madeleine mccann, blood on the wall.

madeleine mccann, blood on the wall.

over and over a picture taken from the pj files is used to get into stories about blood spatter, and an interpretation of it. and this can not be called anything different than stupid.

the background to this picture is there in the pj files, you only have to read it, if you cannot get enough concentration by switching page to page, you always can print them.

when the second forensic investigation took part after the dogs gave alerts in the area around the blue sofa, that had been standing next to the wall under the side window in the living room area of unit 5a, there are pictures made, there are made oversight pictures to keep the original places of all traces intact. after that close up pictures are made, by normal daylight and under wavelength light to make spots visible. after that swabs were taken of all the spots found, all under guidance by the uk police officers.

the hardest task for us is keep sight of the coding numbers to each spot and that there are two swap techniques are used, a dry swab, and a wet swab.

all work done to save the material is to find in this file;
https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/BLOOD.htm

this file is the base work for looking into the spots. this file sets the findings of traces in stone, but it is just the first part of a job. you never can take anything directly from these pictures besides the location of the specific traces and where they were found.

also what you see are the marks near the spots, not the spots in itself, and these are not put up with intentions to show information about the spot, other than marking it for building the chain of evidence when that later is needed during a court case.

also the pictures in the pj files are of much too low quality to be used to even dare to start thinking about what the spots could tell. the information of that is certainly not to get from an oversight picture by just fitting some lines from spots to other spots. everyone who does, only shows his or hers incompetence in blood spatter analysis. the information to pull that off, is not in this picture at all. and it shows a lot of laziness too, because you only show you have not read enough of the files.

blood spatter analysis is a very specific expertise, even most who have the paperwork and competences to work possible crime scenes usually do not get beyond, looking at spots of blood, and depending on the situation can decide to ask an expert on that matter in.
crime scene investigators are usually there to conserve and save as much information as possible. but it is less into the analysis or giving it meaning.

there is no way to determine anything more than these are spots that with the help of dog alerts and the use of specific wavelength light have a high chance of being from human blood. the uk instructions did not allow for using snap testing on site on these spots to check if they could be from human blood!

these often called forensic lights, indeed work through established wavelengths of light to give an indication a spot could indeed be human blood, but it is not specific enough to declare it proven to be blood or human blood.

the same with the snap testing kit, it too is just an indication it could very well be human blood. but not ad infinitive proof it is indeed human blood and only that.

both are simply used to give at least some way to select what traces needed more attention, can be more important to send in to the lab in the first batch to test.
just look at a spot and say that is blood is difficult, blood dried up can change into many colours, it can react with all kinds of things it gets into contact with.

forensic lights are a great advantage on possible crime scenes, because they change nothing, they do no harm to the traces, and at that moment during an investigation you do not need immediate proof of what you are looking at.

there are also chemicals that can be used to look for spots, like human blood, best known is luminol, but there are more products. but luminol is also only an indicator of possible human blood left behind, it is much less specific, it gives the same result on many common other substances. and if there is a way around using it, that can be because the traces are very small, or older, or already have a larger chance to degrade possible dna content.

so not use anything besides taking samples with swabs can be the better choice, and with smaller spots this is easily reached as good practice.

still only the first ⅓ of the job is done after the swabs are taken. all you have are a lot of maybe traces of human blood left in an area. but because most were very small samples, extra testing on site was not done.

i do not like it the lab used for the ⅔ of this job to simply telling we cannot answer of it is from human blood and still got on with testing samples. i am not used to this approach, it always will be the case that must decide what questions need an answer, and in this specific case, there is a need to know what the origin is from a possible dna find of a victim. the reason is very simple, the supposed victim has legally sound reasons to have been inside unit 5a, it was her temporarily home turf. she was already around inside unit 5a for most part of a week.

you need to know what any dna found is from, more pressing because of all the very small traces found, you need to exclude chances of leaving dna around from innocent reasons, aka through normal daily living activity. and even more because lcn-dna tests would be used.
skin cells also can still contain your dna, that would tell nothing in a possible explanation of how they were left behind. blood can easily shed while still alive, much easier when still alive, a pumping heart makes that much more efficient than the seeping out after death take the pumping out of it. but there are also fluids that are known not to get so easily out of a living body during daily activities, like fluids called liquor from the brain and spine. so if could be found out what carried the dna could be used as indication for what could have taken place at that scene.

dna from a victim found in a place that is in use by that victim for daily activities can much less easy be used to explain how it could have gotten there. the dna of a victim is usually not that telling, while it can be the opposite when that dna would be found on an object or in a space that would not belong to anything that would by will or by being around during normal daily activities. dna still needs a story, a background to let it tell a bit of the story.

