Forensic Test Kits

Have you ever watched all those television shows that have forensic experts on them and wonder exactly how they perform forensic human identification?  Television shows such as BONES, CSI, and the PROFILER often have bodies brought into the lab that need identifying.  Usually they will have teeth, a deformity, or some unique organ or bone missing.  Sometimes there are even pieces of jewelry that identify who the person might be.  These anthropologists give names back to the victims of horrible crimes and allow their family some peace using forensic human identification.  They take the bodies apart and put them back together looking for the smallest clue or piece of evidence to help them solve the crime.Forensic human identification is a cross between forensic anthropology and human osteology (study of the skeleton).  Anthropologists employ certain techniques to assess ancestry, sex, age, and any trauma or disease.  They can also tell how long the body has been outside or how long it has been deceased.  If the remains have an identifying characteristic, that may also help in the forensic human identification. 

Another use of forensic human identification is to determine how the victim died.  By studying the marks on the bones, an anthropologist can determine if the marks were made antemortem, perimortem, or postmortem.  That is before, near, or after the time of death.  They have found that cremated remains can even give much surprising information about the deceased.

Surprisingly, forensic human identification is not the only thing under this field of work.  Computer programmers and other certified people can perform forensic data recovery.  After someone has been killed at an office or their home, the killer will sometimes try to erase evidence off the victim’s computer. Specially trained people are brought in to recover the information on the hard drive.

Computers do keep activity records that can be used to figure out what the person was trying to look up or find out.  They can also look at images viewed and what files had been downloaded.  The problem with the procedure that the killer was trying to accomplish is that to erase the whole system while leaving the operating system intact is not a good idea.  Most don’t accomplish their goal, but it does slow the forensic people down some.

For example, if they go to the last web pages looked at that day.  They can download and see any cookies on the machine, see if any online forums were posted to, see what pages were visited, and see what his email had in it if anything.  They do this to make sure they haven’t missed any clues or any messages the victim may have been trying to leave behind.

Another trick used by the killer may be to download everything onto his own file disc and then erase the information.  This can cause the same problem as above.  Erasing the items does not mean they absolutely have come off the hard drive.  Therefore, it can still be retrievable.  Most every tool used by someone trying to erase the hard drive will not do everything you want it to do.  Microsoft will still use shortcut files that may not be erased.  A specialized Window and Internet cleaner does not erase the history files of visited sites.  It also does not erase deleted mail in Outlook Express.  Shortcuts can be especially hard to get rid of when erasing.  They can still take you to the name and file that is still located on the hard drive.

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