body which is apparently a suicide from a bullet wound, where only one bullet has entered the body. When he examines the room he finds evidences of several shots having been fired and an examination of the gun may show it was discharged several times. He may draw the erroneous conclusion that there has been a gun fight and that the man was murdered. It has been pointed out that these are usually suicides and these extra shots have been called hesitation shots. The victim, when he points the gun at his head, subconsciously pulls away from it at the moment of discharge, with the result that the bullet misses him completely. This may be repeated two or three times before he finally turns the gun directly upon himself and fires. Evidence of hesitation is found in some other forms of suicide such as the marks or hesitation strokes found on the neck of a person who has cut his throat. Split Bullets When a lead bullet is fired into the skull at an angle, it will sometimes fracture the skull bone in such a way that a sharp edge of bone is presented to the bullet. As a result, the bullet is cut in two lengthwise - one half entering the skull and the other half glancing off. These are nearly all suicidal wounds and are generally produced by the gun being held at an upward angle to the head. It is not likely to happen if jacketed ammunition is used. Unexplained Bullet in the Body Occasionally police officers are confused about finding more bullets in a body than there are bullet wounds of entrance. A case was once brought where a body which had two bullet holes was autopsied. During the examination three bullets were found in the body, and the question arose as to where the extra bullet came from. The explanation is that often firearms used for suicides or murders have laid unused for several years. They have been loaded all this time but have never been fired. The barrel of the gun is rusty and very dirty, and likewise, the ammunition has seriously deteriorated. Consequently, when the weapon is first fired, the bullet fails to emerge from the barrel. When the trigger is pulled again, the second bullet may go off with considerably more force, carrying the lodged bullet with it and both bullets enter the body through the same bullet hole. The gun may be fired a third time and the bullet emerges in the normal manner, making a second wound of entrance in the body. Finding such a set of circumstances is simply an indication that the weapon used had not been fired for a long time and that the ammunition was defective. Noise Produced by Discharge of Firearm The amount of noise produced by the firing of a gun depends upon many factors such as the type of powder, the size of the powder load, the length of the barrel, and the velocity of the bullet. A fact that is commonly overlooked however, is that when a firearm is discharged with the muzzle pressed tightly against the skin, little or no noise front the blast may be produced. Instances are known where a person shot himself in his home and members of his family in the adjoining room with the door open did not hear the report of the gun. The reason for this is that if the muzzle is pressed firmly enough an effective seal is produced between the muzzle and the skin so that the entire blast of the discharge is expended within the body tissues. The Dermal Nitrate Test The dermal nitrate test is a procedure for determining whether or not a person has fired a revolver or pistol recently. Following sporadic experimentation in Europe, Doctor Gonzalo Iturrioz of Cuba, in 1914 first used paraffin for the purpose of collecting residues from discharged firearms. Other Cuban scientists have also contributed much to the development of the test. In 1931, T. Gonzalez of Mexico City improved the technique of applying the paraffin and first demonstrated the test in the United States in 1933. Later Israel Castellanos, Director of the Cuban National Bureau of Identification at Havana, and R. Pasencia added further refinements to the technique. At the instant of discharge, there is a certain amount of escape of gases and burning powder around the breech of the weapon. These particles of unburned powder strike the hand that is holding the weapon and become implanted into the skin. This leakage of powder and gases is more apt to occur when the gun fired was an old weapon of cheap manufacture. In a new, well-made firearm, the breech mechanism is better fitted. Consequently, the discharge of these substances is greatly lessened or entirely absent. The test is performed by making a paraffin cast of the back of the person's hand. If particles of unburned powder are present, the paraffin penetrates the minute crevices of the skin and when the cast is peeled off, some of them will be extracted. A reagent which will determine the presence of nitrate particles is then applied in the laboratory and, if found, the technician can determine whether they were due to powder granules. If there is a question as to whether the deceased may have fired the gun himself, the hands should be protected until such a time as the laboratory technician can make the cast and run this test. The hands are best protected by covering each with a paper bag and tying the opening around the wrist. In this way they can be safeguarded as long as necessary. Other substances such as fertilizer or cigarette ashes may give a bluish reaction to the reagent which is interpreted erroneously as a positive test; therefore it is unwise and hazardous for anyone but a laboratory expert to attempt the procedure. If a person is found who is suspected of having fired the bullets, the test should be applied even though a day or two has elapsed and he has had an opportunity to wash his hands between times. In some instances I have found the test positive three days after the shots had been fired even though the hands had been washed many times in the interim. Negative findings do not rule out the possibility that a certain individual may have fired the shots, but positive findings may add greatly to the weight of evidence against him. Several articles have been written in recent years discrediting the dermal nitrate test and even suggesting that it be abolished. It is my belief that in most of these instances the technician has not been trained properly in conducting the test, as originally demonstrated by Gonzalez, and in interpretating discolorations produced by the reagent when applied to the paraffin cast. In investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, the Warren Commission was informed that the dermal nitrate test had no value. In view of the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald had fired both a rifle and revolver several times shortly before his arrest, it is very possible and even probable that a dermal nitrate test, properly conducted, would have revealed very valuable information. Several forensic scientists have used the test with satisfaction since observing the first demonstration by Gonzalez in 1933. Examination of Paraffin Cast by Neutron Activation Analysis If reasonably available, neutron activation analysis of the paraffin cast of the hand will probably give more accurate information than that obtained by subjecting the cast to a chemical test for nitrates. It is a very complicated technique, and we will not go into its details. Suffice it to say that it is a very accurate technique and can detect the gunpowder traces on hands much more authentically than can the previously mentioned dermal nitrate test. There are certain disadvantages, however, in that there are only a few laboratories in North America that have the equipment and personnel to carry out this test and, in addition, it is expensive. If the time required in transporting the cast and conducting the test is no factor and the case important enough to justify any expense, this method of procedure should be seriously considered. Captions to figures: This article has (2510) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College Ne

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-109 For AUGUST 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-109 FALL FROM HEIGHT: SUICIDAL OR HOMICIDAL? ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal This time we will talk something about deaths occurring from fall from heights. Whenever a person’s dead body is found in a mangled state, near a high rise building, it is almost apparent that the person has died from a fall from height. It is undoubtedly a common mode of suicide in our country as well as in several other countries. Recently we have had a few cases of celebrities dying in this fashion, and the subject of fall from height came into the forefront. Whenever a person dies from a fall from height, three possibilities arise at once. Either the death can be suicidal, or accidental or homicidal. In a suicidal case, the person is depressed because of some reason and wants to kill himself. Although hanging is one of the most common modes of suicide in our country, many people chose to commit suicide by jumping from a high rise building. Many have committed suicide even by jumping from the Qutb Minar! I distinctly remember a case occurring somewhere in 1979, when a young lady jumped from the first floor of Qutb Minar and committed suicide. Quite amazingly she survived for three days! The second scenario is of accident. This also is fairly common in our country. Young children often climb up the roofs in order to fly kites, and when the game (of cutting each others’ kites) is very keen, they often forget to confine themselves within the roof. These roofs are often without boundary walls or fences. Flying kites often involves moving forwards and backwards. In one of such backward movements, a child may inadvertently fall down the building. The third – and most confusing case – is that of homicide. In this case, two apparently friendly people get to the top of roof, apparently to have some fun, and then one of them tips the other over the roof. This appears to be one of the safest modes of killings, but it is not. Some years back, in a Hindi movie, a popular film star tips his girl friend over the top of a building, killing her in the process. And then he surreptitiously escapes. The idea of tipping a nagging girl friend over the top of a roof was rather new, and seemed to impress the youngsters. Certainly it appears so, at least if the success of that movie is any guide to it! Whenever the body of a person who has fallen from height is brought to us, one of the first questions that the police asks is whether the fall is suicidal, accidental or homicidal. We will return to this question later (since it is the most tricky question, and requires some detailed discussion), and let us see what other questions are asked. One question that is asked often is the height from which the person has fallen. You may think that this is rather a silly question. If a person’s mangled body is found lying beside a building, having a height of, say, 40 meters, certainly he must have fallen from a height of 40 meters. That appears quite logical. But this is not so. A high rise building has many floors and the person might have fallen from any floor. Let us imagine that there are 20 floors in a building and a body is found near it. Has he fallen from the 20th floor, or has he fallen from 19th? Or from 12th or from 5th? This is a very important question. Because if we can tell the police with surety that the person fell from, say, 14th floor, much of their work will be simplified. They will question all the occupants of the 14th floor in some more detail. If it is a homicidal death, certainly one of the occupants of the 14th floor could be responsible. Many of you might think that there could be a relationship between the extent of injuries and the height from which the person has fallen. And perhaps from this, we could work out the height from which a person fell. It is quite logical to assume, for example, that if, say, one bone is broken from a fall from a 5 meters, then two bones might be broken from a fall from a height of 10 meters. This is a kind of linear relationship. An example of a linear relationship could be something like this: Number of long bones broken = Meters from which a person fell I want to stress that this formula by no means is correct. But this only shows that if such a linear relationship had existed (between the height of fall and the number of bones broken), then the life of forensic pathologists would have been far more simpler. One had simply to count the number of bones broken. If for example, the autopsy surgeon found that eleven bones were fractured, he could tell the police that the person very likely fell from eleven meters and the police would straightaway narrow its search to occupants of that particular floor. There could be a more complex relationship too. For instance one could have a formula something like this. Meters from which a person fell = (number of bones broken)2 + 1.5 This is certainly a more complex formula, but forensic pathologists would have been happy even with such a formula, had it existed. If we assume this formula to be correct, then if the number of bones broken were, say, 4, the height of fall would be 17.5 meters. One has simply to take the square of 4 (which is 16), and add 1.5 to it. But alas, none of this is even remotely correct. There is absolutely no relationship between the extent of injuries and the height of fall. How true is this statement can be judged from the fact, that if two persons fell together from the same building, and if one suffered a fracture of, say, 12 bones, and the other of 18 bones, you can’t be sure that the latter fell from a greater height. It is quite possible that the person with a fracture of 12 bones fell from a greater height than the person with a fracture of 18 bones. It depends on several factors, not the least important of which is the weight of the falling person himself. So much so about the height of fall. There is absolutely no way you can tell the height a person fell from. Now how can you say at all that a person fell from height in the first place? It is quite possible for a person to first kill his enemy by, say, lathi , and then keep his body near a high rise building, so that everybody would imagine he committed suicide by falling from height. Can an autopsy surgeon answer this question faultlessly? Fortunately this is possible. There are certain special kinds of injuries that are seen exclusively – or almost exclusively – in falls from height only. One of these is the ring fracture of the skull. Look at the following figure: (Editor, please reproduce figure 4.jpg here) You will find a big gaping hole in this piece of bone and a rather wavy line surrounding this big gaping hole. This big gaping hole is a natural hole in a certain portion of the skull, known as the base of the skull. Through this hole, our spinal cord comes out. This hole is called foramen magnum in medical parlance. When somebody falls from a height on his feet, or may be on his buttocks, his vertebral column is pushed hard against the base of the skull, and this causes this kind of fracture. You can see that this fracture is encircling the foramen magnum almost like a ring. That is why this is called the ring fracture. This is almost typical of a fall from height. The mechanism of this fracture has been likened to tightening a hammer handle by banging the opposite end of the handle on the floor. The only other incidence where this type of fracture has been described is a forceful blow on the chin in motor vehicle accidents. It is believed that in these cases the fracture occurs from forces transmitted into the back of the skull by way of mandibular joints (the hinges on which our jaws move). (Editor please reproduce figures 5.jpg and 6.jpg here) Other types of fractures in the skull can also be seen in fall from height, but they are not very typical of a fall from height. Another very typical injury is the breakage of leg bones. These are sometimes broken very badly. The fractured pieces even jut out of the skin. (Editor, please reproduce figure 3.jpg here. In the accompanying figure you can see a case of such injuries. Note that the underside of both the feet is badly damaged, and at least in one foot, the broken bones are projecting out. This is a very typical appearance seen in falls from height. Another typical finding in falls from height is the separation of heart from its moorings. The heart gets detached and is often found lying separately in the chest cavity. In some cases, the heart has been found even in the abdominal cavity! Thus to recapitulate it all, the triad of (i) ring fractures of the skull (ii) fractures of the bones of the lower legs and (iii) separation of heart from its moorings, is a very very sure indication that the person has fallen from a height. If a person killed his enemy by, say, lathi , and placed his body beside a high rise building, he may fool the police, but not the autopsy surgeon. He would at once know that the person has not fallen from height. Instead he was done to death by some other means, and then put there. Now the last and probably the most important question. How do we find out whether the fall was suicidal, homicidal or accidental in nature. I wish there were a foolproof method of finding this out. But there is none. However recently there have been some remarkable studies in some other countries on this issue, one of the most important occurring in Taiwan. In this study the researchers (two scientists named Shaw and Hsu) studied the standing jumps of a swimmer and the running jump of a runner. To do this, they studied movie reels of athletes. From this study they came to the conclusion that the initial velocity of a swimmer at the time of jump is about 2.10 meters per second. In the case of runners this velocity is 9.15 meters per second. Then there is the question of the initial angle at which the jumper dives. (Editor: please reproduce figures 1.jpg and 2.jpg here) From all these studies, the authors have concluded that if the initial velocity of the jumper comes out to be between 2.10 and 9.15 meters per second, then the jump is suicidal, otherwise it is homicidal. The million dollar question is how to find out the initial velocity of the jumper. They have done this by calculating the horizontal distance of the body from the building and the height of the building. If, for example the body is lying 10 meters away from the base of the building, it means that the body traveled 10 meters forward during the fall. If the height of building is, say, 40 meters, and the victim’s effects, say, chappals are found at the top floor, the height of fall would be taken as 40 meters. Now the authors come up with a very complex formula to determine the velocity of the jumper. I am giving this formula here not to intimidate you, but for the more mathematical minded readers. It goes something like this: V0=(G.X2/(2(X.sinθ + H.cosθ).cosθ))1/2 Here V0 is the initial velocity of the jumper (which we want to calculate), G is the acceleration due to gravity (readers well versed in physics would be able to understand this, but those who have not studies physics may ignore this), X is the horizontal distance of the body from the base of the building, H is the height from which the victim fell and θ is the initial angle (with respect to the horizontal), at which the jumper jumped. Readers may want to refer to figure 1.jpg in case there is any doubt. So basically the task of the forensic pathologist is reduced to finding out the distance of the body from the building and the height of the building. All these figures are put in the formula. Only θ remains unknown. For this, the authors suggest putting various figures such as 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 degrees jumping angles. And they calculate the speed at all these jumping angles. In one actual case that they describe, a 31 year old African American male was found dead, about 10 meters away from the base of a building. The height of the building was 40 meters. The previous night he had had a tiff with some of his friends, so there was a suspicion that one of his friends might have tipped him over the building. The authors used the above formula to calculate his initial velocity. X was taken as 10 meters, H as 40 meters. Since θ was not known, the researchers (Shaw and Hsu) took all the possible angles (i.e. 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 degrees). At all these angles, the initial velocity comes to 3.50, 3.48, 3.57, 3.78, 4.15, 4.78 and 5.85 meters per second respectively. The authors conclude that since all these velocities are more than 2.70 meters per second (the initial velocity of jump in a swimmer), this must be a suicidal jump . The researchers believe that a two-hand push of a normal individual to other individuals of about 70 kg in weight, can generate an initial velocity of upto only 0.4 meters per second, and no more . To me, this appears to be the crux of the whole research. So if a person’s initial velocity comes between 2.70 and 9.15 meters per second, it is almost certain that he committed suicide. The researchers also contend, that if the velocity is on the higher side, then it means that the person came running from behind. This may even indicate his greater resolve to commit suicide. Thus quite interestingly the calculation of the initial velocity not only tells the manner of death, but in suicidal cases, even the amount of resolve the person had for committing suicide. What if the initial velocity turns out to be greater than 9.15 meters per second. The researchers suggest that these velocities should be carefully evaluated. Wind factor may have to be taken into account. Other factors to consider are an inaccurate jumping point, a faulty impact point or launching machine assistance etc. If the initial velocity comes to less than 2.70 meters per second, is it a sure indication that the person was pushed with a homicidal intention. The answer is NO. We can not differentiate that . A person might just sit on a window sill and give himself the slightest push. The important point that comes out of the research is that if the initial velocity turns out to be greater than 2.70 meters/second, it is almost certain that the fall is NOT HOMICIDAL. To summarize once again. A body if found fallen near a high rise building. The pathologist visits the scene of crime. He notes the horizontal distance of the body from the wall, and also the height of the building (or the relevant point from where the person has fallen). This gives him two important measurements “x” (horizontal distance) and “H” (Height of fall). He then puts these measurements in the formula given above and calculates the initial velocity with which the body was pushed. And then the following table is useful. Initial velocity <2.70 meters/second 2.70-9.15 meters/second >9.15 meters/second Manner of death Could be homicide, suicide or accident. Very difficult to differentiate Most probably suicide. Homicide and accident almost impossible Wind factor may have to be taken into account. Other factors may give this result. But the probability of suicide is probably very high. Not very helpful? Well, till somebody comes up with some better research, we will have to make do with this one. Captions to figures: 1.jpg: Biomechanical basis of falling from heights: Falling from (Y) height and horizontal distance of movement away from the jumping point should be considered through the investigation. t=time of falling; V0=initial velocity; Vx=Horizontal velocity; Vy=Vertical velocity 2.jpg: Patterns of falling: running jump and standing jump 3.jpg: Middle aged window washer fell on his feet from the tenth floor of an office building. The tibiae (bones of lower legs) were driven through the feet into the soles of the shoes. A ring fracture of the base of the skull was likewise present. 4.jpg: Ring fracture of the base of skull 5.jpg: Transverse, so-called hinge fracture of the base of the skull 6.jpg: Longitudinal fracture of the base of skull dividing it into two halves. This article has (2510) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-108 For JULY 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-108 WHAT IS BRAIN FINGERPRINTING? ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal We strive to give latest information to our readers through this column. This time I will talk about a revolutionary new technique in forensic science – Brain Fingerprinting. You must have heard about ordinary fingerprinting, DNA fingerprinting, even footprints, handprints, palate prints and lip prints, but what in the world is brain fingerprinting? Let me explain. On 11 September 2001, we had the most audacious act of terrorism when 19 people hijacked four different airplanes and rammed them into the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. Following this the US immigration and customs department increased their levels of checking at the airports. Recently I was in the United States, and I found that at all airports we had to face long delays because of this checking. At some places, we were even asked to take off our shoes! All this causes unnecessary problem to the innocent people, and at the same time the airline staff gets unnecessarily exhausted. This may actually result in actual criminals passing through them with little difficulty. But what if the police personnel could directly “peep” into the brains of the people. A person who comes to the airport with an intention to hijack a plane has this “information” in his brain. He is only able hide it very efficiently. But suppose there were a way whereby one could straightaway “read” the thoughts of the people. That would make the task of all police officers very easy. Innocent customers would be allowed to pass easily, without even frisking, while potential hijackers would at once be caught. If one could read the minds of criminals, even police interrogation would become very easy, and the use of third degree methods would disappear almost overnight. But how to read the thoughts of a person? This is what Brain fingerprint does. This is at present an experimental technique only. But first a little bit about its origin. THE INVENTOR The inventor of this technique is Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell. He has invented, developed, proven, and patented the technique of Farwell Brain Fingerprinting. This is a new computer-based technology to identify the perpetrator of a crime accurately and scientifically by measuring brain-wave responses to crime-relevant words or pictures presented on a computer screen. Farwell Brain Fingerprinting has proven 100% accurate in over 120 tests, including tests on FBI agents, tests for a US intelligence agency and for the US Navy, and tests on real-life situations including actual crimes. Readers may want to know how brain-wave responses are measured. These are measured by a technique now routinely employed in most hospitals – EEG. Also known as Electroencephalogram, this technique records small electrical currents from the brain, just as ECG or Electrocardiogram does from the heart. Brain Fingerprinting is based on the principle that the brain is central to all human acts. In a criminal act, there may or may not be many kinds of peripheral evidence, but the brain is always there, planning, executing, and recording the crime. The fundamental difference between a perpetrator and a falsely accused, innocent person is that the perpetrator, having committed the crime, has the details of the crime stored in his brain, and the innocent suspect does not. This is what Farwell Brain Fingerprinting detects scientifically. Farwell Brain Fingerprinting matches evidence from a crime scene with evidence stored in the brain of the perpetrator, similarly to the way conventional fingerprinting matches fingerprints at the crime scene with the fingers of the perpetrator, and DNA fingerprinting matches biological samples from the crime scene with the DNA in the body of the perpetrator. How the technology works Readers may want to know how this technique works actually. Well, it as follows. Words or pictures relevant to a crime are flashed on a computer screen, along with other, irrelevant words or pictures. Electrical brain responses are measured non-invasively through a patented headband equipped with sensors. Dr. Farwell has discovered that a specific