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Forensics, the latest methods

by NewsPress articlesVidéos

When pollen and insect larvae are used to solve criminal cases and even historical enigmas...

This documentary takes a look at the fascinating resources of science for investigators.

For Scottish researcher Lorna Dawson of the James Hutton Institute, soils, especially forest soils, can provide valuable clues to the location of a crime based on fingerprints.

Blood samples can also reveal important information: Philippe Esperança, a forensic scientist in France, is working to bring to light traces that are a priori invisible.

At the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Frankfurt, entomologist Jens Amendt works with flies and their larvae, which, when taken from a corpse, can accurately indicate the time of death.

Latest prowess

Used since the 1980s, DNA testing is probably the most important revolution in the history of criminology. As a new and indispensable ally in judicial investigations, it has led to the creation of a true scientific police force and the development of new forensic methods. With the enlightenment of researchers, this documentary offers a panorama of the latest prowess and promise of science in order to break through the most persistent enigmas.

Relatively recent in Europe, the analysis of pollen allows to identify those who were near a corpse, to know the places frequented by the deceased before his death or the season in which he died. The long life span of pollen ensures the preservation of traces dating back thousands of years. In Vienna, Martina Weber’s research has helped to solve crimes and to study historical events such as Pompeii.

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How does the scientific police work?

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How does the scientific police work?
(Le Mag de France Bleu Poitou)

Television loves forensics, because there are crimes, investigations, motives, and we get to see the daily lives of police officers and forensic scientists.

A short history of forensics

Before the first tools of forensic science, testimonies and confessions were the basis for convincing a suspect of his guilt. Alphonse Bertillon (1853 – 1914) founded the first police laboratory for criminal identification in 1882. He constituted the basis of forensic anthropometry, which allows the identification of people.

Ten years later, Francis Galton introduced systematic identification by fingerprints. Other valuable tools in a criminal case are the presence of traces, photos of the scene and a map of the scene. The forensics team makes observations at the scene, verifies and cross-checks the information gathered. It uses all techniques to materialize the facts.

In which cases does the forensic science department intervene?

The daily work of the forensic police of Poitiers is to intervene – in the order of the number of cases – on burglaries, robberies, discovery of stolen vehicles, corpses (found on the public highway, unidentified, suspicious deaths…), violence to persons, damages, fatal accidents, work accidents, rapes and drug trafficking.

In France in 2020, the police made 350 000 interventions and 50 000 identifications. In Poitiers, they made 2,000 trips and 250 identifications.

The forensic police look for material evidence following a very precise protocol. At the scene, they start by taking pictures to freeze the scene, look for traces and clues, install riders (these small numbers that identify the objects in the scene on the pictures) and take samples (objects, weapons).

The tools of forensic science

A number of samples are taken from a crime scene and from the suspect(s): fingerprints, hair, semen, gunshot residue on the shooting hand, presence of blood. To identify the presence of blood that is not visible to the naked eye, because the scene was cleaned before the police arrived, the forensic science team uses Bluestar to reveal the erased traces. The luminol makes the iron in the blood react.

The Poitiers crime lab is a pilot site in France for the digital forensics service.

Forensic medicine and DNA in the service of the truth

Forensic medicine is an essential tool of the scientific police. The autopsy is used to determine the circumstances of the death. Forensic scientists perform two types of examinations:

external examination of the body to determine ante-mortem and post-mortem trauma. The autopsy is an opening of the body to identify types of trauma, violence, blows, to take samples, to see the state of the lungs (in case of drowning) and to identify a body in bad condition, by taking a sample from the femur. The forensic pathologists will submit a forensic autopsy report.

DNA is a tool used on a daily basis by forensic scientists, including for burglaries. DNA is often a hope for cold cases, those cases that have remained unsolved for years (like the Grégory case or the Omar Raddad case). To be efficient, it is necessary to have a large quantity of quality samples and a good conservation of the seals, because the enemies of DNA are known: light, humidity, heat, UV rays…

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Forensic science, clue hunters

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Tarbes: Scientific police, the clue hunters

La nouvelle république des Pyrénées : November 4, 2021

The technical and scientific police of Tarbes opened us the doors of its service, the time of a day. Meeting with these technicians whose job feeds all the fantasies.

