Date of Award

January 2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Computer and Information Technology

First Advisor

Marcus Rogers

Committee Member 1

Trevor Stamper

Committee Member 2

John Springer

Committee Member 3

Gina Londino

Abstract

The field of Bloodstain Pattern Analysis has had many achievements since the mid 1900’s, such as using computers in a physical crime scene. However, the computer aided programs that are in use today are sometimes bulky, many times expensive, and always require a large amount of training to be used properly. In addition to this problem, many investigators use the same formula of determining the angle of incidence on every type of surface, planar or not, which creates mistakes in their findings. Using a technological approach, this investigation examined a new approach for collecting data from bloodstains. This examination answered the researcher’s question of, “Will the theory of cylindrical drop paths to determine angle of incidence be as accurate and precise on planar surfaces as the industry standard?” Testing the Cylindrical Capture Method and the digital caliper method against the true angle of 187 bloodstain samples, this research showed that the Cylindrical Capture Method is a valid way of collecting the angle of incidence of passive bloodstains and yields results comparable to and often better than, the current digital caliper method.

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