i am more used that when you ask specific questions from a forensic expert in a specific field and the answer is no we could not have the ability to do that, what is very different from it is not possible at all, that there is simply contact first to talk if there could be other ways to answer the questions. and it is not uncommon at all, that the experts even give some advice where to go to ask if they could answer the question. and such conversations will set the starting to test simply on hold. that didn't happen in this case, the expert said no , we cannot and the testing did get on. for use of lcn-dna testing it matters even much more, because of that very small amount of cells they need to work from.

you can use the questions asked in this specific case also to know that we do not call the people who worked this investigation had not enough understanding of these processes. that simple question is; they did understand it very well.

but it did go on, so at least we can use the answers that resulted from the lab tested through lcn-dna tests.

and you can find the information in the pj files here;
https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/JOHN_LOWE.htm

the spots that gave results, all contained at least a portion of human dna. and the words from human cellular origin, is not a result of testing itself, but a fact from getting human dna, that comes from inside a true human cell. these results are all about nuclear dna, nuclear stands for from inside the cell. mt-dna always sits on a cell, but nuclear dna is your very own combination of the stuff. mt-dna you simply got from your biological mother or by a egg cell donor woman. this will maybe chance in the near future a bit. but it still stands like said.

the investigation itself can work from this material is most likely, yeah investigations are fond of margins, only slightly less than most experts even. it was human, it was visually acceptable as most likely blood and the forensic light told blood. and we do not be privy if not at least some snap testing was done after the samples for the lab been taken.

the lab had the dna profiles available of gerry mccann, kate, mccann and both the twins, and a supposed sample of a biological female child from a dna profile taken from the pillow case, that was used as supposedly from madeleine, later on they got also a so called blood card, named to madeleine and taken in the first weeks after being born, the dna of the blood card and that of the pillow case been from the same person.

but who looks to the results of the swaps taken from the living room, and by that the area around the sofa you see a very mixed results, only one could indicate to be form madeleine, the others had none usable dna results, but have been from also some males, and most even could be used to exclude the 5 members of family mccann.

so you know you must have landed in a dream world where people of different biological genders shed blood in a spatter pattern at the same time, 5 in a spec is already hard enough of course, well that is a kind of a given with lcn-dna testing. that is why it is mostly gone from criminal cases, it never was that popular even, too much copying needed and by that too high the chance to get a profile to work with.

as far is to find, building 5 must be build in or just before 1983. there was a habit of use and even rent it out. there is no date of time known about renovation works like repainting the walls, and repainting not even always cover up an old speck of blood. and living people can have easily the amount of blood loss to translate into such small specks.

so logic dictates by these results, there was not one single event happening that brought what is often told to be a blood spatter pattern on these walls, but just a very common result from one wall that was part of many different people, having minor blood loss in many occasions. because of the diversity in genders, such patterns are no longer seen as a pattern, it is just an accidental build up of specks of blood over a longer period, by different donors. the investigation will simply store the pictures and all other information in a file in the row, with dead end material, if ever needed it still could be used, but it would not be from blood spatter analysis.

this lab was closed in the years after this case, not even so much because they were incompetent, but more that the belief in their own made technique of lcn-dna testing was much bigger than it deserved. and most was backed by a broken line in the evidence in a different case. lcn-dna tests hardly give results to just one person, and with the extra knowledge about dna transfer through hands or clothes, it also makes it much harder to work from these results.

in my country it was used for some time, and we have it usually a bit easier because we do not have juries of ordinary people. but it gets a bit difficult when the defence team start to tell the crowd, that a little dip or ight swab with a sample stick, from a spot you cannot even see in broad daylight, but has a need of a very expensive dog, or forensic lights to make visible, still can result in dna of 3 to 5 different people.

it is in itself not so much that the science is faulty, but that it simply does not work that well in the world outside a lab. judges and juries like to hear something that gives a clear sign who that dna belongs too. and lcn-dna testing in the exact way it is used in this case, can not deliver that easily. so it is not strange it was never even acceptable to less than a handful of courts.
most countries decided that it was too feeble for use. it was used quite a lot in the uk, so as a result of messing up in one case, many cases needed to be reviewed too.

but it is not that easy to say the results in this case are useless, for the investigation itself they are simply usable enough, but more as a strong indication, than reaching into possible evidence. as stand alone possible evidence it would not solve this case in a court, but evidence is never that much around to make use off. the threshold for an investigation is simply much lower than in a court.
for me the results are still strong indications, and hard enough that further looking into a case is needed. but there is no indication that there is a blood spatter pattern of this case on that area behind the sofa.

most of the material send over in the case of madeleine was never even tested, not possible in that lab. i still hope it is kept safe and correctly stored somewhere in portugal and they still can find a ‘want’ to test it again.

Thank you again onehand for that comparatively simple explanation of a topic blown completely out of proportion by a simple lack of understanding, or worse still deliberate bad intent.

That illustration alone, in itself, conjures stories of evil intentions on the part of the now defunct UK's Forensic Science Service, so much relied upon for the right answers to the question of a missing three year old child, answers that just do not exist in such a pure form as to distinguish between right and wrong. Too many gray areas, the forensic examination in this respect can only be looked on as an indication rather than an indisputable fact!

