TESTING CONFLICTING SCENARIOS - A ROLE FOR SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS IN DAMAGE ANALYSIS OF CLOTHING

Damage to clothing is commonly encountered in serious crimes of violen ce such as homicide and rape. Examination of damage to clothing and ot her textiles may provide valuable information as to the possible imple ment that caused the damage and the manner in which it was caused. Dam age analysis may corroborate or refute a particular crime scenario. Th is report describes two recent cases examined at the Victoria Forensic Science Centre laboratory where opposing views as to the origin of th e damage to the clothing of the victim were proposed. The results conf irm the value of simulation experiments mimicking each case scenario. They also demonstrate that it may not be possible to unequivocally cho ose between opposing scenarios because of limitations inherent in dama ge analysis.