AFTE Store - Toolmarks in Human Cartilage and Bone – Ten Case Studies

In this paper, three of ten cases of a cooperative research project between the LKA NRW and the Institute of Legal Medicine of the University of Cologne are shown. The project has as its main goal the verification of a standardized approach to examine toolmarks on human cartilage and bone. The Institute of Legal Medicine collects fatal cases of sharp force trauma in human cartilage and bone, prepares the marks in the affected area and casts them. The casts and tools are then sent to the LKA NRW for the toolmark examination. To date the project has collected ten cases. In three of these cases the tool could be identified with a high degree of confidence. In two cases the conclusion was that the tool could have made the marks. The remaining five cases were inconclusive. This paper presents the three cases in which the tool could be identified.