Significance
This paper introduces the concept of skin-associated lifestyle chemistries found on personal belongings as a form of trace evidence. We propose a mass spectrometry-based approach to illuminate chemical traces recovered from personal objects. Using a chemical composite recovered from a swab of a phone, as a representative personal belonging, we can provide insights into personal lifestyle profile by predicting the kind of beauty product the individual uses, the food he/she eats, the medications he/she takes, or the places he/she has been. Therefore, the chemical interpretation of traces recovered from objects found on a crime scene can help a criminal investigator to learn about the lifestyle of the individual who used or touched these objects.
Abstract
Imagine a scenario where personal belongings such as pens, keys, phones, or handbags are found at an investigative site. It is often valuable to the investigative team that is trying to trace back the belongings to an individual to understand their personal habits, even when DNA evidence is also available. Here, we develop an approach to translate chemistries recovered from personal objects such as phones into a lifestyle sketch of the owner, using mass spectrometry and informatics approaches. Our results show that phones’ chemistries reflect a personalized lifestyle profile. The collective repertoire of molecules found on these objects provides a sketch of the lifestyle of an individual by highlighting the type of hygiene/beauty products the person uses, diet, medical status, and even the location where this person may have been. These findings introduce an additional form of trace evidence from skin-associated lifestyle chemicals found on personal belongings. Such information could help a criminal investigator narrowing down the owner of an object found at a crime scene, such as a suspect or missing person...
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/11/08/1610019113
Showing posts with label forensics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forensics. Show all posts
20160828
15 Years Later, Remains of More Than a Thousand 9/11 Victims Still Unidentified
She had no idea it would be their last goodbye.
"It feels like 15 years, it feels like five minutes, and it feels like 100 years," Lisa Luckett said. "It really does, because there's been so much that's happened in that time. We've gone through a lot."
Lisa believes the 40-year-old New Jersey father of three was killed instantly when the plane hit One World Trade Center. His remains were never positively identified.
"But they're ashes are ashes, and we are all ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and again that kind of esoteric letting go of what we can't control — it worked for me," Lisa said.
A few years after the terrorist attacks, the city gave the Luckett family — and more than one thousand others — a token of remembrance, seen in the video above.
"It's the dirt and dust and everything from Ground Zero after they had done as much as they could to find people's remains," Lisa said. "And I was OK with that, and I had friends who had pieces found over the years and [got] three different things of three different times and [they asked] 'What I do? Do I reopen a grave?' So I feel like I was kind of spared, actually."
According to the Medical Examiner's office, of the 2,753 World Trade Center victims, 1,637 — 60 percent — were positively identified, but 1,113 are still a mystery to scientists...
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2016/08/28/15-years-later--remains-of-more-than-a-thousand-9-11-victims-still-unidentified.html
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