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Comparison of Handmarks in Manual Strangulation: An Experimental Study
Author(s) -
Kristensen Mie E.,
Lynnerup Niels,
Sejrsen Birgitte
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00076.x
Subject(s) - matching (statistics) , computer science , set (abstract data type) , artificial intelligence , medicine , pathology , programming language
A police case with a strangulated woman with fingermarks on the neck and two suspects identifying each other as the perpetrator set off a laboratory experiment. Twenty‐one males participated in the study. Blue paint was applied to their fingers, after which they grasped a neck dummy and pressed hard as if strangulating someone. The imprint was removed from the dummy, and their hands were photographed. Five imprints were randomly chosen and superimposed on the hand photographs in blind trials. In no cases did we match an imprint to the correct hand. However, in four cases we matched the imprint with several hands, one of which was the correct one. This means we were able to exclude nonmatches in 4/5 cases. Overall, matching of hands and fingermarks is difficult and inconclusive. Objective criteria for matching are difficult to establish, and matching is probably best suited for cases with specific anatomical features.