Analysis of the Human Scent on Fired Cartridge Cases from a Simulated Crime Scene

Fired cartridge cases are often found at crime scenes connected with a shooting, and their prompt analysis can be very useful for the police investigation. In addition to dactyloscopy (fingerprints) that tends to be more or less damaged on the cartridges and often are not adequate for individual identification, there are also scent traces on the fired cartridges that are not fully destroyed by the gun's being fired. In this pilot study, we compare the human scent remaining on cartridge cases after firing with scent samples from different volunteers to find out who loaded the gun before the gun was shot. In this experiment, a simulated crime scene was prepared, and one of our volunteers loaded the weapon. Analysis of the scent remaining on cartridge cases was carried out using two different methods, namely, olfactronics and olfactorics.