Zombie CSU (18 page)
GSR, on the other hand, more clearly ties the suspect to the crime. If a person fires a gun, there is residue and powder burns on the hand, wrist, and forearm (or sleeve). The attacker who was shot at by the guard, since the fight was at close quarters, will have telltale residue on his clothes, even if the bullets missed.
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Oh, Come On Now!
In films we are willing to suspend our disbelief, but in return we should expect at least an attempt on the part of the filmmakers to use as much logic as possible. Give us a reason (even a mediocre one)! Some films step way over the line and abuse our credulity. I called on my friends on the PhillyGeek Yahoo! group for their input on films that just break too many rules of science:
Independence Day
(1996): “The odds of being able to interface with the computers on an alien spaceship are astronomic. Having someone cook up a computer virus (within a couple of hours) that will then wreck those alien computers is just too much.”—Shelley Handen- Godzilla
(1998): “In the Matthew Broderick remake there’s a scene where ’Zilla runs through the streets towards the Hudson River and makes this graceful dive into the river; the thing is, that part of the Hudson isn’t that deep, and half the body should have been sticking out the surface of the water.”—Pete Hynes - Alien: Resurrection
(1997) (a.k.a
Alien 4
): “Even if you grant the whole ‘cloning Ripley to get the Alien queen’s DNA out of her,’ how could that queen give live birth at the end? She’d need all new reproductive/endocrine/nervous system organs.”—Dena Procaccini - The Last Mimzy
(2007): “The little girl can put her hand even her face in a force field where her molecules are jumbled, and yet there is no physical effect and she doesn’t suffer from oxygen deprivation even though she has no means of breathing. And then there is the kids’ affecting the power grid even though they are not plugged into it?”—Danielle Ackley-McPhail - Star Trek
(1966–present): “I love it, but it’s riddled with ridiculous science, but one part stretched even their stretched physics: There are theoretical maximums to faster than light travel for the space vessels, but broadcast communications have zero lag.”—Steven Feldman - The Black Hole
(1979): “Emotional robots and people breathing in outer space. Oh, come on now!”—Lynn and Bill Koehle - Return of the Living Dead
(1985): “All of the zombies have perfectly fine eyes with not a single indication of rot. Really, take a look. And then there’s Linnea Quigley not having a mark on her after hordes of zombies had chomped on her. But I’m not complaining about that. An intact naked zombie Linnea Quigley is better than a ripped to pieces zombie Linnea Quigley.”—David Christman
Expert Witness
Elizabeth Becka, forensic specialist and author of
Trace Evidence
and
Unknown Means
, says, “GSR can refer to two different things—gunshot residue that blows back
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from the gun onto the shooter’s hands, which is residue from the primer compounds and usually contains barium and antimony, and gunshot residue that flies forward from the barrel onto the victim, the victim’s clothing, or anything else in the vicinity, and is gunpowder, containing nitrites.”
I asked Becka how distance was measured in GSR. “Usually through a Griess test, using treated photographic paper to demonstrate the nitrites present around the bullet hole in clothing. The gunpowder leaves the barrel in an expanding cone, getting wider the further from the barrel the particles travel (until they fall off entirely at around 3 feet). The smaller and denser this circular pattern is, the closer the end of the barrel was to the target. This can be determined with great accuracy if you take the same gun with the same ammunition and do test firings at six feet and twelve feet etc. and do the Griess test on the test targets as well as the article of clothing, then compare.”
She says that the test is different when looking for GSR on human flesh: “On skin—it used to be via atomic absorption, which involved picking up the samples with moistened swabs; this would tell you if barium or antimony or both were present. Now it’s done with stubs with sticky tape on the end and they’re run through a scanning electron microscope, which can not only tell if barium and antimony are present but also if the particles are in a telltale spherical shape.”
When asked how long GSR evidence will linger, she says, “On clothing forever if not disturbed, I suppose. On living skin (will natural oils affect this) we generally don’t bother collecting if it’s been more than 4 hours since the shooting, or if they’ve thoroughly washed their hands in the meantime.”
The Zombie Factor
I asked if GSR would adhere differently to the skin of a corpse as opposed to living flesh? “You can think of GSR as very fine dirt or dust,” Becka says. “It doesn’t adhere well to dry, clean skin, sticking better to sweaty, oily or sticky hands. So it would depend on how long the person has been dead, and/or if he’s been cleaned since death (such as at the morgue or funeral home), and/or if he’s got something sticky on his hands, blood, mud, soda pop. On dead skin it will last forever if not disturbed, though dead skin would always be disturbed eventually by the decomposition process.”
This means if the zombie is caught it can be tied to the crime scene, and if this zombie is our patient zero, then the medical research company and the surrounding area become the center point for the search for the origin of this zombie plague.
J
UST THE
F
ACTS
Forensic Anthropology
Forensic anthropology combines the study of the culture and physicality of humans throughout history—with the criminal investigation. These investigators have a detailed knowledge of osteology (skeletal anatomy and biology) and a working knowledge of the requirements of law enforcement. Their research, evidence analysis, and findings often aid in discovering the cause of death of skeletal remains, and in the identification of the victim. Quite often they are called in to excavate remains using precise archaeological techniques.
