Committing crime? Better shave off the hair first!

Ancient criminals would worry about things like their fingerprints, their boot-tracks and so on; quite superficial when we consider modern advances in crime detection. Now malefactors have got a whole new worry on their heads. Quite literally! Forensic scientists have developed a technique that’d help in identifying a criminal by a strand of his hair. This technique relies on picking up the chemical “fingerprint” of air and water, which differ as per nations and even different regions. Whenever a person breathes, drinks or eats in a particular place, he picks up cocktails of atoms present in air and water, known as isotopes. As his hair grows, these isotopes get embedded within, providing a record of where a person has been.

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One of the foremost authorities to put this method in practice is Dr Stuart Black, a senior lecturer in forensic analysis at the department of archeology at Reading University. He says:

The key is not just looking at a single isotope, but a broad range of isotopes to give us a much more detailed picture.

This method has been used effectively to generate the profile of the person involved in a murder, which took place in England last year. Scientists claim that they can pinpoint a person’s movements within certain regions of UK like Wales or north-east England. As more “isotope maps” are developed for regions around the world, this technique would gain usage and accuracy.

Methods involving the detection of isotopes have been used in other fields before, like by archaeologists and environmentalists. In forensics this is quite new though and the field does seem promising.

I guess next time you go stabbing someone, burying the knife should be second on your list of priorities. Getting a haircut ought to be your primary concern!

Via