ISSN: 0022-1198
CODEN: JFSCA
Page Count: 10

Identification of Wooden Instrument by Scanning Electron Microscopy from Splinters Left in Victim
Adelman, HC
Director of laboratories, St. Joseph Riverside Hospital, OH

Sorger, LJ
Professor of biology and graduate student, Youngstown State University, OH

Peterson, PC
Professor of biology and graduate student, Youngstown State University, OH

(Received 26 March 1987; accepted 22 July 1987)

Abstract

Case presentation concerns a twelve-year-old boy who was sexually assaulted, beaten, and murdered. A broken wooden broomstick was used in the attack to impale the victim through the rectum. Following the autopsy, splinters from the body were found by light microscopy. Macrodissected splinters were removed from the anus, rectum, and urinary bladder of the victim and examined by scanning electron microscopy. The splinters were identified as the same type of wood as the broomstick.

Keywords:
pathology and biology, criminalistics, criminal sex offenses, microscopy, foreign bodies, scanning electron microscopy

Paper ID: JFS12490J
DOI: 10.1520/JFS12490J
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