LIsa Black
Cape Coral, FL
Female, 49
I spent the five happiest years of my life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist in the Cleveland coroner’s office I analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now I'm a certified latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. I also write a series of forensic suspense novels, turning the day job into fiction. My books have been translated into six languages.
I’m sorry but I have no idea. that would be the detective’s job, not mine.
Best of luck!
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Some people don't have enough to do!
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Well it's worth a try. However, you should be aware that bite marks are not usually accepted as reliable evidence in court any more.
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That’s a good question that I’m afraid I can’t answer. I’m sure there is some way to determine the chemicals used in pepper spray. But this would be affected by a) how long does it remain on the skin before the skin absorbs it and b) most forensic chemistry labs are set up to detect illegal drugs in urine, blood or gastric contents. Identifying any kind of poison or other substance may require equipment or reference databases they don’t have.
Proving it’s the same batch of pepper spray may or may not be possible. I”m not personally involved in this kind of testing, but I can assure you it is not like television. We had a series of cases and wanted to determine the exact composition of drugs with percentages of fentanyl, heroin etc. Turned out while nearly every crime lab can determine if a drug is present, there were only one or two labs in the entire country we could find that could determine percentages, and they charged an arm and a leg.
Sorry I can’t be more help.
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School Teacher
How do you feel about the idea of year-round schooling?
Bowling Alley Attendant
What do bowling alleys do to keep those nasty shoes clean/sanitary?
School Bus Driver
Do the kids treat you with the same amount of respect as other authority figures at school?
I don’t know what you mean by pure math. Most crime scene work, fingerprints, tool marks, serology, might need regular adding and subtracting, but I don’t know of any field that uses calculus or algebra. DNA analysis uses a lot of statistics and ballistics and traffic accident investigation might use physics and geometry. But those are the only examples I can think of.
Best of luck!
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That's an excellent question that unfortunately I can't answer. One probably would use it, but back when I did hairs and fibers it was generally thought that the only way was to extract the dye and do thin-layer chromatography, which we didn't have. We also didn't have a Ramen, so all I could do was microscopic comparison.
Best of luck!
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Usually simple black powder will show gloveprints as well as fingerprints. The bubbly sort of pattern they make will be visible.
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