“They broke the door and turned everything upside down. A retired Tarbais, victim of a burglary, tells the sad state of the place to the forensic technician dispatched on the spot.

“Did you touch anything?” inquires Nicolas Levan, gloved and camera in hand. The policeman wants to know everything. “What time did you leave? Is that door still closed?” And when he spots mud still fresh on the ground, he asks to see the backyard. “They probably went through there.”

Because before getting out swabs and revealing powder, it is still necessary to understand the path of the authors to locate the surfaces on which they would have, by chance, deposited fingerprints and genetic traces. But this time, nothing happened. Jewelry boxes and a wooden box thrown carelessly on the bed do not allow the technician to find the slightest trace of a finger.

Tracked and traced

“Leather and wood are substrates on which gunpowder does not stick .” Last hope, pray that the burglars “swarmed” some of their DNA on the dresser’s wrists. “Once the sample is taken, we close the seal and send it for analysis. If there are biological traces, they will be compared in the National Automated DNA File (Fnaeg).” One of the two tools fed daily by law enforcement with the Faed, automated fingerprint file

Scanned on site, the seals then take the direction of the forensic laboratory of Toulouse, one of the five accredited to carry out the revelations in France (with Lille, Paris, Marseille and Lyon) , since the operational centralization of technical platforms in 2018.

Science and daily crimes

“There are several levels in forensics. The judicial police, which handles the big criminal cases, and the departmental public safety science services.”

In Tarbes, Nicolas Levan works with three agents under his responsibility. All women. “We mainly do misdemeanors.” Reports of people in police custody (papillary and genetic fingerprinting), robberies on wheels (in cars), burglaries… represent 90% of their activity. But sometimes, the members of the service are called for much more dramatic facts.

Bluestar on crime scene

“When a case goes unsolved after several months, it’s often because there were flaws in the initial scientific findings.” When he runs the Bluestar through Florence’s bathroom, the walls become stained with cleaned blood. “It’s a very powerful product. The morphoanalysis specialists took over to interpret the traces.” Expertise that have been confronted with the claims of the alleged author, and weakened his version of events. If he confides that being exposed to such violence can be psychologically difficult, Nicolas Levan- expresses the feeling of accomplished duty. “On this file, I was able to participate in the manifestation of the truth, for the benefit of the victim.”

American Myth

Far from the image conveyed by the American police series, the technical and scientific police of proximity are essential in the treatment of everyday cases. “I liked CSI Las Vegas. But the American judicial system and ours don’t work the same way. And to shatter a myth: “Only on TV do you systematically find DNA from a single hair.”

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Lemerle case: traces of blood revealed by Bluestar

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On the first day of Vanessa Lemerle's trial for the violent confinement of her brother

Le quotidien : October 26, 2021

On the first day of the trial of Vanessa Lemerle for the violent kidnapping of her brother on April 10, 2018 in Saint-Gilles, the director of investigation returned at length on the circumstances of the discovery of the facts.

“He was stoic when the police arrived. But once out of the hospital, he seemed terrorized, realizing that he could have died.” Invited to testify on the occasion of the first day of the trial of Vanessa Lemerle and her companion (our edition of yesterday), the gendarme in charge of leading the investigation tells the first contacts with Nicolas Lemerle this April 10, 2018, when the Saint-Gillois says he was a victim of a violent sequestration at his home.

On the spot, “the findings are consistent with his statements,” as noted by President Virginie Bellouard. The military first discovered “the two dogs groggy and slumped.” At the entrance of the villa, remains of pet food. And in the garbage can, a tube of sleeping pills suggesting that the dogs had been drugged. In the garden, near a tree, “a rope, a garden hose and a shower hose” that the victim described as having been used to tie him up.

