Journal of Forensic Research

Methamphetamine (MA) abuse is one of the challenging problems in Forensic Pathology. It has adverse effects on heart, intestine and male reproductive system. In 1990’s it was identified as an alarming problems among the adolescents. Thus the agent was included as a controlled substance. This has created two main problems. In one hand, the scientists engaged in research in this field have failed to carry forward their research projects due to scarcity of the substance. On the other hand, plenty of this substance is illegally manufactured and available in the black market especially at the border area. The article explains the current situation of MA abuse and health conditions after withdrawal of the agent.

Psychiatry has always played both a clinical and controller role of social dangerousness, in a culturally accepted vision. This variety of roles appears to be much more evident when psychiatry aims to study the relationships between aggressiveness, impulsivity, mental illness and crime. In those cases, psychiatrists must assess the capability to judge when a crime is committed, that is to say the imputability of a culprit affected by a mental illness, (articles 88 and 89 of the Italian Penal Code). There are cases in which a culprit suffers of a “major” mental illness, such as those belonging to the Axis I of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV-Text Revision (DSM IV-TR), or those which the classic psychopathology describes as schizophrenic psychosis or manic-depressive psychosis, but the culprit’s capability to distinguish between right and wrong is not impaired; a culprit is affected by a “minor” personality disorder, according to the DSM-IV, or by a psychopathic personality according to the old psychopathologic definition, but the capability to judge may be impaired in different ways. In the following work, we are going to explore the psychopathological profile of a borderline personality disorder in a case of uxoricide: the motive of the crime is jealousy and it’s carrying out arises from impulsivity that is a distinctive trait of this kind of personality. The psychopathological assessment was performed through several clinical interviews for the anamnestic data collection and the diagnostic classification and through a psycho-diagnostic protocol including the Rorschach test and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2).

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction Annual Report 2011 in many European countries amphetamines or ecstasy is the second most commonly used illicit substance after cannabis. More reliable and objective method based on the ‘sewage epidemiology’ was applied to estimate the level of amphetamines consumption in Poland. Amphetamine, methamphetamine and MDMA (ecstasy) were determined in wastewater samples collected from the main Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Polish city of Poznan (about 687,000 people) using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS). Back-calculations used in the ‘sewage epidemiology’ approach were applied to estimate the level of consumption of analyzed drugs. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to check the monthly differences between determinations. Two-year profiles of consumption for amphetamine methamphetamine and ecstasy were calculated. Results from our city indicate that consumption of amphetamines is one order of magnitude lower than in Western Europe. Therefore, there is a different profile of amphetamines consumption. Consumption of amphetamine is several times lower, but the consumption of ecstasy is relatively high. ANOVA analysis confirmed significant differences between monthly loads of determined illicit drugs

Handwriting is a person’s particular & individual style of writing with pen or pencil, which contrasts with “Hand’’ which is an impersonal and formalized writing style in several historical varieties. In the present study 100 samples of handwriting were collected for the “Identification of handedness of author on the basis of their strokes and characteristic features’’. Out of 100 handwriting samples, 50 were left-handed writer and 50 were right-handed writer. The study was carried out at the School of Forensic-Science, SHIATS, Allahabad. Left-handed writing and Righthanded writing samples were identified on the basis of horizontal strokes and slope and the hypothesis considered that there is significant difference in left-handed writing and right-handed writing were checked.

Defence wounds are injuries which are suffered by an individual in an attempt to save oneself from assault or while defending oneself from the offenders. The nature of these wounds varies depending on the type of weapon used, amount of force and the state of consciousness at the time of attack. They are of great significance in differentiating between manner i.e. homicide, suicide and accident. Hence the present study was undertaken to differentiate the pattern of injuries during defence in Homicidal deaths. A total of 205 cases of homicide were studied. Defence wounds were present in 44.4% of cases, out of which 92.3% were male and 7.7% cases were females. Maximum number of cases (45.1%) with defence wounds belonged to age group 20-29 years. Defence wounds present in injuries caused by sharp cutting weapon with stab wound were less (36.55) as compared to hard and blunt object (57.1%). In 30.8% cases defence wounds were present in more than one part of body. In 17.6% of cases alcohol was found in the contents of the stomach on post-mortem examination. Conclusion: The occurrence of defence wounds varies according to social, political, economic and cultural conditions of the area. The region of Central India is an agricultural region where use of sharp instruments is more common. The institute where this study was conducted is a cultural capital where fights between various social groups take place frequently.

