The factors affecting the recovery of bloodstain evidence from buried clothing.

Abstract

In 2018, there was a record number of 726 homicides across England and Wales. A third of male victims of homicide were found in open area environments, mainly fields. Victims were found either fully buried or partially buried on the surface. The current project investigates the potential loss of bloodstain evidence on clothing that occurs following violent crimes. Throughout the current project, it is identified that there is a prominent lack of literature that focuses on determining what soil parameters impact the survival of buried bloodstain evidence. Several experiments were carried out to visually identify if bloodstain evidence is lost on clothing samples that are buried within and placed on the surface of the soil, and to determine how seasonal variations within the soil parameters affect the bloodstains survival. From an observational study conducted it is found that the bloodstains on the buried samples are visually undetectable, indicating that bloodstain evidence on a victims clothing will be lost when buried unless chemiluminescent techniques are used to identify the presence of blood. It is also determined that the soil moisture content and soil pH work together to impact the bloodstains survival, as these factors are both identified to significantly alter the fluorescence emitted by the blood when chemiluminescent techniques are used. ultimately the results gained from this research mostly agree with the hypothesis set, determining that pH, soil moisture and microbial activity all impacted the survival of the bloodstains, However, disagreeing with the statement that the bloodstains survival rate would be lower on the organic natural fibre fabrics, and that the bloodstain survival would also be more affected in the autumn and winter seasonal periods.