Blood Spatters

Bloodstain pattern analysis is the interpretation of bloodstains at a crime scene in order to recreate the actions that caused the bloodshed. Blood spatter analysis can tell the distance from the source of the blood to the pattern, the direction from which the blood impacted, the speed the droplet was traveling, the location of the point of origin, and even the movement of a bleeding individual throughout the scene.
There are three basic types of bloodstains. The first type of bloodstains are passive stains which include drops, flows, and pools. Drops fall at ninety degrees and are spherical. Flows result from movement of volume of blood on a surface due to gravity. Pools result from an accumulation of blood on a surface. The second type of
The three types of velocity are low, medium, and high velocity spatter. Low velocity spatter is blood that falls at the speed or force of normal gravity. These spatters usually fall from an open wound, or from a surface that is saturated with blood. The majority of the Low Force Impact Spatters are large, circular, spatters with diameters of four millimeters or more. Low Force Impact Spatters will increase in size as the distance fallen increases, however, the size of the spatters will remain constant after about four feet. Medium velocity is produced with more energy or force than gravity. The force of the impact causes the blood to break into smaller size spatters relative to the amount of force applied. This type of spatter is usually seen in blunt force, stabbings, and secondary spatters. Produced when the majority of larger drops of blood are broken into smaller spatters with diameters of around two to four millimeters. The force associated with this type of spatter is greater than twenty-five feet per second. High velocity spatter is impact spatter that measures less than two millimeters in diameter. The force necessary to produce high velocity spatter is greater than one hundred feet per second. This type of spatter is usually associated with gunshots, explosions, and high speed collisions and looks very
The three types of force are sharp force, blunt force, and a gunshot. Sharp force is caused by an object with a relatively small surface area such as a knife or ice pick. There is less blood deposited on the weapon which means there is a smaller, more linear pattern of stains. Blunt force usually deals with larger objects such as a baseball bat or a piece of firewood which is one of the weapons used in this case. The larger surface area of the weapon will collect more blood than that of an object used to produce sharp force which will produce drops of varying sizes. Gunshots produce a misty spatter which is made by bullets entering and exiting the body. This includes both forward spatter from the exit wound and back spatter from the entrance wound. Voids occur when a person or object blocks the path of the blood and they can tell if something has been removed from the scene or if another person was