Analysis of Hypodermic Needles and Syringes for the Presence of Blood and Polydimethylsiloxane (Silicone) Utilizing Microchemical Tests and Infrared Spectroscopy

Suspect hypodermic needles and syringes were seized from an unlicensed individual who was allegedly injecting patients with silicone (polydimethylsiloxane [PDMS]) for cosmetic enhancement. Since control syringe barrels and needles often contain an interfering PDMS lubricant, a risk for false positives of foreign PDMS exists. The focus of this report was to minimize this risk and determine a quick and reliable test for the presence of blood in PDMS matrices. Using ATR‐FT‐IR spectroscopy, the risk for false‐positive identification of foreign PDMS was reduced by (i) overfilling the sampling aperture to prevent spectral distortions and (ii) sampling a region of the suspect syringe/needle assembly where manufacturer‐applied PDMS is not typically located. Analysis for blood indicated that the Teichman microchemical test was effective for detecting blood in the presence of PDMS. Overall, detecting PDMS established intent and detecting blood established that the needle containing the PDMS had been used for injection.     

Fatal intravenous fentanyl abuse: four cases involving extraction of fentanyl from transdermal patches

The transdermal fentanyl system delivers a specific dose at a constant rate. Even after the prescribed application time has elapsed, enough fentanyl remains within a patch to provide a potentially lethal dose. Death due to the intravenous injection of fentanyl extracted from transdermal patches has not been previously reported. We present 4 cases in which the source of fentanyl was transdermal patches and was injected. In all of these cases, the victim was a white male who died at home. Case 1 was a 35-year-old with no known history of drug use, who was found by his wife on the floor of his workshop. Police recovered a fentanyl patch, needle, and syringe at the scene. Case 2 was a 38-year-old with a known history of drug use whose family claimed that he was in a treatment program that used fentanyl patches for unknown reasons. His brother found him dead in bed, and law enforcement officers found a hypodermic needle beside the body; a ligature around his left hand, and apparent needle marks between his first and second digits were also noted. Case 3 was a 42-year-old with a recent attempted suicide via overdose who was found dead at his home. An empty box of fentanyl patches, Valium, Ritalin, and 2 syringes were found at the scene. Case 4 was a 39-year-old found by his mother, who admitted to removing a needle with attached syringe from the decedent's arm. Medications at the scene included hydrocodone, alprazolam, zolpidem, and fentanyl patches. All reported deaths were attributed to fentanyl intoxication, with blood concentrations ranging from 5 to 27 microg/L.     

Fatal chest injury from a shotgun slug: homicide, accident or suicide?

A 78-year-old hunter was found dead beside his raised hide with a gunshot wound to his chest. In the present case, the reconstruction of the shooting event revealed an accident. Disregarding all safety rules, the hunter had placed his superposed rifle-shotgun on the chair and pulled the barrels of the cocked gun towards his body. One of the triggers interlocked with the button of a camping chair's cushion and a shot was fired. Furthermore the morphology of wounds from shotgun slugs is discussed on the basis of the autopsy findngs.     

Dangerous information: product tampering and poisoning advice in revenge and murder manuals

This paper reviews 18 publications that advocate the use of product tampering and other poisoning methods as techniques for exacting revenge against individuals and corporations, as methods of committing murder, and for other criminal purposes. Several of the particular techniques recommended in these publications subsequently have been used in criminal tampering incidents. The published sources of technical guidance for the would-be tamperer and poisoner are examined in detail to alert forensic scientists, law enforcement authorities, and the food and drug industry to the particular techniques that are being advocated. Possible criminal and civil liability of the publishers and authors is discussed. The author suggests that food and drug retailers consider the wisdom of selling magazines that advertise the availability of revenge and murder manuals advocating product tampering and poisoning, that food and drug manufacturers test the effects on their products of the contaminants that are being recommended, and that investigators be alert to the existence of such manuals and mail-order suppliers of poisons.     

