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Cold case investigators scrape back paint in a renovated flat where a murder was committed twelve years earlier, and find a blood stain that leads them to a killer. Scientists extract DNA from crime-scene samples collected in 1973, and a 21st-century hunt for a triple murderer begins. A forensic dentist probes the mysterious death of an eight-year-old ancient Egyptian mummy. A document examiner reassesses the authorship of Johann Sebastian Bach¹s cello suites. A long-forgotten palm print leads detectives to the real perpetrator of a murder for which an innocent man has already served 12 years¹ jail.
In this collection of fascinating cold cases from Australia, the UK and the US, award-winning writer Liz Porter shows how modern forensic science can unlock solutions for crimes and mysteries unsolved for decades, and, in some cases, centuries.
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A crime scene investigator notes the tiny indentations on the fragments of a tin can identified at a bomb site. After months of testing he is able to match them to the can opener that made them and lead police to the bomb-maker who used it.
A forensic dentist documents the marks in chewing gum dropped by a thief during a burglary and matches them to the teeth of the suspect. A forensic physician examines an abused child, "reading" the terrible alphabet that fists and weapons write on the skin and identifying a mother's hairbrush as the source of the "tramline bruising" on her daughter's leg.
Liz Porter's riveting casebook shows how forensic investigators including pathologists, chemists, entomologists, DNA specialists and document examiners have used their specialist knowledge to identify victims, catch perpetrators, exonerate innocent suspects and solve dozens of crimes and mysteries.
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