| Suppose a person died from blunt force trauma to | | | | - By spatter type: This class is further subdivided into |
| the head, and the victim's blood is found everywhere | | | | three major types: |
| at the scene of the crime. How do forensic crime | | | | - Projection spatters--These are spatters that result |
| scene investigators determine if a blunt object was | | | | from bleeding from the arteries, cast-off blood, and |
| the cause of the trauma? If so, how do investigators | | | | coughed up, or exhaled blood. |
| go about studying blood spatter? | | | | - Impact spatters--These are spatters that occur |
| The focus of this article is to explain the different | | | | with gunshots, beatings, stabbings, or any other |
| classes of blood spatters. | | | | circumstances where an animate object strikes the |
| When studying blood spatters, crime scene | | | | victim. |
| investigators have a classification system to analyze | | | | - Combination spatters: These are spatters that |
| spatter. | | | | involve a combination of both projection and impact |
| Blood spatter falls into two classes: | | | | spatters. These are the kind of spatters that are |
| - By velocity: This technique of classifying blood | | | | found at many crime scenes. A victim who gets |
| spatters looks at the velocity at which the impacting | | | | stabbed in the neck or chest may leave behind a |
| object strikes the blood source such as the victim's | | | | combination of both kinds of spatters due to the |
| head and the velocity at which the blood leaves the | | | | force of the attack and blood spurts from arterial |
| victim's head when it is struck. This classification | | | | bleeding, coughed up blood, and cast-off blood. |
| system divides spatters into low-, medium-, and | | | | It is up to forensic crime scene investigators to use |
| high-velocity spatters. These subgroups are indicative | | | | both techniques of spatter classes because these |
| of the object and the mechanism that created the | | | | techniques overlap one another in many instances. |
| spatter. | | | | |