Bloodstain Pattern Analysis in Crime Scenarios by Kacper Choromanski

Author:Kacper Choromanski
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789813344280
Publisher: Springer Singapore

3.6 Possible Areas for Mistakes

In this subchapter, I will try to touch upon some of the areas in which a bloodstain pattern analyst may make mistakes. The consequences of different stain localization and the possibility of its transfer.” The problems described in this chapter will concern the matters of drawing conclusions based on bloodstain patterns, and their possible overinterpretation. Its goal is to show the broader picture of bloodstain pattern analysis.

The first very serious mistake, while drawing inferences in this case, might concern making a statement that the victim was hit while he was sleeping. Many clues are supporting that conclusion. The spatter found on the bed frame unequivocally implicates that the source of the spatter was on the mattress. Considering the placement of wounds on the victim (skull fracture), you can determine that the person lying on the bed received a blow to the head, while his head was placed on the pillows right by the headboard. This is, however, all that you can determine from that fact. There is no evidence pointing towards the conclusion that the victim was sleeping while the blow fell. Indeed, the source of the spatter was not moving, but that doesn’t mean he was asleep.

On first glance, such a mistake doesn’t seem that relevant. After all, what’s the difference, whether the victim was sleeping or simply lying in bed? In fact, it might make a huge difference. First and foremost, drawing conclusions based on incomplete knowledge is unethical and unscientific. It is not the role of an expert, to present himself as the alpha and the omega. An expert does not have to know everything. This is not a TV show, where people in the lab know every answer to every single question. An expert must realize his or her limits and cognitive boundaries. As a scientist, you make assumptions based on facts, not presumptions. If you are unable to determine something, there is no shame in that; you just write that the given state, event or fact is impossible to verify. Second of all, the legal classification of an attack on a conscious person lying in bed may be different than one of an attack on a sleeping person, unaware of his assailant. Which means that an expert presenting a specific version of the events, may indirectly shape the future indictment, or even the sentence. Which is why it is absolutely unethical and reprehensible to overinterpret traces in that manner.

The second commonly occurring conclusion in such cases, which is unfortunately incorrect, is presenting a theory that the event was an act of aggression against the victim. It is a fact that in this case, the victim received multiple blows with an axe to the area around his head. Bloodstain pattern analysis, both on the scene and the clothes secured from the scene, does not allow for a statement regarding aggression or the assailant’s emotional state. BPA may determine that source of the spatters was on the bed while the blows landed. In some cases, it is possible to determine the minimum the number of hits.

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