Android forensics: Automated data collection and reporting from a mobile device

In this research, a prototype enterprise monitoring system for Android smartphones was developed to continuously collect many data sets of interest to incident responders, security auditors, proactive security monitors, and forensic investigators. Many of the data sets covered were not found in other available enterprise monitoring tools. The prototype system neither requires root privileges nor the exploiting of the Android architecture for proper operation, thereby increasing interoperability among Android devices and avoiding a spyware classification for the system. An anti-forensics analysis on the system was performed to identify and further strengthen areas vulnerable to tampering. The contributions of this research include the release of the first open-source Android enterprise monitoring solution of its kind, a comprehensive guide of data sets available for collection without elevated privileges, and the introduction of a novel design strategy implementing various Android application components useful for monitoring on the Android platform.     

The efficacy of a classification system: Its relationship to resource-procedure management

The efficient and effective operation of an organization is of major concern to any manager. For those managers responsible for service organizations, especially in the public sector, this is especially true due to the scarcity of resources. Lacking the capacity to manage resource-procedure interactions through the use of inventory, other methods must be found and used.One approach toward efficient management is to segment service users in order to identify the most appropriate resource-procedure interaction. In this study, a correctional agency that segmented its service users (offenders) by using a classification system was analyzed. It was found that even though a sophisticated classification system was in place, other elements necessary for the efficient and effective management of resource-procedure interactions were not present.     

Fatal Intoxication with Acetyl Fentanyl

Among the new psychoactive substances encountered in forensic investigations is the opioid, acetyl fentanyl. The death of a 28‐year‐old man from recreational use of this compound is reported. The decedent was found in the bathroom of his residence with a tourniquet secured around his arm and a syringe nearby. Postmortem examination findings included marked pulmonary and cerebral edema and needle track marks. Toxicological analysis revealed acetyl fentanyl in subclavian blood, liver, vitreous fluid, and urine at concentrations of 235 ng/mL, 2400 ng/g, 131 ng/mL, and 234 ng/mL, respectively. Acetyl fentanyl was also detected in the accompanying syringe. Death was attributed to recreational acetyl fentanyl abuse, likely through intravenous administration. The blood acetyl fentanyl concentration is considerably higher than typically found in fatal fentanyl intoxications. Analysis of this case underscores the need for consideration of a wide range of compounds with potential opioid‐agonist activity when investigating apparent recreational drug‐related deaths.     

DNA typing: an accessory evidence in doping control

A clear positive case for anabolic steroids doping was confounded by alleged urine tampering during doping control procedures. Review of the chain of custody showed no flaws, but nevertheless the athlete was adamant that the urine sample should be analyzed for DNA in order to support her contention that she was not the donor of the sample. The results obtained showed that the urine sample that scored positive for steroids contained nuclear DNA that could not be matched to the DNA obtained from the athlete's blood. On the other hand, the same urine sample contained mitochondrial DNA whose nucleotide sequences spanning the hyper variable regions HV1 and HV2 proved to be identical to those determined in mitochondrial DNA amplified from the athlete's blood. The occurrence of an extraneous genotype is compatible with exogenous nuclear DNA admixture to the athlete's urine. Alternatively, taking in consideration the mitochondrial DNA, we could not exclude that a sibling or a maternal relative of the athlete could have acted as a donor of the urine utilized for doping control and DNA analysis. Both situations point to possible tampering of the urine by the athlete. Adjudication at CAS maintained previous national and international federation decision that there was no proof of a chain of custody flaw to justify the athlete's allegation of urine substitution after collection.     

Application of lead isotope analysis in shooting incident investigations

A study was conducted to examine the potential of the considerable variability of the lead isotope compositions in bullets (projectiles) and primers in shooting incident investigations. Multiple-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP/MS) was used to analyze lead isotopic compositions in projectiles, cartridge cases, firearms discharge residues (FDR) in barrels of firearms and in the gunshot entries. .22 caliber plain lead and plated ammunition and 9 mm Luger full metal jacket (FMJ) ammunition were employed in shooting experiments using semiautomatic pistols. Cotton cloth served as the target material and two firing distances were tested; 1 cm (near contact) and 2 m distances. It was observed that various mechanical or chemical means of cleaning do not completely remove lead deposits ("lead memory") from barrels of firearms. Nonetheless, it was shown that analysis of lead isotopic composition may provide valuable evidence in investigating specific scenarios of shooting incidents. For instance in a shoot-out where several firearms and ammunition brands are involved, it may be feasible to point out which ammunition and/or firearm caused a particular gunshot entry if the ammunition brands involved (bullets and primers) differ considerably in their lead isotopic composition.     