brain-wave response called a MERMER (Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Response) is elicited when the brain processes noteworthy information it recognizes. Thus, when details of the crime that only the perpetrator would know are presented, a MERMER is emitted by the brain of a perpetrator, but not by the brain of an innocent suspect. In Farwell Brain Fingerprinting, a computer analyzes the brain response to detect the MERMER, and thus determines scientifically whether or not the specific crime-relevant information is stored in the brain of the suspect. How does the technology compare with other similar lie detecting technologies? Conventional fingerprinting and DNA Fingerprinting match physical evidence from a crime scene with evidence on the person of the perpetrator. Similarly, Brain Fingerprinting matches informational evidence from the crime scene with evidence stored in the brain. It has been estimated that conventional fingerprints and DNA are available in only 1% of crimes. On the other hand, the brain and the evidence recorded in it are always there. We tend to overlook this, but the fact is that in addition to the physical and circumstantial evidence that can be obtained from the crime scene and elsewhere, there is one ADDITIONAL place where an extensive record of the crime is stored: IN THE BRAIN OF THE PERPETRATOR. Brain Fingerprinting attempts to tap this new source! Now that this record can be tapped, criminal investigation, corporate security, and counterintelligence will be revolutionized. Farwell Brain Fingerprinting allows evidence to be analyzed directly from the human brain, in an accurate, objective, non-stressful, non-invasive, and scientific manner. This breakthrough promises to revolutionize criminal investigations. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that this new science and technology will become admissible as evidence in court. On the face of it the technique appears very similar to conventionall lie detection techniques conducted on a polygraphy. But the inventor of this technique claims that this has nothing to do with lie detection. Rather, it is a scientific way to determine if someone has committed a specific crime. One difference that does appear very prominent is that in Brain fingerprinting, no questions are asked and no answers are given. In conventional lie detection however, questions ARE asked and the accused’s responses to those questions are seen. As with DNA and fingerprints, the results are the same whether the person has lied or told the truth at any time. An illustration of the powers of brain fingerprinting On April 12, 1994, a young police officer walked into the police headquarters of a major metropolitan area. He had been accused on multiple counts of a felony drug charge. The evidence against him was substantial. His accuser, who had already confessed his own involvement, had identified the officer by name and description, and picked the officer's photograph out of a pictorial lineup. The accuser provided extensive details of meeting times and places, and exchanges of drugs and money. There was extensive corroborating evidence that the crimes had taken place. The officer denied any criminal activity. He admitted telephoning the accuser once (for a legitimate reason), but denied meeting him and denied all of the alleged drug-related transactions. The officer admitted having possessed the drug in question at certain times, but only under entirely legal and legitimate circumstances. Both men had passed polygraph tests, maintaining fundamentally contradictory accounts. The officer met Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell, Chief Scientist and President of Human Brain Research Laboratory, in a small room at the police headquarters. Earlier, Dr. Farwell had already completed the process of Farwell Brain Fingerprinting Collection of Crime-Scene Evidence in conjunction with investigators. Dr. Farwell explained and initiated the process of Farwell Brain Fingerprinting Brain Evidence Collection using electroencephalographic (EEG) sensors attached to a headband that was placed on the officer's head and connected to the Farwell Brain Fingerprinting System. Then, seated in front of a computer screen, the officer began to observe words and phrases (evidence) which were flashed on one of the video monitors. Some of evidence was relevant to the crimes in question -- meeting places, sums of money, and vehicles and buildings in which drug transactions had allegedly taken place. On another video monitor, Dr. Farwell observed multicolored plots of the officer's brain responses to each of the items flashed on the monitor, along with matrices of numbers and other data. After an hour or more, the Farwell Brain Fingerprinting Brain Evidence Collection was completed and Dr. Farwell entered the computer commands to implement the Farwell Brain Fingerprinting Computer Evidence Analysis. In less than a minute, a plot of the officer's brain responses appeared on the screen, along with the Farwell Brain Fingerprinting Scientific Result: "Information Absent". Farwell Brain Fingerprinting Scientific Result of Information Absent means that the suspect’s brain did not contain a record of the evidence taken from the crime scene. Despite the testimony of his accuser and the extensive circumstantial evidence, Farwell Brain Fingerprinting proved that no crime-relevant evidence was stored in this officer's brain -- he did not know the details about the crime; he did not recognize the evidence that was flashed on the video monitor -- and therefore he could not possibly have committed the crime. The investigation was renewed, and there is now substantial, independent evidence that the officer was indeed innocent, and that his accuser and another individual framed the officer in order to deflect suspicion from another former police officer who had carried out the crimes of which the officer was accused. Farwell Brain Fingerprinting had cleared an innocent man. Captions to figures: farwell.jpg: The inventor of Brain Fingerprinting, Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell pic001.jpg till pic003.jpg: People Undergoing Brain Fingerprinting This article has (1623) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-106 For MAY 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-106 HANGING DOGS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HANGING ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal This time I am going to tell you about an extremely interesting experiment which has recently been done in Japan, by two scientists, Akiko Sawaguchi and Toshiko Sawaguchi. They are a mother and daughter team, and both are involved in forensic work. It is very rare that mother and daughter have both worked as forensic pathologists. In my knowledge there is only one previous example in which a parent and a child worked both as forensic pathologists. And even that example is not of a mother and a daughter; that is of a father and a son. This father and son team was that of John Glaister I (also known as John Glaister Senior) (1856-1932) and John Glaister II (also known as John Glaister Junior) (May 1892 – 4 October 1971). They were both Regius Professors of Forensic Medicine at the University of Glasgow. John Glaister Senior was the 4th Regius Professor from 1898 till 1931. And after him, his son, John Glaister Junior became professor and remained professor till 1962. Together, the father and son team occupied the forensic medicine chair at the University of Glasgow for an incredible 65 years! And both were very competent forensic experts, both being involved in world famous cases of detection. Coming to the work of Sawaguchis. They have done some interesting work in the field of asphyxia. But let us first understand, what asphyxia is. Putting plainly and succinctly, it is a condition which results, when the supply of air is cut off from the lungs. It can happen in a number of ways. One of the most familiar is hanging. When one hangs by the neck, he essentially cuts off the supply of air from his lungs, by means of the ligature, which he ties round his neck. This ligature is tightened by the weight of his body, thus compressing the windpipe completely. Other forms of asphyxia are drowning, gagging, choking etc. Gagging is a situation when somebody pushes a cloth down the throat of a victim, and choking is a condition when something – most commonly a food particle – slips in the windpipe, blocking it. Irrespective of how asphyxia is produced, one thing is common that happens in all. The blood oxygen concentration comes down drastically. This is understandable as the intake of air is completely stopped. Simultaneously there is an increase in the carbon dioxide concentration of the blood. This is also clearly explained by the fact that the blood can no more deliver the waste products in to the lungs. The readers may want to know why in the first place is the research in asphyxia needed at all? Well, consider the following situation: A newly married woman is found hanged in her bedroom. The story of her in-laws is that she has committed suicide by hanging. At the same time her parents insist that she was first killed by some other method, and then hoisted up to simulate hanging. Of course a thorough post-mortem can solve this problem very easily. But if we do some research in asphyxia, we will have one more way, in which to solve this problem. Let me illustrate with an example. We have just seen