Gunshot residue on dark materials: a comparison between infrared photography and the use of an alternative light source.

The pattern of gunshot residue (GSR) includes important information about muzzle-target distance since a larger GSR distribution diameter indicates a larger shooting distance. GSR may not be visible to the naked eye when, for example, it is located on dark textiles. In such cases, further procedures need to be performed in order to visualize the pattern of GSR. Besides chemical procedures, an alternative light source or infrared photography can be utilized for non-destructive GSR visualization. In the work presented, these two techniques are compared based on shooting experiments using 26 different dark textiles. Within the range of the alternative light source, the use of a 440-nm light in combination with an orange-colored filter led to the best visualization of GSR in the form of fluorescent particles. Infrared photography, on the other hand, visualized GSR as dark particles, whereas-ideally-the dark textile reflected the infrared light and appeared bright. The comparison of both techniques revealed that the GSR distribution visualized by infrared photography was not identical to the GSR distribution visualized with 440-nm illumination in combination with an orange-colored filter. We concluded that infrared photography visualizes the inner powder soot zone, whereas illumination at 440 nm leads to fluorescence of the outer powder soot zone, which can be visualized using an orange-colored filter. Knowledge of this difference in visualization of the two powder soot zones is important for forensic practitioners assessing firing distances. In the literature, however, this difference is not noted as clearly.

Detection of painted-over traces of blood and seminal fluid.

Dealing with a refurbished crime scene is a special challenge for forensic investigators. In such cases, a crime scene may not have only been cleaned in order to erase all traces but the walls of an indoor crime scene could also be painted over in order to mask traces of the crime. So far, very few publications have shown that painted-over traces of blood and seminal fluid can be detected using a forensic light source or infrared photography. To date, there have been no systematically executed research studies including guidelines on which settings to use depending on the color of the wall. Moreover, no comparative study has addressed the question of whether it is better to use infrared photography or a forensic light source to visualize painted-over bloodstains. The present study covers the aforementioned gaps and shows that painted-over bloodstains are most easily visualized by infrared photography, while traces of seminal fluid are most easily visualized at 440 nm in combination with a yellow filter-both independent of the color of the wall paint.