A passive approach for effective detection and localization of region-level video forgery with spatio-temporal coherence analysis

In this paper, we present a passive approach for effective detection and localization of region-level forgery from video sequences possibly with camera motion. As most digital image/video capture devices do not have modules for embedding watermark or signature, passive forgery detection which aims to detect the traces of tampering without embedded information has become the major focus of recent research. However, most of current passive approaches either work only for frame-level detection and cannot localize region-level forgery, or suffer from high false detection rates for localization of tampered regions. In this paper, we investigate two common region-level inpainting methods for object removal, temporal copy-and-paste and exemplar-based texture synthesis, and propose a new approach based on spatio-temporal coherence analysis for detection and localization of tampered regions. Our approach can handle camera motion and multiple object removal. Experiments show that our approach outperforms previous approaches, and can effectively detect and localize regions tampered by temporal copy-and-paste and texture synthesis.     

A sudden death with lung embolism after inadvertent infusion of zinc oxide shake lotion

A 74-year old woman in postoperative treatment after a colonic surgery died immediately after perfusion of about 1.5 mL of a white emulsion which was believed to contain 1% propofol via cardiac catheter into the right atrium. It was strongly suspected that a syringe with a zinc oxide shake lotion (consisting of 20% ZnO, 20% talc, 25% glycerol and 35% water) which was intended for external treatment had been mistaken for the propofol syringe. During autopsy, an anatomic cause of death could not be found. In order to exclude an intoxication and to determine the significance of the perfusion fluid in this context, toxicological and histological investigations were performed. Propofol and other drugs applied to the patient were found in therapeutic or sub-therapeutic range. However, in comparison to a control case, the zinc concentrations determined by AAS were about 200 times higher in lung tissue, 10 times higher in heart blood and 3–4 times higher in kidney and liver tissue. No increase was seen in venous blood. Histology showed a strong embolism of the lung tissue with birefingent sharp-edged crystals, which were identified as the talcum, and an amorphous component (ZnO). The same embolism was seen to a medium extent also in the brain sections and to a low extent in heart, liver, pancreas and kidney. Pulmonary embolism by talcum and zinc oxide was established as the cause of death which occurred by syringe swap due to insufficient security precautions in the drug administration. The results are discussed in context of pulmonary microembolism cases frequently described for drug addicts after injection of crashed talcum containing tablets.     

A probabilistic approach to the joint evaluation of firearm evidence and gunshot residues

The present paper addresses issues that affect both the separate as well as the joint evaluation of firearm evidence (i.e., marks) and gunshot residues (GSR). Mark evidence will be used as a basis to discriminate among barrels through which a bullet in question might have been shot whereas GSR will be used to draw inferences about the distance of firing. Particular attention is drawn to the coherent handling of uncertainties associated with the various parameters considered within each item of evidence. The proposed analysis relies on a probabilistic viewpoint that uses graphical models (i.e., Bayesian networks) as an aid to cope with the complexity induced by the number of variables considered. The paper discusses how an approach based on a probabilistic network environment can be used for the formal analysis and construction of arguments. Emphasis is made on the gain of insight into structural dependencies that may be uncovered when the evaluative process is extended beyond single items of scientific evidence.     

试论社会资本视阈下我国社区慈善超市的运营机制

作为一种新型的慈善事业运作平台与机制,社区慈善超市的运营发展离不开社会资本的积累。我国社区慈善超市实际上是社会慈善和政府救助的混合体,社会资本的缺乏正是其发展受制的重要原因。因此,应正确处理慈善超市与政府的关系,构建政府、社会、公民之间的互信机制,加强制度建设和慈善超市发展的网络机制建设,增加社区慈善超市的社会资本。     

Death by potassium chloride intravenous injection: evaluation of analytical detectability

