De Wolff TR, Aarts LHJ, van den Berge M, Boyko T, van Oorschot RAH, Zuidberg M, Kokshoorn B. Prevalence of DNA of regular occupants in vehicles.
Forensic Sci Int 2021;
320:110713. [PMID:
33578178 DOI:
10.1016/j.forsciint.2021.110713]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2020] [Revised: 01/23/2021] [Accepted: 01/27/2021] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
People will deposit, redistribute and remove biological traces when they interact with their environment. Understanding the dynamics of trace DNA is crucial to assess both the optimal sampling strategy to recover traces and the relevance of DNA evidence in the context of a case. This paper addresses the prevalence of DNA of drivers, passengers, and unknown individuals in vehicles. Five vehicles with a regular driver only, and five vehicles with a regular driver and regular passenger have each been sampled at twenty locations. Based on the findings, we propose a sampling strategy for investigative purposes as well as for evaluative purposes when evaluating the findings given scenarios that propose the person-of-interest as either the driver or passenger in a vehicle.
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