Bloodstain Pattern Analysis

Bloodstain Pattern Analysis

More History

The Case

Chamberlain's

• The case at first had Lindy and Micheal convicted for the death of their daughter.
• The were sent to jail.
• Three years later more of the babies clothing was fouond and Lindy and Micheal were set free.
• The case officialy remains unsovled
• The police in this case handled the evidence poorly and also did not take any photgraphs of the scene before the evidence was collected.
• The polive began trying to come up with conclusions but all of them were invalid.

• Later on more torn and bloody clothes were found, some were near a dingo's lair.
• The only peice of clothing they found was the jumpsuit the baby had other clothes that weren't found.
• A tourist was the one who found the jumpsuit when they saw police they folded the jumpsuit then shortly after a TV station crew showed up.
• Due to the jumpsuit being found by reporters as folder great suspicion was placed upon the Chamberlains.

• In the court case 'State of Ohio v. Samuel Sheppard' blood spatter evidence was used to help convict the suspect.
• The blood spatter evidence was entered in by Dr. Paul Kirk.
• This case in 1955 was one of the earliest instances of the legal system recognizing the importance of bloodspatter analysis
• Dr. Kirk was able to show the position of the suspect and in which hand the suspect held the weapon.

History

• It has been studied since the late 1890's
• The first known study of blood spatters occured at the 'Institute for Forensic Medicine' in Poland by Dr. Eduard Piotrowski.
• It wasn't until about the 1940's that cases started to included interpretation of blood spatters.

"A dingo ate my baby"

• Took place in August of 1980
• Involves the Chamberlian family.
• The family was camping near Ayers Rock in Central Australia.
• Lindy Chamberlain has two kids; 4 yr old Reagan and 10 week old Azaria.
• She puts them to bed in a tent and when she comes back she cried "The dingo took by baby".
• According to Lindy when she got back to the tent she saw a dingo dragging something out of the tent, she didn't exactly know what it was though

Dr. Herbert MacDonell

• Wrote the book "FlightCharacteristics of Human Blood and Stain Patterns" published in 1971.
• Trained law enforcment in blood spatter analysis and developed courses to continuw to train analysts.
• In 1983 he helped found the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (IABPA).
• Since then the study of bloss spatter has continued to develop and grow and is now a standard practice for law enforcment.

The Chamberlin Case

• However when she went to check on the children Azaria was gone.
• Lindy, her husband Micheal and other campers went on the search for the baby.
• One camper Sally Lowe, went into the tent to check on the other sleeping child Reagan. There she saw a small pool of blood on the tent floor.
• When the park ranger arrived he was shown the pool of blood as well as a torn bloody blanket and other bloodstained items.