Today, the term “biometrics” is not limited to fingerprints. It also includes palm prints, irises, and facial recognition. In an effort to harness new technologies, and to improve the application of tenprint and latent fingerprint searches, the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division developed and incrementally integrated a new system to replace the Integrated…

Defining Time of Death    There are several times of death. Let me repeat that—there are several times of death. Time of death seems to be a simple and straight forward term that obviously means the exact time that the victim drew his last breath. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. There are actually three…

How does our profession  influence crime writers? In the western world, crime fiction – mystery, thrillers, suspense, etc. – makes up somewhere between 25 and 40 percent of all fiction book sales. Why is the crime genre so popular? Crime is fascinating, to be sure, because most of us  don’t commit it. But the popularity of…

Forensic odontology is the application of dental science to legal investigations, primarily involving the identification of the offender by comparing dental records to a bite mark left on the victim or at the scene, or identification of human remains based on dental records. A forensic dentist is an informal title for a forensic odontologist, a…

Post Mortem Facial Reconstruction A Postmortem Reconstruction is developed by reconstructing facial characteristics of an unidentified deceased person with decomposed or damaged human tissue. The image will first show trauma to the victim and is repaired digitally or by applying paints directly to the photograph, covering the injured area making the features recognizable. The drawing…

Crime wreaks havoc on the very framework of our society, no one is immune from it.  Regardless of race, background, or financial status, crime can and will touch your life in a negative way.  The role of the criminal investigator is to fill the gap from suspect to victim.  The investigative function centers around the…

Toxicology testing is a vital piece of  the post mortem investigative puzzle.  Many investigators confuse the importance of toxicology in cases where no autopsy is being conducted. An even greater danger is submitting fluids for testing but then making an incorrect determination because of the miss-interpretations of the results. To better understand the dangers and…

  A  prevalent concern, but under-recognized, public health problem of distressing and harmful resident-to-resident interactions in dementia in long-term care homes (LTC) (such as nursing homes and assisted living residences), is a major issue facing many countries today.  This increase can, in part, be attributed to the growing population of older adults from the Baby…