Forensics Questions

Re: forensic questions

Ken,
Drop by and take a gander at our site . Irs new title is Forensics Fan Club. Pretty neat if I do say so myself.
 
hi i have a question what are the national database's that contain the dna and fingerprints of people arrested?

isn't it IAFIS and KOTIS (i may have spelled them wrong)? i need to know for a school project and i don't know what their called, so even if their right can someone let me know if they are spelled right, thanks
 
Drumchik said:
I'm sort of stuck in a novel I'm writing at the moment. I can't find the name of the solution used to remove flesh from bullets. Is it just water, or a specialized solution?
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It is just water but in a beaker with the bullet in and then it goes in a Ultrasonic Cleaner witch will beak of the skin:thumbsup:
 
Forgive me if this has been asked before,but is there any way to tell whether a wound or laceration was inflicted before or after death?
 
This is not a scientific answer but just a guess:

I would have thought yes because of the fact that blood wont be flowing around the body after death.
 
That works if the body is found at the crime scene, but what if it's moved? I was hoping for something regarding the damage to the bone or tissue.

Thanks for responding,though.
 
Greg Cox said:
nattybatty55 said:
Greg Cox said:
Forgive me if this has been asked before,but is there any way to tell whether a wound or laceration was inflicted before or after death?
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This is not a scientific answer but just a guess:

I would have thought yes because of the fact that blood wont be flowing around the body after death.
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That works if the body is found at the crime scene, but what if it's moved? I was hoping for something regarding the damage to the bone or tissue.

Thanks for responding,though.
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I think it depends on where the wound was made. I remember a Bones episode (The Man in the Cell) where Brennan commented that "massive blood aspiration to the soft tissue of the neck" had been found when a victim was discovered in a refrigerator. The victim had been beheaded alive in that case.

I'm not sure about anything else; I'm not even a scientist. I do hope you find some better answers though :)
 
Greg Cox said:
Forgive me if this has been asked before,but is there any way to tell whether a wound or laceration was inflicted before or after death?
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This is really a question that a medical doctor or pathologist should answer (and I'm not); but in general, if you get bruising around a wound, its because the heart was actively pumping blood into damaged capillaries/tissues ... whereas you wouldn't see bruising if a cut was made on a dead body.
 
kind of a weird question, but here goes...

if i remember correctly, when they reconstruct a face from a skull they use average tissue depth at different points on the skull. well what if a person was overweight and had more adipose tissue on the face and head? is there a way to tell? otherwise the reconstructed face would look similar, but would not be the right shape etc. and could look like a different person. or im just thinking way too much into things... :lol:
 
Greg Cox said:
Forgive me if this has been asked before,but is there any way to tell whether a wound or laceration was inflicted before or after death?
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I'm neither a medial doctor, nor a pathologist, but I have training. What Ken says is correct. It depends if the body is relatively fresh (i.e., not in later stages of decomp). If the victim took a while to die, microscopic examination of the wound would show more white blood cells than if it was inflicted after/during death.

Also, while dead bodies to 'bleed' they don't bleed a lot. So a wound inflicted after death would have significantly less blood pooling than one inflicted before.

Hope that helps. If you need more specifics, I can try to help.
 
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Thanks, Ken and Adorelo. Sorry not to respond earlier, but life has been hectic. (Visiting relatives, etcetera.) I appreciate your input.

Ken, are you the same Ken Goddard who writes for Forge Books? Good to hear from you. I confess that I haven't had a chance to read your CSI novel yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
 
Greg Cox said:
Ken, are you the same Ken Goddard who writes for Forge Books? Good to hear from you. I confess that I haven't had a chance to read your CSI novel yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
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Yes, I'm the Ken Goddard who wrote 3 books for Tor/Forge. Typical author activity: we cheerfully migrate to whichever publishing company is willing to publish our next book ... and always hope that there will be a next one. :)
 
Alyssa said:
I looked at the link so graciously provided by MiaCaro, and a few others I found on my own, but none talked about whether or not the mouth is actually, physically washed prior to autopsy. To me, it makes no sense to do so. I mean, that might compromise other evidence.

I remember when the one body was stolen from the lab, beer had been poured down the throat of the dead body. So, it would seem to me that if one cleaned the mouth with water as one washes the rest of the body, that might compromise stomach contents, etc.

Does anyone know, maybe, a forensic text I might find that could offer help? Thanks!
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The mouth is NOT washed prior to an autopsy, and really, isnt specifically washed after an autopsy, just the general hose down the entire body gets. If there is foreign material or the mouth is particularly bloody, full of emesis, etc then they might pay a little more attention to cleaning it. However, the majority of the cleaning/making presentable part is done in the funeral home. You might be interested to know also, that when the Y incision is sewn back up, its not done in a particularly neat manner either, just a quick job to close things up. Hope this answers your question.
 
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