Solving Crime Faster

Baylor University researchers have found a promising new method to determine the date of skeletal remains. The relatively simple technique of applying statistics to chemical measurements could provide a quicker way for crime scene investigators and others to determine the time that has lapsed since a person has died.
In what is believed to be the first time that chemometric modeling of spectral data has been used to determine the time lapse after death of skeletal remains, Baylor researchers found an error rate of only four to nine days for bones that were up to 90 days old.
"In perfect conditions in the laboratory, the method looks very encouraging," said Dr. Kenneth Busch, professor of chemistry and co-director of the Center for Analytical Spectroscopy at Baylor, and a lead investigator on the project. "Once a regression model is built from spectral data, you could find out the age of the bones in a matter of minutes, rather than taking hours or days."