Forensic scientist uses blood to solve crime

02/01/05 - Herbert MacDonell discussed the techniques he developed for blood spatter analysis as part of the Forensic Science Seminar Series, which is located in Pastore Chemical Lab on Friday evenings."I use people to aid in the reconstruction of what could've happened in a criminal or civil case," MacDonell, director of the Lab for Forensic Science in Corning, NY, said. "It's more important that I show what couldn't have happened anatomically, than what did happen."

MacDonell, who is an expert on blood spatter analysis, has testified as a witness in many cases such as the O.J. Simpson murder trial and has analyzed the Robert Kennedy and the Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations.

"People commit crimes, and people commit crimes with things," MacDonell said. "And every now and then you will have a case where the people involved cannot see what has transpired before them because of their point of view or their involvement."

MacDonell cited as an example of this a case he worked on in Tampa, Fla., in which a woman committed "suicide by cop." She threatened law enforcement officers for the sole purpose of having them shoot her. He said that by aiming her own handgun at two police officers, she had forced them to shoot her through the heart.

Some time later, the woman's family sued the state of Florida and MacDonell was called in to prove that the woman's death was a justifiable homicide.

"This was a very simple thing to do. No chemistry. A little bit of physics, but 98 percent common sense," MacDonell said.

He explained how with the help of some live human models, he was able to recreate the scenario and prove that based on the angle in which the bullet passed through the woman, that she must have been leaning forward in a "combat posture." The woman's family dropped their case against the state.

MacDonell used two volunteers to recreate the scene for the audience so that they could see the process he went through.

"I do a lot of things that are common sense, but I need people to do them," he said.

He told another story in which he used a number of female volunteers with varying hair lengths. He drenched their hair in human blood to see if he could recreate a blood spatter pattern similar to one created in the beating of a woman in Oregon.

MacDonell said, "I can produce patterns of blood that can fool anyone."

Throughout his presentation, MacDonell kept the mood light with humor despite the sometimes gruesome subject matter.

While testifying in a drunk-driving case, the judge declared MacDonell to be an expert in yet another field. "I am probably the only court-certified expert on beer drinking. I so wish it had been scotch," MacDonell said.

MacDonell jokingly left the audience this piece of advice to avoid blood spatter on their clothing, "Kill someone in the nude, then take a shower, then get dressed and then call the police. In that order, that's the way I would do it."