Forensic Science Course
Contents
1. The crime scene: How to collect and protect evidence
Discovering a crime scene
How to secure a crime scene.
Pollution of the site through rain, sea water, oil, and human
activity,
Friction ridges and impressions: shoes, tyres and tools
Blood spatter patterns
Firearms patterns
Soil samples – was the victim moved?
Locating fingerprints and traces of materials
Taking forensic photographs
Major incidents. Massacres
2. Criminal mindset, and criminal behaviour
The psychology of the criminal
Psychological profiling
The main causes of violent crime.
Lie detectors
3. What’s it all about?
A short history of forensics
Breakthroughs in forensics
Who does what in forensics?
How forensics is used to convict criminals (and protect the
innocent)
4. Fingerprints: simply unique
Where fingerprints appear in the crime scene.
Taking fingerprints from the crime scene
Classification of fingerprints.
The structure of the skin
Sweat
How to find and then enhance latent (or hidden) fingerprints
5. Fire and arson
How fires start – deliberate and accidental
Explosions. Tests for Explosives
Burns – the effect on the body
Risks of entering a fire damaged building
Risks of entering a building which is on fire
6. The body
How to identify a dead body
Scars, marks, dental records
The forensic autopsy: understanding how people die
Establishing the time of death
Rigor mortis
Pooling of blood in the corpse (lividity)
Traumatic injuries and deaths
Decomposition, flies, and body-eating insects
Skeletal remains
Reconstructing faces in clay
7. Injuries
Penetrating/perforating injuries. Open wounds.
- Puncture (needle etc)
- Penetration. Knife wounds. Entrance and exit wounds.
- gunshot
Non-fatal injuries: incisions, lacerations, abrasions
Head, chest abdomen wounds.
Non penetrating injuries. Closed wounds: contusions, haematomas,
crushing injuries
Defensive wounds
Punches, kicks – causing bone fractures, organ failure
and
Gunshot wounds. Entrance and exit wounds
Crushing injury. Hit by a car.
Struck by fist or blunt weapons. Head injury, chest injury,
fractures,
Bites
Torture murder: for punishment, interrogation or just for
kicks
8. Other causes of death, and evidence of harm
Electrocution
Asphyxiation: smothering, compressive asphyxia
Drowning
Toxic gases
Burns
Rape
Strangulation
Hanging. Suicide
Ligature marks
9. Bodily fluids
Blood. Bloodstains
Saliva
Semen
Tests
What DNA can tell us
Taking samples from a corpse
Taking samples from a live person
10. Drugs and poisons
Drugs: classification of drugs. What they do, and why people
take them.
Signs of drugs in live people.
How drugs (or impurities) kill people. Tests for drugs on
dead people.
Poisons. How they kill people. How they're administered to
unknowing or unwilling recipients.
How to test for poisons in dead people.
11. Analysing trace evidence
- How is trace evidence analysed? What can it prove. Risks
in using trace evidence. Examples of where trace evidence
was helpful.
- Hairs and Fibres
Hairs and animal fibres.
Vegetable and inorganic fibres.
Man-made fibres
- Pollen
- Paint
- Firearms Evidence
- Gun Shot Residues testing
- Explosives. Griess tests
Fingerprints (covered in detail in another module)
Glass
Paint chips
Soils
Botanical materials
Volatile hydrocarbons (arson evidence).
- Other traces
12. Analysing documents, and the computer
Currency forgery
Art forgery
Graphology – who wrote what?
False sets of accounts
Computer crime
Finding deleted files
13. Presenting evidence to a jury
The expert witness
Visual aids, videos, still photographs,
Catalogued evidence (exhibits),
Audio recordings, transcripts of conversations
Maps
Handwriting.
Taking the jury to the crime scene
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