Citation

Kowalcze M, Mirek M. Forensic Sci. Int. 2022; 340: e111444.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.forsciint.2022.111444

PMID

36087370

Abstract

A tragic car accident took place in one of the villages of southern Poland. Three teenagers were traveling by car - a woman and two men (identical twins). None of the participants had their seat belts fastened, and the men were under the influence of alcohol and drugs. As a result of losing control of the vehicle, the woman died instantly, but she was not the driver. The driver was one of the men, but neither pleaded guilty. The police and the prosecutor's office had to clearly identify the perpetrator and prove his guilt, which was possible based on the analysis of the collected microtraces. The article describes the collected evidence and presents the results of microtraces analysis, on the basis of which the perpetrator of the accident was determined and convicted. In this particular case it was difficult because the suspects were identical twins and commonly used forensic examinations (such as forensic genetics, anthropology, dactyloscopy, traceology, osmology) did not bring a satisfactory result. Only the analysis of microtraces turned out to be groundbreaking.

Keywords: Ethanol impaired driving

Language: en

Keywords

Fibers; Forensic chemistry; Identical twins; Microtraces; Plastic samples