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.
I"m sorry, I know I posted an answer to this question but apparently it disappeared into cyberspace. As far as I know, no, it wouldn't be possible. The DNA results would show a mixture so that you could say 'it could be a mix of these two people, meaning there's no alleles that could NOT have come from them' but you couldn't positively state that it is a mixture. And it wouldn't be possible to tell which came first as the sample is put in a liquid medium and mixed to analyze.
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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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What was it they were testing?
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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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That determination is made by the pathologist doing the autopsy, and there are a number of ways--body temperature, rate of decomposition, rigor mortis, but it will be an estimate, not the precise number that you might see on TV. All those things can depend on the environment where the body is, temperature, exposure, physical characteristics of the victim, medical conditions etc. Entomologists can help if there is distinct bug activity at the scene as well.
Hope that helps!
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Most any job in forensics is hands-on, either lab work or field work or both, and legalities are usually the responsibility of the officers, who are trained in such, and the attorneys. So I don’t think you’ll have a problem. Best of luck!
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That’s an exceedingly broad question that could take a stack of textbooks to answer.
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