Potassium chloride intravenous injection is used in suicide attempts and lethal procedures for state-sanctioned punishment. Owing to its relatively high concentrations in hemolyzed blood (25-80 mM) compared to serum (about 4 mM), it is difficult to conclude potassium poisoning by postmortem analysis of biologic samples. A 41-year-man was found dead with an injection sign on his foot and a syringe close to the corpse. No particular signs were noted during the autopsy. Blood, bile, and urine were submitted to xenobiotic screening procedures used in the laboratory. Syringe content was found positive to potassium ions. Blood potassium concentration was determined by ion-selective electrode measurement (range 3.0-150 mM). Blood was found positive for diazepam at therapeutic level. Potassium concentration was 160.0 (cardiac) and 87.3 mM (femoral blood). Our results show that potassium concentration was significantly higher in heart blood in a suicide case. Hence, the general issue of considering potassium poisoning hardly demonstrable by toxicology needs to be questioned and thoroughly studied.     

Eyewitness identification: Simulating the “Weapon effect”

The present experiment investigates the effect of weapons on eyewitness recall and recognition using a new experimental paradigm in which a syringe serves as weapon simulation. Contrary to previous weapon manipulations using slides or films of armed targets, the syringe paradigm is personally threatening to the subject. In a 2×2 design, 86 nonpsychology students were approached by an experimenter who was either holding a syringe or a pen and either did or did not threaten to administer an injection. Exposure to the syringe greatly decreased lineup recognition,p<.05, while enhancing the accuracy of recall for hand cues,p<.05. Contrary to predictions derived from the cue utilization hypothesis, threat of injection was not found to interact with the syringe manipulation. Investigation of individual differences indicated greater accuracy of recall for facial details the lower the subjects' fear of injections and the greater their cognitive abilities (closure and memory).This research project was supported in part by a grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to Günther Köhnken. The authors would like to thank Gabriele Knaab, Gabriele Dieckmann, and Ursula Dannenberg for ably conducting the research.     

A Multimodal Fusion Approach for Bullet Identification Systems

In the field of forensic science, bullet identification is based on the fact that firing the cartridge from a barrel leaves exclusive microscopic striation on the fired bullets as the fingerprint of the firearm. The bullet identification methods are categorized in 2‐D and 3‐D based on their image acquisition techniques. In this study, we focus on 2‐D optical images using a multimodal technique and propose several distinct methods as its modalities. The proposed method uses a multimodal rule‐based linear weighted fusion approach which combines the semantic level decisions from different modalities with a linear technique that its optimized modalities weights have been identified by the genetic algorithm. The proposed approach was applied on a dataset, which includes 180 2‐D bullet images fired from 90 different AK‐47 barrels. The experimentations showed that our approach attained better results compared to common methods in the field of bullet identification.     

Toxicological analysis after asphyxial suicide with helium and a plastic bag

A 23-year-old man was found on a raised hide in lying position, the head wrapped in a plastic bag connected with a helium gas cylinder by a polypropylene tube. The autopsy did not show any specific findings nor did the routine toxicological analysis reveal significant information regarding the cause of death (BAC 0.9 mg/g, diphenhydramine 0.81 μg/ml in heart serum). For the detection of helium in the lungs, gas samples from both lungs were collected by a method ensuring minimal dilution. Gas analyses were performed using a GC–MS with a split–splitless injector and a headspace syringe. As carrier gas the commonly used helium was replaced by nitrogen. Helium was found in clearly elevated concentrations in gas samples from both lungs. Therefore, suffocation by breathing helium enriched, and thus oxygen deficient atmosphere, can strongly be assumed as the cause of death.     

Articles found in the possession of a methamphetamine abuser

A plastic syringe containing bloody fluid, 2 ampules of 20% glucose, an ampule containing diphenhydramine hydrochloride and calcium bromide, powder in a plastic bag and powder wrapped in paper were among the articles found in the possession of a 42-year-old male methamphetamine abuser, who had been taken to a mental hospital owing to his hallucinations.Examination of the patient revealed several recent needle punctures on the left forearm. The concentration of methamphetamine and its metabolite, amphetamine, in blood collected 1 day following the last intake was 76 nmol/100 g. Analysis of the powder and of the contents of the syringe revealed methamphetamine hydrochloride at a concentration of 99.0–99.5% and 7.4%, respectively. Neither glucose nor diphenhydramine were detected in the contents of the syringe.It would seem that the patient abused methamphetamine hydrochloride by intravenous injection after dissolving it in city water or distilled water.