LIsa Black
Cape Coral, FL
Female, 49
I spent the five happiest years of my life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist in the Cleveland coroner’s office I analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now I'm a certified latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. I also write a series of forensic suspense novels, turning the day job into fiction. My books have been translated into six languages.
What was it they were testing?
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As far as I know, no. The DNA tests of the shirt will just show a mixture of the victims, so that the analyst would only be able to say the blood could have come from these two or three people--in other words there are no alleles that definitely couldn't have come from those three. But because it is a mixture, they can't say it did come from these three exact people. And they couldn't tell, again as far as I know, which blood was deposited first.
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If the bottle is sealed well, I don't think so. Hair is pretty tough.
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I have never done an autopsy, as I’m not a doctor. I’ve attended many, many autopsies, and they generally take about two hours, but can go up to four or five if there are a lot of injuries. At that point they will be done with the body, but the autopsy report can take much longer depending on if they have to send out samples for toxicology analysis (most places do) or have to wait on some other kind of specialty report. In one case I remember we had to wait a long time for a pediatric x-ray analysis. That can be weeks to months depending on who you’re waiting on and how big their backlog is.
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But what sample were they testing? What piece of evidence were they analyzing in the gas chromatograph?
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As far as I know germs don’t ‘eat’ other germs. But they can’t live long by themselves so on an inanimate surface, they would die sooner rather than later.
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Sorry, but I really don't know. You'd have to ask a pathologist. I imagine it might depend on how long after death the person was in the water.
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