that in “true asphyxia”, the blood oxygen comes down drastically while the blood carbon dioxide increases. So can’t we estimate the blood oxygen and carbon dioxide levels to know if the lady truly hanged herself or not? Surely if she hanged herself, she would have died of asphyxia and her blood oxygen would show a decrease and blood carbon dioxide an increase. And if she died in any other manner these changes would not be there. Presto! The problem is solved. But unfortunately things are not as simple as that. After death, the blood gases tend to diffuse in and out of blood vessels very easily and this disturbs the postmortem concentration of gases very greatly. The question arises: is there some suitable blood chemical which changes appreciably only in asphyxia and not in any other manner of death? And does it maintain its levels after death too? If such a chemical – which till now has remained elusive – could be found, it would become very easy for forensic pathologists to diagnose asphyxia. This is exactly what Sawaguchis have tried to do. Let us learn something more about asphyxia. Three types of asphyxia are then defined according to the clinical course. Acute asphyxia is said to occur when the time interval between the onset of asphyxia till death ranges from a few minutes to a little over ten minutes. Typical examples are hanging, complete ligature strangulation, and complete airway closure by any other means. In subacute asphyxia the duration of survival is more than ten minutes as in incomplete airway closure or airway narrowing and delayed death from drowning. Asphyxia of a still longer duration (typically between 50 and 183 minutes) results in adaptive and compensatory responses. This is known as chronic asphyxia. All their work has to be seen in the context of these definitions. Let us now have a look at the kind of work Sawaguchis have done. They have taken rabbits and dogs and have asphyxiated them experimentally in a number of ways. Why rabbits and dogs, and not other animals? An animal had to be chosen, that could withstand the experimental conditions without anesthesia, and rabbits seemed to suit the bill very well. Dogs were chosen for a selected number of purposes only - as for the estimation of blood sugar after asphyxia - because “antibodies may be used in these animals for insulin analysis related to carbohydrate metabolism”. Six different methods were employed to asphyxiate these animals and various blood constituents studied after that. The methods were (i) Pressure on the windpipe (known technically as trachea) (ii) Asphyxiator (iii) Tracheostenotic cannula (iv) Hanging (v) Strangulation and (vi) Compression of nerves and blood vessels. In addition a control group was killed by four different methods - by cyanide, strychnine, air embolism (introducing air bubbles in blood vessels) and by blows to the neck. Of these the strychnine group gave several findings similar to those of asphyxia, as strychnine in large amounts is known to paralyze the respiratory center in the brain and this effect can be construed as equivalent to asphyxiation. In the first group the pressure on the neck was not applied directly. Instead, by an elaborate surgical procedure the trachea of the animals was exposed which was then occluded by applying pressure with a pair of haemostatic forceps. Asphyxiator is an interesting device, which mimics a closed room. For the rabbits, this was an airtight box measuring 25x40x25 cm (capacity 25 L) and made of clear resin, and for the dog it measured 30x60x30 cm (Capacity 54 L). It could be hermetically sealed by attaching highly elastic rubber pieces to the sections where the main body and its cover came in contact. The typical survival time for the animals in this box was about 2 to 2.5 hours, which mimicked chronic asphyxiating conditions in a closed room. Tracheostenotic cannula is again an extremely interesting device (and something of which I for one, heard for the first time!). It is a tube which can be inserted in the trachea. The tube can be surgically inserted in the trachea in such a way that the little nozzle juts out (please refer to accompanying figure). The tube has a small stenotic portion which is about 3.0 mm long and just 0.5 mm wide. To the nozzle can be attached a small vinyl bag (see the figure below) through which 3,400 to 5,000 ml of air could be delivered in strictly measured quantities. Things could be so arranged, that the animal could be made to breathe either through the nose - in which case, it had to overcome the resistance of the stenotic part of the cannula, although the supply of air remained unlimited - or through the vinyl bag - in which case there was no resistance, but the supply of air was limited. As can easily be seen, while the latter case simulates locking up in a room, the former corresponds more to conditions like hanging and strangulation. The typical survival period in the latter (in which the animal was made to breathe from air in the vinyl bag) was less than 60 minutes, while in the latter case it was between 50-183 minutes. In this way, the authors could produce conditions of subacute and chronic asphyxia. In addition, some animals were hanged and others strangulated. Details of strangulation are provided by Sawaguchis in their book, which they have written to describe their experiments. Two synthetic resin ropes measuring 0.5 cm in diameter were wrapped round the neck once and pulled from both ends with a traction force amounting to 2.5 to 3.5 times the body weight (the traction force is an important parameter in strangulation. In hanging, it is necessarily equal to 1). Then there is a last group of animals in which the death was caused by compression of major blood vessels and the nerves of the neck. This was also achieved by first exposing these structures by an elaborate surgical procedure and then directly clamping them. What about the results? Well, they are as interesting as can be. The authors have studied an amazing array of biochemical markers including serum proteins, glycoproteins, serum enzymes and isozymes, blood sugar, hormone levels, and blood lipids. Other things studied are the dynamics of body fluid and acid-base equilibrium, serum electrolytes, blood gases, CSF gases and acid-base equilibrium and partial pressures of the gases contained in the brain, liver and kidney tissues. The details of results are not relevant for the authors. But what is interesting that the authors indeed found that asphyxia changes the levels of certain chemicals in our blood. For instance, the authors found that the serum total protein level rises immediately after lethal asphyxia which they ascribe to “condensation of the blood during the asphyxial process”. Although the total protein rises, there is a reduction in the alpha-1 and gamma globulin fractions and increases in the albumin fraction and alpha-2 and beta globulin fractions. The authors ascribe the increase in the albumin fraction to the “escape of blood components as a consequence of acidosis .. and damage to the vascular wall”. Similarly they found an increase in calcium in asphyxial deaths, especially those due to strangulation, and this they ascribe to the pressure on the parathyroid gland! The readers need not worry about the technical language. But what should interest the readers is that now there could be a way by which perhaps forensic experts could just tell the cause of death by asking for blood examination. So are we moving towards an era, where in doubtful cases, a pathologist could just order a few routine blood tests (of the corpse) and write out the cause of death? Well, we will have to wait and see, but what I definitely can say, that about a century ago, one would have refuted this assertion vehemently in relation to clinical diagnosis. At that time the quartet of inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation was the holy grail of correct diagnosis, but how many clinicians routinely employ it today. They are just happy to order blood tests, X-rays and other investigations at the drop of a hat without an iota of doubt that they will miss out much. Who knows forensic pathology may reflect this state of affairs a century hence. Captions to figures: 001.jpg: Organs of the neck and test sites. 