The Daily Bulletin Archive

Please join the Chemistry and Physics departments for the seminar “The Recreation of Wound Patterns Using Various Tissue Simulants for the Purpose of Crime Scene Reconstruction,” a final project presentation by Breanne Steimle, M.S. Forensic Science student, on Thursday, September 26, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Science and Mathematics Complex 176.

Abstract
Within the field of forensic science, there are not many reliable methods for the reconstruction of crimes, such as developing apparatuses to simulate pattern injuries on human skin and tissue. The media of the apparatus must be sufficient for recording blunt force trauma and bite mark impressions, electrocution, cutting, and gunshot wound-related injuries for the purpose of reenactment, court exhibition, and distance determination. For wound reenactments (such as blunt force trauma, bite mark impressions, and electrocution), dead skin and tissue from human cadavers do not show abrasion patterns that would occur on live tissue. This study looks at different tissue simulants for the recreation of wound patterns without the use of live animals. For each wound reenactment, tissue simulants (such as ballistic soap, ordnance gelatin, and “ballistic dummies”) were penetrated and wound patterns were formed and were analyzed in detail. Penetration depth, as well as the path shape, are analyzed for both stabbings and gunshot wounds. For the electrocution wound pattern, a Taser was tested on ballistic soap.

Instruments, such as cameras, provide visualization and understanding of very rapid events, especially for gunshot injuries in tissue simulants and skin. In this research, comparison and confocal microscopes were also used to observe the different wound patterns in detail and compare the weapon used to the wound it formed. The wound patterns were also compared with patterns observed during other crime scenes on human remains to determine which simulant was the most ideal for recreating several types of wound patterns. This is a means by which the events of a crime can be visualized and validated and then be brought before a jury to help understand how a pattern injury occurred. This research gives instruction in an area that is relatively unexplored in crime scene investigations and to altogether help in forensic applications of crime scene reconstruction by identifying the type of injury based on the appearance of wounds.