Bloodstain Pattern Analysis

          

            Personally, I am not a huge fan of the sciences, but I have been intrigued by the fascinating works of forensic scientists and what they can ultimately achieve for their team. Forensic science is the use of multiple different sciences and technology to discover or investigate facts of interests via criminal activity. What inspired me to write about this topic was the show Dexter as seen on Showtime. Dexter is also the name of the main character in the show as he investigates crime scenes from minor offenses and crimes to master mind criminals and highly complex scenarios. He uses forensics to learn about the scenarios and he studies this for days and perfects his own art, as he is a serial killer himself. With forensics, he learns from the mistakes of prior criminals and becomes a flawless serial killer of other criminals. Dexter has given me inspiration to learn more about his specialty of forensics and to truly understand how he does it.

            More specifically, I like the bloodstain pattern analysis, which is a specialty in the field of forensic science. Both in real life and in the show, the bloodstain pattern analysts follow the same exact steps to determining the scenario. According to my source, the steps to define if any crime scene analysis is possible are: assess the scene, observe the scene, document the scene, collect the evidence, and analyze specific scene aspects (Gardner  and Bevel 93). The purpose for the steps in this order is to recover as much functional evidence possible and document completely every picture, note, sketch and item produced from the scene. Gardner and Bevel state, "From this effort, data in the form of scene context and physical evidence are produced. These data serve as the basis of any formal crime scene analysis" (93). This is our first major step to bloodstain pattern analysis.

            The second major step to bloodstain pattern analysis after all of the evidence and items produced from the scene of the crime has been sent to the lab is to apply the analysis and reconstruct the crime scene. This part of the forensics is very exciting to me, it's as if you were told the ending to a book and you had to create the book prior to the end. There are six certain patterns that these analysts can decipher from crime scenes: radiating patterns produced by an impact to a blood mass, linear patterns produced by blood flung from another object, patterns produced by streaming volumes, produced by blood falling as a function of gravity, produced by volume accumulations, and patterns produced through contact with a blood object (Gardner and Bevel 108). Ultimately, after defining all of the patterns, the analysts can recreate a scene because of the blood. Blood drops in free flight achieve a spherical shape and the analysts use this to determine the angle of which the criminal struck a victim and so on. These complex problems that forensic scientists dealing with bloodstain patterns are sometimes infuriating, especially when solving a crime, but the importance of solving the scenario gives me the inspiration to learn about it.

Gardner, Ross M., and Tom Bevel. Practical Crime Scene Analysis and Reconstruction. Boca Raton: CRC,             2009. Print.