Decomposing Human Blood: Canine Detection Odor Signature and Volatile Organic Compounds
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Rendine, Marcello [2] ; Fiore, Carmela [3] ; Bertozzi, Giuseppe [2] ; De Carlo, Dania [2] ; Filetti, Vera [1] ; Fortarezza, Palmira [3] ; Riezzo, Irene [2]
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[1] University of Catania
University of Catania
Catania, Italia
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[2] Section of Legal Medicine, Azienda Ospedaliero – Universitaria “Ospedali Riuniti” of Foggia,
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[3] Section of Forensic Toxicology, Ospedale G. Tatarella,
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- Localización: Journal of forensic sciences, ISSN-e 1556-4029, ISSN 0022-1198, Vol. 64, Nº. 2, 2019, págs. 587-592
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
The admissibility of human “odor mortis” discrimination in courts depends on the lack of comprehension of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during the human decay process and of the lack in standardized procedures in training cadaver dogs. Blood was collected from four young people who died from traffic accidents and analyzed using S-SPME/GC-MS at different decompositional stages. Two dogs, professionally trained, were tested to exactly locate blood samples, for each time point of the experiment. We found a long list of VOCs which varied from fresh to decomposed blood samples, showing differences in specific compounds. Dog performance showed a positive predictive value between 98.96% and 100% for DOG A , and between 99.47% and 100% for DOG B. Our findings demonstrated that decomposing human blood is a good source of VOCs and a good target for canine training.