1. Site where the windpipe is obstructed 2. Site where a canula or probe is installed for insertion into the major artery of the neck - the carotid artery 002.jpg: Tracheostenotic Canula (designed by the Japanese worker Akiko Sawaguchi and Toshiko Sawaguchi) 003.jpg: Asphyxia experiment using a vinyl bag. 1. Tracheal canula attached here 2. Commercially available small vinyl bag 3. Oxygen monitor attached here 004.jpg: This is how the instruments are fixed in the dog. This article has (2038) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-107 For JUNE 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-107 HANGING AS A FINE ART ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal This time I am going to tell you about a very unusual man – a man who raised the art of execution to that of a fine art. We all know that execution in most countries is done by hanging. The condemned person is made to stand on a trap door, with a noose round his neck. Then the hangman pulls a lever and the trap door immediately opens, and the person falls below. This causes the neck of the convicted man to undergo sudden stretching. In fact a great load is applied on his neck. Before 1875 a prisoner sentenced to death was hanged by being suspended on a rope and allowed to die slowly by strangulation. This barbaric procedure was changed by William Marwood, who worked out how to break the victim’s neck, causing instant death. Execution Methods But before going on to Marwood, let us look at some other common execution methods prevalent around the world. Execution has been a common punishment throughout the world since the Middle Ages, and was inflicted for a large number of crimes including petty offenses involving property. In England, during the 18th century, death was the punishment for several hundred specific offenses. Most death sentences also involved torture, such as burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, and slow strangulation. Such severe punishment and torture began to die out in the 18th century when a democratic political philosophy and humanitarian movement grew in strength. The number of offenses punishable by death was reduced in all leading countries. Also, penalties involving torture disappeared with the idea that punishment and death should be swift and humane, whether by guillotine, hanging, the garotte, or the headman’s axe. A trend also began to develop in which life imprisonment was a suitable alternative punishment to death. Burning at the Stake Burning at the stake was a popular death sentence and means of torture, used mostly for heretics, witches, and suspicious women. Burning dates back to the Christian era, where, in 643, an edict declared it illegal to burn witches. However, the increased persecution of witches throughout the centuries resulted in millions of women being burned at the stake. The first major witch-hunt occurred in Switzerland in 1427. Throughout the 1500 and 1600’s, witch trials became common throughout Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and Spain during the Inquisition. Soon after, witch trials began to decline in parts of Europe, and in England the death penalty for witches was abolished. The last legal execution by burning at the stake came with the end of the Spanish Inquisition in 1834. The Wheel The wheel as a method of torture and execution could be used in a number of ways. A person could be attached to the outer rim of the wheel and then rolled over sharp spikes, or down a hill, to their death. Also, the wheel could be laid on its side, like a turntable, with the person tied to it. The wheel would turn, and people would take turns beating the victim with iron bars, breaking bones and eventually causing death. This method was used throughout Europe, especially during the Middle Ages. Guillotine The guillotine became a popular form of execution in France in 1789, when Dr. Joseph Guillotin proposed that all criminals be executed by the same method and that torture should be kept to a minimum. Decapitation was thought to be the least painful and most humane method of execution at the time. Guillotin suggested that a decapitation machine be built, which was subsequently named after him. The machine was first tested on sheep and calves, and then on human corpses. Finally, after many improvements and trials, the blade was perfected, and the first execution by guillotine took place in 1792. It was widely used during the French Revolution, where many of the executions were held publicly outside the prison of Versailles. The last public execution by guillotine was held in France, in June 1939. The last official use came in 1977 in France, and the device has not officially been used since. Hanging and the Garotte Hanging was a popular way of both executing and torturing a person, with many devices available to aid in the procedure. The prisoner could simply be hanged with a noose, fracturing the neck. However, if torture was to be inflicted, many methods were available. Often, a person would be drawn and quartered before being hanged. For extremely serious crimes such as high treason, hanging alone was not enough. Therefore, a prisoner would be carved into pieces while still alive before being hanged. The Garotte was also a popular method of torture, and similar to hanging. A mechanical device such as a rack or a gag would be tightened around the person’s neck, causing slow strangulation, stretching, and obstruction of blood vessels. A device could also be placed in a prisoner’s mouth and kept in place by tying and locking a chain around his or her neck. Headman’s Axe This form of execution was quite popular in Germany and England during the 16th and 17th centuries, where decapitation was thought to be the most humane form of capital punishment. An executioner, usually hooded, would chop off the person’s head with an axe or sword. The last beheading took place in 1747, and the axe used is on display at the Tower of London. Today, with a greater interest in humanitarianism, capital punishment has become less gruesome than the beheadings and torture that were commonplace centuries before. Lethal injection, electrocution, and lethal gas have become the preferred methods of execution in the United States, mostly because these methods appear to be less offensive to the public, and more humane for the prisoner. William Marwood – The Hangman (of Horncastle Lincolnshire 1820 – 1883) Coming back to the art of hanging, which Marwood developed into a fine art. He was a Lincolnshire cobbler, with premises at 6 Church Street, Horncastle. He was the official hangman from 1874 till 1883. He had never hanged anyone or even assisted at an execution but at the age of 54 persuaded the authorities at Lincoln prison to let him carry out the hanging of William Frederick Harry (or Horry) on 1st April 1872 which went off without a hitch and impressed the governor of that prison. Thereafter he repeatedly applied for permission to act as hangman, and was finally given his first commission in 1875, when on 21 December he hanged Henry Wainwright in Lincoln gaol. He was duly appointed as official hangman by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex and received a retainer of £20.00 per annum plus £10.00 for each execution but got no actual salary. He also was able to keep the condemned persons clothes and received traveling expenses. The rail system was so advanced by this time that he could travel anywhere in the Country with ease thus making it possible for him to carry out most of the executions within England and in Ireland. Marwood did not hide this part-time profession. He used to go to fairs and show off his ropes for sixpence a time. He put up a big sign above his shop, and he charged high prices for his bootlaces; people came from miles around and bought them because they were the hangman’s laces. He became famous, and was frequently mentioned in music-hall songs and jokes, such as ‘If pa killed ma, who’d kill pa?’ Answer: ‘Marwood.’ Before Marwood, death was slow and painful: the pressure of the rope crushed the windpipe, cutting off the supply of air to the lungs. A typical victim lost consciousness after three or four agonizing minutes, and died after about ten. Marwood’s idea was to use a long rope and a trap-door high up on a scaffold, so that when the trap was opened, the victim fell 7 or 8 feet before reaching the end of the rope. Marwood tied the rope snugly tight, with the knot at the point of the jaw under the victim’s left ear. This ensured that when the rope tautened it snapped the head back, causing a fracture dislocation of the atlanto-axial junction. The top vertebra, the ‘atlas’, sits on the second one, the ‘axis’. A peg of bone sticks up from the axis into a socket in the atlas, and allows the head to swivel. Put your fingers to the back of your neck, and you can feel the atlas turn with your head, while the axis below does not move, When the head is snapped back by the long drop, the peg breaks, the neck kinks rapidly, the spinal cord is crushed, and the resulting spinal shock causes instant loss of consciousness, even before the heart stops beating. Because it caused immediate brain death. Marwood’s long drop was more humane than the previous method: he used to say of his predecessors. “They hanged ‘em: I execute ‘em.” The long drop removed all the gruesome struggling and convulsing from the proceedings and was, undoubtedly far less cruel to the prisoner and far less trying to the governor and staff of the prison who, since the abolition of public hangings, had to witness the spectacle at close quarters. In his nine years of service he hanged 176 people before dying of "inflammation of the lungs" in 1883. Four of Marwood's notable cases were: 1. Charles Peace was a burglar and murderer whom Marwood hanged on the 25th of February 1879 at Armley Goal Leeds. Peace was the archetypal Victorian criminal who struck fear into the hearts of everyone at the time. 2. Kate Webster, an Irish servant girl who murdered her mistress with an axe was hanged on the 29th of July 1879 at Wandsworth Prison. 3. Percy Lefroy Mapleton murdered Isaac Fredrick Gold on a train on the Brighton Line so that he could steal Gold's watch and some coins. He was arrested almost immediately but managed to escape from custody before being arrested again, convicted and finally hanged on the 29th of November 1881. 