Geoforensic Search Space Modeling: Applications to Documented Cases
摘要
Biotic trace evidence recovered from objects or the surrounding environment can provide useful information, even if only an unobservable amount of such materials exists. Microscopic material such as pollen is one of the most important categories of evidentiary elements recovered during forensic investigations. As an environmentally ubiquitous material that attaches to various surfaces, pollen can provide a durable mechanism to link people and objects in space and time. Combining forensic palynology with species distribution models provides a robust framework for reducing search areas in both environmental and geographic space. This chapter uses the framework to model search space for documented forensic cases. Results demonstrate effective search space reduction at a 99.99 percentile in a near-global study area for three closed criminal cases that involved sampled surface pollen. Searching for the long-term residence of an unidentified body using pollen recovered in human lung tissue is also possible. This framework could aid law enforcement personnel in optimizing search strategies during investigations when other biotic and abiotic materials are provided as multiple lines of evidence.