And in the house, “traces of blood absolutely everywhere, that had marked me” tells the investigator of the brigade of research of Saint-Paul. On the pillow of the bed, in the living room, on sheets of the office. “And especially in the bathroom, with large projections on the walls. Everything fits with the story of Nicolas, pulled from his bed around 00:30 that night by a mysterious assailant in black tracksuit, beaten with what he first takes for “a baton”, then the forearm lacerated with a knife.

The policewoman also tells about her discoveries at Vanessa Lemerle’s home in Saline-les-Bains, since it is indeed her own sister that Nicolas suspects of being the instigator of his aggression. It is necessary to say that, during the three to four hours that lasts his sequestration, the man in black made several times reference to Vanessa and to a conflict about the inheritance of their father, late the president of the chamber of the notaries Paul Lemerle.

"Perplexed as to its good faith"

“In the garden, not far from the car with the still warm hood, we will discover two small piles of smoking ashes.” In one of them, a remnant of a gray sock matching another sock found in Vanessa Lemerle’s Peugeot 208, and which Nicolas described as having served as gloves to his assailant when he threatened him with a chainsaw. A machine of a particular brand, usually stored in the garden shed of Vanessa Lemerle’s house and that the gendarmes found not far from the car. There is also this empty package of Chesterfield, the brand of cigarette butts found in front of the gate of Nicolas Lemerle’s house.

And then, under Vanessa’s bed, there is this large Maglite flashlight, which looks like what the victim had initially taken for a baton and which was used to hit her. Passed to the Blue-star developer, the lamp turns out to be carrying traces of blood having been cleaned…

The gendarme remembers the attitude of Vanessa Lemerle, who says she did not notice anything abnormal that night, and that she lives alone. While the military saw a man suddenly pull the curtain of one of the rooms. “His version did not stick to our findings, and I was puzzled about his good faith, so I decided to place it in custody, “says the investigator.

During the auditions, she will discover the visceral hatred that the brother and sister seem to have for each other

During the auditions, she will discover the visceral hatred that the brother and sister seem to have for each other, and not only since the death of their father or for a question of inheritance. It is the elder sister, Emmanuelle, who confirms this from her home in London. “The conflict has always existed between them, even when they were children. And for Emmanuelle, there is no problem of inheritance, their father has put them all in a safe place” relates the policewoman.

It would not be the first time that their relationship drifted into violence. “In 2010, during a birthday there was a dispute that led to a complaint from Vanessa Lemerle,” recalls the director of the investigation. That time, it is Nicolas who would have struck Vanessa … with a large Maglite.

The grudge, to the point of hiring a henchman to go and terrorize his brother, even “cutting off a finger or a limb”, in the style of “gangster films” as M’Barki will say? “One cannot help but think that there is a link with the use of this lamp”, the president remarks.

Briefly questioned yesterday, Vanessa Lemerle continues to say that she is not involved in any form of complicity in the facts of the case. Resumption of the debates this morning, with the hearing of the witnesses.

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Troadec case: traces of blood, burning of the bodies, the word of the experts.

by NewsPress articlesUncategorized

The trial of Hubert Caouissin and Lydie Troadec continued with the testimony of experts who worked on the case.

France info : 29.06.2021

The trial of Hubert Caouissin and Lydie Troadec is taking place in Nantes at the assizes of Loire Atlantique until July 9, 2021.

This Tuesday, June 29, the day was devoted to the account of the experts who worked on the quadruple murder of the Troadec family in Orvault, near Nantes, in February 2017.

The hearing resumed at 9:15 a.m. The president of the assize court, Karine Laborde, calls Pascal Olivier, a DNA expert.

Pascal Olivier quickly explains the principle of DNA. How it can exclude an individual with affirmative when the general characteristics are different. But two individuals can have a close genetic profile. That it is then necessary to refine.

“We used a reagent specific to the Y chromosome to bring out particularities of the DNA. We used Bluestar as a reagent for human blood. It reacts particularly to red blood cells.

Three locations, the crime scene, the 308 car, and the farm.

“We didn’t have a body. From accessories, clothing, we were able to find four DNAs, and verify that they belonged to the missing persons. With washcloths or toothbrushes found at the homes of children we could easily validate these DNA.