This simple fact alone has seen the long journey between the then and the now and all the mischief it has accrued on-route. Simple words that should be taken as they appear and not turned into something at best suspicious, at worst nefarious, for the sake of speculation and/or wanton excitement.

If it's excitement and titillation you're looking for then stay away from criminal investigation, at least the non-fictional variety. The Sherlock Holmes variation of criminal investigation is far more exciting than the reality which can be very boring and mundane, particularly to the investigators.

I've seen some pretty bizarre interpretations of the facts and indications relative to this case, almost unbelievable in terms of realistic interpretation. The case has journeyed through from a simple straightforward case of a missing child to possibly one of the greatest mysteries of contemporary living.

It's good to see a clear eyed perspective of the case generalities, without the goggle eyed fantastical perspective so common with the errant imaginations of the non-experienced minds of the amateur detective - and even the seasoned retired detective!

Thank you for bringing logic and down to earth thinking to this forum. Small it might be in terms of realistic membership but the important fact is accuracy and a calm peaceful environment in which to comment and/or discuss 'life on earth' and all it's peculiarities!

Keep it coming ....

i think there still is potential that someone fixed a problem in the lab, but not directly in the science and technique used itself, the results are still presented as an expert opinion, and from the same source as the making of lcn-dna test technique used here.

so there is always room for bias.

and i am not writing a course about how to f.ck up a crime scene, this area inside unit 5a in itself is by the consensus of the first portuguese investigation not a crime scene, but just a scene, accidents do not have crime scenes, only crimes have, and during the investigation it is still at best a possible crime scene.
but if you want a crime scene into a disarray that is very easy, trying to clean it up would not work, it is even more telling and will leave traces of that cleaning behind, and it will be make officers only more interested.

in itself the use of lcn-dna testing is already a problem, it can be done with about one tenth of the amount of cells you need for the more classic way of testing by str-dna testing. but to get a read out you still have to make copies of the dna, and you need many more cycles with lcn-dna than for str-dna testing.

and pcr is a very useful but quite stupid in the same go. it simply copies everything it sees. and does it what is most easily understand for us by remembering how the old first generation copy machines in offices worked, the first copy was usually no problem, but using that first copy to make the next, and the second copy for the third, the text on the letter lost it sharp outlines, and tiny specs of dust of dirt left a very slight mark and every copy further it did grow in unreadable texts, full of all weird lines, points and specks.

with pcr that works te same, if you copy cycle after cycle, all that is in that sample, will be copied too, and it can easily lead to get artifacts copied and starting to look as it is a bit of dna. but there can also be very tiny mistakes from copying, even missing very small pieces, and if you have do do it many times over, you simply got more and more chance to end up with extras.

and the results are not a black and white outcome, it still has a need of an expert to tell what they mean.
and it is often to easy to find simply an expert of an opposite opinion later on in court, usually by the defence team, because it will always be up to the expert's opinion, what peaks on the chart with readings of the test are valid or just junk.

it was amaral himself who brought on the suggestion when asked during an interview in amsterdam about the blood spatter on the wall the suggestion of; 'resuscitation perhaps'. there is no report about a debrief between the investigation and the forensic service of portugal, usually that is the organisation that is can translate and explain the scientific reports.
and at the moment amaral said he was just a common citizen, no longer bound to anything, and had the right to out his own opinion.

but there is nothing in the files that can fit into such conclusion. also technically traces left on a scene, even if it is , or better said was until that happened a crime scene, by giving medical treatment to a victim, that has to be called contamination, it does not belong to the crime scene itself, it is just makes a mess of it. accidents and medical assistance or treatment are not crimes, they can make their own scenes, and can be become part of a intermezzo during a crime, but they still must be seen on their own merit.

even if a few of the small spots on the wall had results that could say, there is found dna from madeleine, it still would not tell it ended up there from a crime against her. take a look at gerry mccann his rogatory, and at the end you can see how the defence lawyer already fixt that, madeleine could have had a nose bleed before thursday evening.

also the picture in the files with the numbers and stickers to mark the spots cannot be called a spray of blood.

the results are all there are to make use of to build a hypothesis. but you cannot say it must be from medical assistance when spots are of multiple genders. that would olympic gymnastics instead of keep it logically and realistic. and as that part is in itself not part of a crime itself, it is also much less important.
the results do not show any indication they are part of a crime, and more specific a crime that is part of this case.

also looking for false witness testimony, an expert is a witness in a case too, when it gets to court, has always possibilities, and that is also why a good defence team is needed.

but these traces are simply not under court rulings, but still in the stage of investigation, that means a lower threshold, it is simply still information you can work from, usable as stepping stone, only here that seems more a stone that has a cross through it, to tell this is the wrong route to take in your thinking. that means you have to go back and look for a new route to explore.