4. Marwood traveled to Ireland from time to time and had the job of executing Joe Brady and four other members of The Invincibles gang for the murders in Phoenix Park Dublin of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Harry Burke the Permanent Under Secretary for Ireland. These hangings took place in 1883 at Kilmainham jail in Dublin. Today Marwood’s shop is marked by a plaque at 6 Church Lane, Horncastle, Lincolnshire. It is now part of the house next door. Captions to figures: 1. neck in hanging.jpg: Injuries produced by Judicial Hanging 2. Crippen execution.jpg: The execution of Dr. Crippen at Pentonville, 1910 (From "Written in Blood") 3. marwood.jpg: William Marwood (Public Hangman 1875-83) 4. marwood's business card.jpg: (Marwood's buisiness card) 5. 007.jpg: Joking with his executioners, Birger is shown only moments before being hanged, 1928 This article has (1447) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-105 18 February, 2002 Dear Shri Varma ji, Many thanks for your phone call yesterday. The explanation regarding payment is like this. 1. On 15 February, 2002, you sent a check for Rs. 2750, I believe it was for the booklet and article of February 2002. Payment for March 2002 article was not given. 2. On 17 December, 2001, I received a check for Rs. 1250. I believe it was like this: Payment for January 2002 article (1000)+ backlog for December 2001 article (250) However for Booklet of November 2001 also, I was paid Rs. 250 less (only Rs 1500, although the payment settled for booklet was Rs. 1750). 3. The payment for March 2002 article is Rs. 1000. 4. So the total outstanding balance was (1000+250) or Rs. 1250/= 5. Rs. 500/= check given on 20 February, 2002. 6. Outstanding balance as on 25 February, 2002 is Rs. 750/= only. So please adjust this amount also. It is a small amount, but I thought we should keep our records straight. Thanks Sincerely Anil For APRIL 2002 issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-105 MEASURING THE STING OF STAB WOUNDS ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal When stabbing cases come to trial in a criminal court, an almost inevitable question is put to the medical witness by either advocate or judge. This question is “what degree of force would be necessary to inflict this wound!” Such a question is difficult if not impossible to answer, as an assessment of the force in scientific terms of energy would be meaningless to the court. For instance I can say, that a force of 5 Newtons is enough to cause this knife to enter the abdomen, but the court may not be able to understand, what is the meaning of a Newton. And it could be rather futile to attempt to take lessons in physics in the court! Any other attempt at description could be totally subjective. Every witness had his own criteria of what constitutes various degrees of force or pressure and what may be a “heavy blow” to one witness might be “moderate force” to another. This question is usually raised in connection with the defense aspects of the trial. The readers may want to know why? And there is a very good reason. It is often assumed that a very forceful stab is associated with a greater degree of intent and similarly where accident is raised as the defense, a lesser degree of force is helpful to the legal representatives of the accused. In several stabbing homicides in which doctors have been involved as expert witnesses, the defense has been put forward that the victim fell upon the passively held knife, because of some accidental stumble or trip. This possibility becomes a matter for intense discussion in the court and once again estimates of the force needed for the penetration of the body becomes confused in subjective descriptions. Some forensic medical research has been performed which attempts to replace such subjective opinions by hard physical measurements, but these are not always helpful in court as “dynes per square centimeter,” “foot-pounds” or other physical units are usually meaningless to both advocates, judge, and jury. In an attempt to offer some more readily understandable data to clarify some of the basic factors involved, scientists have conducted ingenious experiments under controlled conditions. The object was not to attempt an exact statistical exercise, but to provide generalizations that could be placed before a court composed of lay persons. In these interesting experiments, a relatively simple device was constructed which would be attached to the handle of various test knives and which recorded the pressure applied to the handle directly in metric units (kilograms). This provided a means whereby the minimum pressure for penetration of the skin and tissues could conveniently be measured. Using this apparatus, a large number of incisions were made in cadavers which were submitted to routine medicolegal autopsy. For ethical reasons, the experimenters made the incisions at a place which could be incorporated in the routine autopsy incision, so that no unnecessary marking of the body was inflicted. The most common site for the experiment was in the midline of the upper abdomen - a common site for actual criminal stabbings - and in the lower part of the chest. A smaller number of other wounds were made upon other parts of the body when the opportunity permitted such as thighs and the lateral sides of the chest. The actual quantitative results are of little intrinsic value as it was shown by these experiments that the individual knife and circumstances cause wide variation in the actual pressure involved, but it could be said that with a very sharp knife, the amount of pressure necessary to penetrate the skin of the trunk varied between a half and three kilograms. Much more important is an appreciation of the various factors which can influence the ease of penetration, some of which have profound medicolegal significance. Sharpness of the Knife This was easily the most potent of all factors and the facility with which the knife penetrated the skin depended more upon the sharpness of the tip of the weapon than any other factor. Employing a weapon similar to that seen in many actual homicides - a wooden-handled kitchen or chefs knife with one cutting edge - penetration of the chest or abdomen could easily be performed with the pressure of one little finger, amounting to a force of only half a kilogram. This could be attained only if the tip was sharpened to the maximum possible degree. When this sharp point was even slightly blunted, the pressure required to introduce the same knife rose rapidly to three, four, or even five kilograms and if very blunt would not penetrate the skin at all with the pressure of one hand. The criterion of tip sharpness overshadowed all other factors in this investigation. Speed of Approach Most of the tests were done in circumstances which eradicated any effect of velocity and momentum - the knife was placed in contact with the skin and the pressure gradually increased until penetration occurred. However, when a more realistic reenactment of the stabbing situation was simulated with a rapid lunge at the skin surface, a dramatic alteration of the usual results was seen. With the knife traveling at several feet per second, penetration occurred so readily that no reading was recorded upon the scale of the instrument. This was attributed to the Inertia of the spring system, so that the knife did not begin to move relative to the handle of the apparatus before deep penetration was achieved. This was seen with a sharp instrument, but where the knife was changed for a less effective weapon, a progressive halting at the skin surface was experienced and the pointer of the instrument began to record more and more pressure as the bluntness increased. However, it is obvious that the velocity of the weapon has profound effects on ease of penetration. Part of the Body Stabbed This was much less important than the two factors previously mentioned. It appeared that the resistance depended more upon the underlying tissues than upon the skin itself. For instance, the spaces between the ribs could be penetrated much more easily than the upper abdomen, because the tissues were stretched tightly across the ribs and the skin did not subside before penetration, as in the upper abdomen. Similarly, the force required to penetrate the abdominal wall was reduced to at least half, when the skin was put under tension before stabbing. The skin of large muscular areas such as the thigh was also more easily penetrated due to the firm resistance beneath. The age and other physical characteristics of the victim appear to be relatively unimportant in altering the ease with which a stab wound could be inflicted. Though older people have more fibrous tissue in their subcutaneous tissues, this factor made no difference using a really sharp weapon, compared with the overall importance of sharpness and speed of approach. Shape of the Knife The configuration of the blade has an appreciable bearing upon the ease of penetration. It is the first few millimeters of the tip that is important and a blade with a narrow termination will penetrate much more easily than a rounded blade, even if the edges are very sharp in each type of weapon. It is the vital few millimeters at the tip which determine the penetrating power of the knife and an acutely-pointed “dart like” weapon can be introduced much more easily than a knife with a curved extremity. This is an obvious observation, as the efficiency of any weapon is determined by the concentration of energy into the smallest cross-section area at the point of application. Many of the weapons seen in homicidal stabbings have been the domestic-type which has a straight back and a curved front edge. It was observed that those which had been considerably worn by repeated sharpening, tended to have a triangular rather than