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Detectability of bloodstains after machine washing

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Abstract

Bloodstains on textiles can provide useful information for the forensic reconstruction of a crime. Surprisingly, little is known about the applicability of bloodstain traces after a textile was machine washed. In this study, we investigated the effect of machine washing on bloodstains on both cotton and polyester cloths. The influence of the washing detergent, the type of washing machine, the washing temperature, and the duration of drying of the bloodstain prior to washing as well as the drying temperature was investigated. Additionally, the molecular analyses of a subsample of the experiments were conducted. We found that although the primary morphology of the traces is often blurred, the presence of blood on the textiles can still be detected in many cases. Blood can also be transmitted to previously blood-free textiles during the washing process, leading to a positive Luminol or Combur® reaction of these samples. When traces of blood can be detected via the Luminol reaction, a molecular identification of the blood donor was successful in 28% of the cases.

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Notes

  1. Messler and colleagues (1981) showed that the height of dropping has an effect on the appearance of bloodstains on textiles.

  2. It was tried to spray the samples with the same amount of spray since Zweidinger et al. [17] found a correlation between brightness on photos and the amount of Luminol sprayed onto the sample.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Lehre@LMU-Award for student research projects of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. We thank C. Helmreich und F. Kraus for multiple blood sampling and the male and female volunteer for their blood donation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Systematic Botany and Mycology, University of Munich (LMU), Menzinger Straße 67, 80638, Munich, Germany

    Michaela Hofmann

  2. Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Munich, Nußbaumstraße 26, 80336, Munich, Germany

    Jiri Adamec, Katja Anslinger, Birgit Bayer, Matthias Graw, Oliver Peschel & Martin M. Schulz

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  1. Michaela Hofmann
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  2. Jiri Adamec
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  3. Katja Anslinger
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  4. Birgit Bayer
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  5. Matthias Graw
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  6. Oliver Peschel
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  7. Martin M. Schulz
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Correspondence to Martin M. Schulz.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Hofmann, M., Adamec, J., Anslinger, K. et al. Detectability of bloodstains after machine washing. Int J Legal Med 133, 3–16 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-018-1897-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-018-1897-2

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