“For the crime scene, we found Brigitte’s blood in the garage, the master bedroom, Sebastian’s bedroom, the bathroom, mixed with two others, Pascal and Sebastian.

“Pascal was found in the garage, the entrance, the bedroom, the staircase”.

(Pascal Olivier, genetic fingerprint expert)

“Sebastien, the bed in his room, on a smartphone, in the garage, on a switch in the bathroom. The media reported his guilt, we were able to forget this hypothesis,” he says, continuing, “under Charlotte’s wardrobe we found the genetic fingerprint of Brigitte and Pascal.

"There is a probability of error of 1 in 29 million billion"

“In the kitchen, we have bowls of mugs, we have on a glass two prints in mixture. One of Sebastian, the other unknown. Which turned out to be that of Hubert Caouissin. There is a probability of error of 1 in 29 million billion. We also found Hubert Caouissin’s DNA on the blue chair in the garden.

“There are few places where we find Charlotte’s DNA. On Charlotte’s stethoscope in particular (it’s not the one Hubert Caouissin is talking about), on the parts that are put in the ears”.

“In the vehicle 308, we had 76 samples, there we find the genetic fingerprints of the victims out of blood traces, we find the DNA of Hubert Caouissin on the ventilation control and on the interior mirror “.

With the Bluestar, we find the genetic prints of Pascal, Brigitte, and Sébastien

(Pascal Olivier, genetic fingerprint expert)

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Daval case: investigation and use of Bluestar

by NewsPress articlesReal Cases solved with BLUESTAR® FORENSICUncategorized

Daval trial: life sentence requested against Jonathann Daval accused of a "terrible" crime, relive the sixth morning of the trial

L’est Républicain : 21.11.2020

“When I am told that a young, healthy woman has disappeared while jogging, I take this case very seriously. I am already worried” Emmanuel Dupic then asks the investigators to do a more thorough hearing of Jonathann Daval. “A hearing that will be important because it allows us to have doubts. We will ask him to show us his wounds: we note traces on his body. Bites or scratches. These elements have strongly disturbed me. “

“That is why we will conduct, from Sunday, a search with many means, such as Bluestar, to reveal the traces of blood.”

Daval trial: life sentence requested against Jonathann Daval accused of a “terrible” crime, relive the sixth morning of the trial (Audio)

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Bluestar, the miracle product that solves many criminal investigations

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Bluestar, which was developed in a CNRS laboratory, has become an essential tool in complex investigations and a formidable weapon in the hands of the technical and scientific police.

Le Parisien : 01.04.2019 (France)

Summoned last Thursday before the investigating judge, Jean-Marc Reiser, the main suspect in the disappearance of Sophie Le Tan in September in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), fell from above. After nine hours of questioning, the magistrate presented him with a new piece of evidence: a saw discovered in his cellar by the police.

On the handle, the blood of Sophie Le Tan. A “damning element”, according to Gérard Welzer, the lawyer of Sophie Le Tan’s family. A discovery made possible by Bluestar. A product that “now equips the police in a hundred countries around the world,” said Jean-Marc Lefebvre-Despeaux, head of Bluestar Forensic, based in Monaco.

Created in 2003 by Loïc Blum, a researcher at the CNRS, the Bluestar quickly became a must-have for technical and forensic police services, replacing the Luminol. “The reaction of the Bluestar is much more intense and longer,” says Jean-Marc Lefebvre-Despeaux.

“When I was based in Seine-Saint-Denis, my team, which covered a quarter of the department, used it about ten times a year,” explains Christophe, head technician at PTS, who now trains the teams that go to crime scenes. “We use it in camouflaged blood crimes, when we think there may have been traces that have been cleaned up. “

Bluestar’s strength is that it illuminates blood despite the perpetrators’ efforts to clean it up. In the Reiser case, the Bluestar revealed a large amount of blood in the suspect’s bathroom. It is very difficult to achieve perfect cleaning,” says Jean-Marc Lefebvre-Despeaux. We will almost always find it: between a skirting board and the floor, in the tile joints…”. And sometimes years later.

