Forensic Dental Evidence: An Investigator’s Handbook – C. Michael Bowers – 1st Edition

PREFACE The purpose of this book is to act as a detailed overview of forensic odontology as it is practiced in the 21st century and contains presentations of dental investigative methods. Law enforcement and legal professionals are ultimately the clients from the dental expert. This book is written for this audience. Wherever possible, the author has included case examples to explain the many areas in which a forensic dentist can interact with police investigations. The reconstruction of previous events in the scene of the crime and the activities of the individual is a daunting task.Dental evidence is used by forensic examiners in this process.Certain suggestions and guidelines are outlined to increase the certainty of successfully recognizing and capturing vital dental evidence in actual forensic casework The development of modern forensic odontology is observed in the dental and forensic literature of during the last 50 years.

Many of these cases are valuable for innovative problem-based dental techniques used to compare known (K) and disputed (Q) dental evidence. They show considerable effort in responding to questions from law enforcement and the courts. Interestingly, there was no independent body of forensic dental science before dental identification and bite mark analysis became part of contemporary forensic investigations. This follows the historical development of forensic pathology during the period of the late 19th century in Great Britain, France, and Germany. Empirical studies exist in forensic odontology, but they have not yet answered certain fundamental questions involving human identification based on bite mark analysis that have been raised during the 21st century.

The advent of DNA profiling and digital imaging are recent additions that are being used to increase the reliability of bite mark opinions by forensic dentists who previously used techniques that have varied only slightly over the last 40 years. Aside from identifying bite marks, the use of dental records and accompanying dental/medical x-rays to identify deceased individuals is a common occurrence in the US. Beyond this broad picture, the need to properly identify and analyze dental evidence is a constant request from dentists all over the world. The transient nature of crime scene evidence places considerable pressure on law enforcement to immediately establish potential links between the crime and its perpetrators. Mistakes and errors in the collection of evidence will never be adequately remedied by further scientific manipulations in the crime laboratory. In any criminal investigation, proof of guilt or innocence is the focus of forensic efforts.

Correct human identification of deceased individuals must be made to serve both law enforcement and surviving family members. It is just as important to remove a suspect from a murder or assault case as it is to tip the scales of justice sharply to charge a person with criminal conduct. Cases that are unclear as to guilt and innocence, or at least have weak connections between the crime scene and the suspect, rely even more on physical evidence to give the justice system a chance to produce a reliable result. . When forensic dental evidence is clear and physically convincing, the truth seems obvious to the court system, the judge, and a lay jury. When dental evidence is vague, ambiguous, or equivocal, it is important that the police and forensic expert honestly weigh the value of the evidence against the potential for irreparable harm to a defendant. The management of the physical evidence of a crime falls to a series of actors throughout the course of a case.

In the initial phase, managers are usually police personnel at a scene. Occasionally, the first collection of dental evidence is through the efforts of the forensic pathologist or forensic dentist during a postmortem examination. In a mass disaster, the recovery of human remains should be the task of trained civil, military or government personnel. In all cases, the people responsible for detecting, documenting, and collecting the physical evidence are the gatekeepers of the process that follows. Management in any scene must be under the control of trained and experienced professionals. In the course of events subsequent to the recognition and collection of evidence, the forensic laboratory or the odontologist