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Effect of fabric mounting method and backing material on bloodstain patterns of drip stains on textiles

Abstract

Textiles may provide valuable bloodstain evidence to help piece together events or activities at violent crime scenes. However, in spite of over 75 years of research, there are still difficulties encountered in many cases in the interpretation and identification of bloodstains on textiles. In this study, we dripped porcine blood onto three types of fabric (plain woven, single jersey knit, and denim) that are supported in four different ways (hard, taut, loose, and semi-hard, i.e., fabric laid on denim). These four mounting methods represent different ways in which a textile may be present when blood from a violent act lands on it. This study investigates how the fabric mounting method and backing material affect the appearance of drip stains on textiles. We found that bloodstain patterns formed on fabric lying flat on a hard surface were very different from when the same fabric was suspended loosely. We also found that bloodstains formed on the technical back of single jersey knit were vastly different from those on the technical face. Interestingly, some drip stains showed blood passing through the textile and leaving a stain behind it that resembled insect stains. By observing, recording, and describing how a blood stained textile is found or presented at the scene, the analyst may be able to better understand bloodstains and bloodstain patterns on textiles, which could be useful to confirm or refute a witness’s account of how blood came to be where it was found after a bloodshed event.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the 50 workshop attendees who repeated most of these experiments and validated the results. Opinions and points of view in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent that of Victoria Police or North Carolina State University. The inclusion of any names of commercial products or manufacturers does not imply endorsement by the organizations.

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Correspondence to S. Michielsen.

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Supplementary Fig. 1
figure 5

The drip stand for systematically generating drip stains on the test specimens. (GIF 58 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 2
figure 6

Microphotographs of technical face (F) and technical back (B) of each fabric (plain woven, single jersey knit and denim) used in this study. Scale marks are one millimeter apart. (GIF 71 kb)

High Resolution Image (TIF 440 kb)

High Resolution Image (TIF 1604 kb)

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Chang, J.Y.M., Michielsen, S. Effect of fabric mounting method and backing material on bloodstain patterns of drip stains on textiles. Int J Legal Med 130, 649–659 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-015-1314-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-015-1314-z

Keywords

  • Forensic science
  • BPA
  • Textiles
  • Drip stain
  • Woven fabric
  • Jersey knit
  • Denim
  • Technical face
  • Technical back