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An Integrated Technique for the Analysis of Skin Bite Marks
Author(s) -
Bernitz Herman,
Owen Johanna H.,
Heerden Willie F. P. van,
Solheim Tore
Publication year - 2008
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.1556-4029.2007.00618.x
Subject(s) - suspect , conviction , concordance , dentition , forensic odontology , poison control , identification (biology) , population , injury prevention , value (mathematics) , psychology , criminology , medicine , dentistry , medical emergency , mathematics , statistics , law , environmental health , biology , political science , botany
The high number of murder, rape, and child abuse cases in South Africa has led to increased numbers of bite mark cases being heard in high courts. Objective analysis to match perpetrators to bite marks at crime scenes must be able to withstand vigorous cross‐examination to be of value in conviction of perpetrators. An analysis technique is described in four stages, namely determination of the mark to be a human bite mark, pattern association analysis, metric analysis and comparison with the population data, and illustrated by a real case study. New and accepted techniques are combined to determine the likelihood ratio of guilt expressed as one of a range of conclusions described in the paper. Each stage of the analysis adds to the confirmation (or rejection) of concordance between the dental features present on the victim and the dentition of the suspect. The results illustrate identification to a high degree of certainty.