A new forensic tool to date human blood pools
Fiona Smith, Céline Nicloux, David Brutin
Abstract
Courtrooms are asking for reliable scientific evidence in order to prevent wrongful convictions. Thus, a more rigorous approach to forensic science approved by scientific methods is promoted. The study of human blood dynamics in the context of forensic science is becoming a widespread research topic, although the physics behind wetting and drying of blood is not completely understood. Based on the morphological changes of drying blood pools, the following work presents a patentable method to quantitatively date these blood pools for forensic purposes. As for drying drops of blood, cracking patterns are observed but they are more disordered. Similar disordered crack patterns are observed in the case of gels, their evaporation process is, therefore, presented since this topic has been thoroughly investigated. We aim to find reliable patterns that could give information concerning the evolution of a blood pool over time to lead to practical application of this knowledge. An empirical model is established between final dried blood patterns and the generating mechanism, yielding application in bloodstain pattern analysis for forensic investigations.