A preliminary step to the examination of signatures is the objective assessment of the variability range that is peculiar to the writer; in document examination it is quite rare to come across standardized procedures allowing an effective discrimination between genuine and simulated signatures. This study took into consideration 104 questioned signatures (coming from 20 real and Judge-ruled cases) that were inspected to evaluate non-shape-related indicators in their ability to assess correctly genuineness or simulation; the research particularly focused on the evaluation of letter heights - with special reference to the positions of the individual letters within the signature - and on the subsequent height ratios between extenders (upper and lower) and the other small letters. The combination of the information gained from the statistical survey, assisted by calculation of confidence intervals, of these height indicators with the observation within the signature of the spots where between-letter pen lifts occur led to an effective discriminating method for medium/long signatures. Data processing also yielded useful indications on the letters that most frequently trigger off height errors in forgery and provided other interesting results, such as the positions within the signature where simulators most frequently fail.

Diatoms are unicellular microorganisms which are commonly found in almost all water bodies. Their silica wall plays important tool in forensic diatomology. Diatom test has been widely applied to detect post mortem or antemortem drowning and comparing the diatoms found in biological sample with those found in water sample confirms that death took place, probably in same water medium. However, in skeletonized stage or dismemberment of body parts at different location, diatom of specific kind helps to link the place of drowning. Diatom fingerprinting was thus created studied for 2 years in water bodies of Haryana to differentiate commonly, least commonly found and seasonal diatoms. A total of 111 species and their 55 genera of diatoms were identified. Diatom genera which were commonly found at all the ten sites were Achnanthes, Asterionella, Aulacoseira, Cyclotella, Gomphonema, Navicula, Nitzschia, Synedra and Tabularia. Some of the diatoms were site specific such as, Cymatopleura, Opephora, and Capartogramma and Cyclotella. A new genus of diatom was discovered Eunocymbellarania vandana, which thus make it site specific. Study of seasonal and site specific diatoms at different sites may help in indicating time of drowning along with the location of drowning which would be very helpful for the scientific forensic investigation of drowning cases.

Touch DNA evidence is increasingly being collected and analyzed during criminal investigations. The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant amount of male (suspect) touch DNA can be collected from the clothes of assaulted victims after varying time intervals. A “grab and struggle” model was used to transfer touch DNA materials from human volunteers onto three types of fabrics (cotton, polyester, and a cotton/polyester blend). This was designed to replicate a sexual assault, in which a male acted as an “assailant” and grabbed different fabric covered arm areas of a female volunteer “victim”. Afterwards, three cuttings from each fabric sample were taken and extracted at 12 hours and 7 days post-deposition. The extracts were then quantified using the Quantifiler®Duo DNA quantification kit. The maximum yield of DNA from cotton fabric 12 hours post-deposition was 7 pg/ul and 5 pg/ul for total human DNA and human male DNA, respectively. The limit of detection of the Quantifiler Duo kit is 23 pg/ul, therefore these results are below standard profile detection range. No significant deterioration of DNA yield between the two time intervals (12 hours and 7 days) was observed. Variation between the tested fabrics and the areas of sampling could not be determined due to the very small quantities measured. This study did not find useful amounts of touch DNA on clothes after this assault model. Results are limited by a relatively small sample size and the assault model parameters; however, these results do not support the routine use of touch DNA evidence from clothes in similar assault cases

The conditions under which contact DNA analysis yields useful recovery of materials is not well known. Using simulated models of grabbing and struggling, the recovery of male contact DNA transferred from male “assailants” to female “victims” was investigated. The upper and lower arm areas of female subjects (sites for the modeled assaults) were swabbed for male DNA. Extracted DNA was quantified using the Quantifiler® Duo DNA Quantification kit and amplified using the AmpFlSTR® Identifiler® and the AmpFlSTR® YfilerTM PCR Amplification kits. The qPCR quantification results detected male “assailant” DNA from the female “victims”. However, no viable male profiles were obtained when the DNA was subjected to short tandem repeat (STR) analysis with the Identifiler® and Yfiler™ kits. The grab and struggle scenarios yielded up to 20 pg/μL and 40 pg/μL of male contact DNA from female subjects, respectively, DNA amounts which are below the detection threshold of most commercial human STR identification kits. Although contact DNA levels are highly variable, this study showed that the likelihood of DNA deposition on skin from assailant to victim was substantially greater when a struggle ensues. The results of the present study are limited by small sample size, but imply that further research for improving recovery and amplification techniques of contact DNA should be sought to increase the probative value of this evidence in sexual assault investigations.