rounded shape. Given an equal degree of sharpening, these older knives were more efficient in penetrating the skin. It must be emphasized that it is the first few millimeters that is important, for as soon as the tip of the knife has penetrated the skin, the rest of the weapon follows it with virtually no added effort. A Body Falling upon a Fixed Knife This has considerable medicolegal relevance, as in a high proportion of stabbing cases that come to trial, the defense suggest that the victim accidentally fell upon a passively-held knife, allegedly being grasped either innocently, or in a position of mere self-defense. In order to clarify this situation, experiments were conducted in which a cadaver was allowed to fall forward from an upright position onto a fixed knife. With a very sharply-pointed weapon, a cadaver of average physique was transfixed upon the knife without any difficulty. This would occur even when the body was leaning only slightly out of the vertical, quite close to the weapon, no rapid movement between the two components being present. When the knife point was initially held only 10 centimeters from the upper abdominal wall, the movement of the body forward under gravity was sufficient to drive the complete length of the blade into the cadaver, so that the body became supported by the hilt of the weapon against the skin: It must be emphasized that this occurred with a very sharply pointed weapon, ground to the best possible point by means of a carborundum stone, but was still consistent with the degree of sharpness attained by various kitchen knives actually used in homicidal situations. Intercostal spaces were penetrated with even greater ease and it is thus very obvious that a body can readily transfix itself upon a knife in this alleged situation, provided the point is very sharp. During the experimental work it became apparent that the skin was by far the most resistant tissue, apart from bone and calcified cartilage. Once the knife penetrated the skin no further force needed to be applied to cause rapid penetration of the tissues beneath the skin. During the slow isometric application of pressure to the skin, the latter would dimple and the indicator gauge would rise to ,a threshold point when there was a sudden release of pressure, the knife plunging through the underlying tissues with no additional force. When a knife was pressed with only a single finger, the passing of this threshold point caused the knife to suddenly penetrate deeply into the body, even though the operator attempted to remove the pressure as soon as the loss of resistance was felt. The stretching of the elastic skin in the depression below the knife point before penetration occurs, causes the tension of the assailant's arm muscles to act as a reservoir of the necessary energy for subsequent deep penetration. Alternatively, if the body is falling against a fixed knife, the momentum of the body supplies the energy. The resistance of solid organs like the liver or even noncalcified rib cartilage is far less than that experienced at the tough collagenous layer of the upper dermis. In medicolegal terms, this appears to make it unsafe to assume that a deeply-penetrating wound was necessarily caused by more force than a shallow wound. It is the skin resistance that appears to determine how deeply the knife penetrates, unless there is further application of pressure once the threshold resistance of the skin is overcome. Timing of Stab Wounds Sometimes, the necessity of determining whether some or all of wounds were inflicted before or after death is important. Especially in frenzied sexual assaults, some or all of the stab wounds may be postmortem in nature, following death from some other cause, such as blunt injury or strangulation. This is especially so if the well-recognized signs of a sadistic sexual attack are present, notably on the breasts and lower abdomen. Where the stab wounds have occurred at or near the time of death, the only method of deducing the possibility of ante- or postmortem infliction is the amount of hemorrhage present, either externally or into body cavities such as cavities of the lungs or in the abdomen. Though there are new techniques, including histochemistry, for determining when the wounds were indicted, these are rarely of use in the circumstances where the injuries occurred in the perimortal period. Histochemistry is a rather complicated technique in which certain enzymes and other chemicals within the wound are studied. It is seen that if the wound was made during life, certain enzymes would appear in the wound, but if the wound was made after death, these enzymes would not appear in the wound. This fact is very important in deciding whether the wound was antemortem (made during life) or postmortem (made after death). These simple experiments, based upon observation of common-sense factors, appear to have some useful relevance to common medicolegal situations. The following conclusions could be made from these interesting experiments. The sharpness of the tip of the weapon is paramount in all considerations of the amount of force needed to cause any given stab wound. The degree of sharpness obtainable can vary greatly, from a needlelike point which would enter the skin almost under the weight of the weapon alone, to a blunt knife which cannot be introduced through the skin even with maximal effort and which may cause bruising or abrasions before an actual incised wound can be made. In the discussion of the force required for any particular wound, the degree of sharpness of the particular knife must be evaluated where ever possible. In many cases this is difficult, because the state of the weapon may have been altered by subsequent handling between the wounding or homicide and the time of examination. Even the passage of time may dull the edge appreciably from the original state, even if no physical abuse has been made upon the metal. The speed of approach of the weapon at the moment of impact is also extremely important, though it is often unknown unless reliable eye witnesses are available. The velocity and momentum is critical in assessing the ease of penetration, but this is closely related to the sharpness of the knife point, in assessing the overall facility with which penetration could have occurred. The age of the person, the part of the body, and other personal factors often discussed in criminal trials, are of little consequence compared to the all-important factors of point sharpness and speed of entry. One point that might be mentioned, is that the intercostal spaces are particularly easy to puncture, due to the almost drum like stretching of the skin and thin subcutaneous tissues across the bridges of the ribs. Given a sharply-pointed knife, there is no reason to deny or doubt the ability of even a slowly-moving body to impale itself upon a fixed knife, even to the extent of driving itself upon the blade up to the hilt. This situation is often put forward as a defense to a criminal charge and if the knife is sharp, there are no medico pathologic reasons to dispute this possibility. No forward movement of the knife is necessary nor need the hilt of the knife be supported upon any relatively rigid object such as the hip of the holder, as has been suggested in more than one criminal trial. However, the possibility of easy passive penetration declines rapidly with progressive blunting of the knife-point. Each individual case must be assessed upon the cutting power of the tip of the weapon. The “threshold phenomenon” of skin resistance must be borne in mind, as once this is suddenly overcome, the knife can plunge deeply into the underlying tissues. Failure to appreciate this has given rise to sterile and misleading argument by advocates in criminal trials, who postulate the deliberate continuance of pressure by the assailant, where a deep wound has resulted. This certainly need not necessarily be the case. Though this is a topic not readily amenable to quantitative measurement and reproducible results, the factors discussed above make it obvious that much illogical and uninformed opinion has been ventilated in criminal courts in past years. Some sophisticated measurements have been made upon stab wounds, resulting in excellent academic results, but the objection to these is that such quantitative data, measured in various physical and mathematical units, mean very little to the judge, jury, and even advocates in a criminal trial. They do very little to assist the understanding of the circumstances, when placed before a lay audience. The relatively simple factors discussed above would appear to be of some use in clarifying such situations. Unless an evaluation of the sharpness of the weapon is attempted-preferably with some experimental work on a given knife - subjective guesses as to the amount of force required to produce a given wound cannot only be futile, but sometimes contrary to the best interests of justice. Captions to figures: 1. Typical Homicidal Stab wound, inflicted by a kitchen knife which was driven deeply into the chest. The wound is slightly narrower than the blade, due to gaping at right angles to the axis of the wound. 2. A simple device to measure the pressure applied to the handle of a test knife, which is attached to a springloaded slide inside the outer box. A self-retaining pointer indicates the maximum load on a precalibrated scale. This article has (3088) words Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002