Analysis of the Human Scent on Fired Cartridge Cases from a Simulated Crime Scene

TL;DR

This study explores whether human scent on fired cartridge cases can help identify who handled a gun at a crime scene.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel approach using human scent analysis on fired cartridges for forensic identification.

Findings

Human scent traces on fired cartridge cases were found to persist after firing.

Two methods, olfactronics and olfactorics, were used to analyze the scent samples.

The experiment involved a simulated crime scene with volunteer participants.

Abstract

Fired cartridge cases are often found at crime scenes
connected
with a shooting, and their prompt analysis can be very useful for
the police investigation. In addition to dactyloscopy (fingerprints)
that tends to be more or less damaged on the cartridges and often
are not adequate for individual identification, there are also scent
traces on the fired cartridges that are not fully destroyed by the
gun’s being fired. In this pilot study, we compare the human
scent remaining on cartridge cases after firing with scent samples
from different volunteers to find out who loaded the gun before the
gun was shot. In this experiment, a simulated crime scene was prepared,
and one of our volunteers loaded the weapon. Analysis of the scent
remaining on cartridge cases was carried out using two different methods,
namely, olfactronics and olfactorics.

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