While working in Seine-Saint-Denis, Christophe remembers, for example, finding traces of blood under a carpet that were ten years old. “Even on surfaces that a suspect thinks are impervious, on an object that he has cleaned perfectly, we can find it,” says the forensic technician.

This is the case with the saw found at Jean-Marc Reiser’s home, which had obviously been cleaned by the suspect. The same goes for the screwdriver discovered a few years ago by Christophe and his team in the context of a murder case. “We were looking for an object like an ice pick, which had been stuck in a man’s head. We came across a toolbox with a screwdriver. We sprayed it with Bluestar and it turned blue,” recalls Christophe. And yet, the suspect had cleaned everything up, you couldn’t see anything with the naked eye. “

But science has brought the murderer down. Will Jean-Marc Reiser suffer the same fate? Confronted with this new “damning” piece of evidence, he was “confused”, according to a source close to the case.

Daval trial: life sentence requested against Jonathann Daval accused of a “terrible” crime, relive the sixth morning of the trial (Audio)

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Alexia Daval case: other acts and hearings to come

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L’est Républicain : 07.07.2018

New forensic experts
About forty experts of all kinds have already worked on the case: no less than five forensic doctors; several automobile experts from the Gendarmerie’s criminal research institute (tire tracks, tracker analysis, etc.); an army of criminal identification technicians for the collection of traces left in various places (DNA, pollen, fingerprints, sheets, etc.); fire specialists and computer experts…

“Everything has come back without interest, except for the autopsy which shows that Alexia was massacred”, sighs Me Florand (read elsewhere). An outburst of violence that makes the lawyer say that “nothing fits between Daval’s different declarations and the objective elements of the case”.

Does this mean that everything has been tried in terms of expertise? Probably not. The investigating magistrate will have to take into account the last statements of Jonathann Daval and act quickly. New telephone expertises (analysis of fadettes, boundary markers, SMS…) should be launched, this time concerning the communications made by the members of the family entourage, which Daval is now blaming. The video surveillance system of the city of Gray could be scrutinized.

If a search of the parents’ house seems difficult, a search for traces at their home, according to the “blue star” method, seems “inevitable”, concedes their lawyer. It is there, indeed, that Daval now places the crime. “The judge is investigating the case against him, so he is going to check it out,” observes the lawyer for the civil parties. According to Me Randall Schwerdorffer, Jonathann Daval’s lawyer, many investigations “have not been done” and “will have to be done” in the light of his client’s statements.

Alexia Daval case: other acts and hearings to come (Audio)

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Scientific advances have made a blood trail speak for itself

by NewsPress articlesReal Cases solved with BLUESTAR® FORENSIC

Maëlys: how scientific progress made a microscopic trace of blood talk

FRANCE 3 : 09.12.2019

They escaped the meticulous cleaning of Nordahl Lelandais. Then, at first, from the attention of the investigators. It is micro traces of blood, discovered under floor mats, in the trunk of the Audi A3 of the suspect of the homicide of Maëlys de Araujo, which allowed to confound him and to extract a confession.

In the last ten years, science has made spectacular progress in making tiny bloodstains speak for themselves. “In 2000, a trace of half a centimetre was needed to identify a victim, but today it can be done when the traces are not visible to the human eye,” explains Colonel Patrick Touron, the director of the Gendarmerie’s criminal research institute (IRCGN).

Nylon instead of cotton

For a criminal, it is becoming increasingly difficult to remove evidence. “The blade of a knife may have been carefully cleaned, and by taking the object apart, we can find traces inside the handle that will be useful, even if there is not much left. Or in the case,” says Marie-Gaëlle Le Pajolec, co-director of the Institut Génétique Nantes Atlantique (IGNA).

Over the past ten years, the whole chain leading to the identification of victims from their blood has evolved, starting with the detection of blood cells. “Blood developers such as Bluestar allow us to find invisible traces. There are also devices that trigger lights at particular wavelengths,” continues Marie-Gaëlle Le Pajolec. These are the kind of tools that were used to find the micro traces of Maëlys’ blood.

The next step, sampling, has also been perfected. “We used to use swabs with cotton stems where moulds could grow. Today, we use swabs with nylon stems that dry much faster,” adds the IGNA expert.

Study the projections

Extracting DNA from the cells and duplicating it for investigative purposes (‘amplifying’ it in scientific language) is also made easier. “Blood is a very rich material in DNA. From very small traces, it is now possible to obtain fingerprints. For DNA extraction, we have much more efficient kits than ten years ago,” says Marie-Gaëlle Le Pajolec. This stage, which used to take a week, now only takes a few hours…

Investigators can also count on the experts in morpho-analysis of blood traces from three French centres, including the IRCGN and the IGNA. This discipline, developed in France since the end of the 1990s, makes it possible to develop scenarios based on blood projections: was the victim hit? Were there several protagonists? As in the case of Maëlys, the size, shape and distribution of each drop of blood are carefully examined.

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Invisible bloodstains revealed by Bluestar

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Mallouk case: the long trial of a murder without a confession (FRANCE 3)

Hafid Mallouk is to be tried for a fortnight for the murder of his girlfriend, a young nurse whose body was found burnt in a forest in Villers-les-Nancy.

The judicial path has been very long and tortuous to bring Hafid Mallouk to the courtroom of the Nancy assizes court. And his trial promises to be just as long and tortuous. It will open on 22 January at 2pm and is due to last two weeks.
 
Two weeks during which experts of all kinds will take the stand. For in this case, the courts have had recourse to almost every possible means of scientific investigation. This was not enough to overcome the block of denials in which Hafid Mallouk was locked. But it did drastically reduce the room for doubt.
 
The 39-year-old from Nancy, employed on a fixed-term contract in an insurance firm before his arrest, is accused of having killed his companion, Julie Martin, a 34-year-old nurse with whom he had a baby daughter. The case dates back to 30 June 2014. That day, in the early afternoon, the police and fire brigade intervened at the couple’s home, on rue Jean-Prouvé, next to the Place de la Croix-de-Bourgogne, in Nancy. It was Hafid Mallouk’s brother who alerted them because he came to the door of the house and nobody answered his calls.
 
The firemen entered through the window and discovered the thirty-year-old locked in the bathroom. He was frantically washing his hands. His hands show signs of injury. The man looks shocked and is unable to give coherent answers to the police’s questions.

Invisible bloodstains revealed by the Bluestar

In particular, he is unable to explain where his girlfriend has gone. This suspicious behaviour prompted the police to search the flat. They used “Bluestar“, a product that reveals bloodstains invisible to the naked eye. They then realised that there were significant traces of blood throughout the flat, from the bathroom to the bedroom and the kitchen, and that everything had been cleaned.

 

For the investigators, it is clear that Julie Martin has been killed and they are at the scene of her murder. But there is no body. The victim remains unaccounted for. Until 14 July 2014. A walker discovers the completely charred body of the young woman in the Clairlieu forest in Villers-lès-Nancy.

This was the starting point of a marathon of scientific investigations. Everything was examined: analysis of the soil from the pyre as well as various objects found burnt with the body, autopsy of the charred bones, DNA research, study of the shape of the bloodstains found in the flat on Rue Jean-Prouvé and analysis of the couple’s mobile and fixed telephone lines.

All of this leads to a body of damning evidence against Hafid Mallouk. The last investigating judge in charge of the case retained nine elements to send him back to the court of assizes (see elsewhere). However, the thirty-year-old persists in denying it.

His psychological health seems to have deteriorated since he has been in detention. He regularly turns his cell into a dumping ground or degrades it. What will be his attitude at the trial? The answer will be given on 22 January. He is facing life imprisonment.

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Photographing bloodstains

July 7, 2016

Photographing bloodstains: Bluestar reagent FORENSICS 4 AFRICA 07.07.2016 (Nick Olivier) In the late summer of 2012, police officers in a small Midwestern town were called

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