NCJ Number
233332
Journal
Journal of Forensic Identification Volume: 61 Issue: 1 Dated: January/February 2011 Pages: 38-49
Date Published
January 2011
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study compared blood samples treated with Bluestar and then treated with the Kastle-Meyer presumptive test to confirm or dispel concerns over whether Bluestar is compromising the sample for testing blood.
Abstract
Bluestar Forensic is an effective latent blood reagent used by forensic investigators in the field. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether using Bluestar could affect the results of the Kastle-Meyer test uses in forensic laboratories as a presumptive test. The Kastle-Meyer test is applied to samples that have been subjected to chemical blood reagents in the field. In this study, blood dilution sets were created with concentrations from neat to 1:1,000,000 on clean, white, 100 percent cotton cloth. Each dilution set was subjected to Bluestar and to the Kastle-Meyer test consecutively. After the initial applications of Bluestar to the sample sets, the Kastle-Meyer reagents produced positive results for blood. The sets were than kept for approximately 2 months at varying conditions. The sample sets were then tested again with both Bluestar and the Kastle-Meyer test. The findings of this study support the hypothesis that Bluestar does not affect the results of the Kastle-Meyer test when controlling for time and environment of samples stored. (Published Abstracts) Figures, references, and appendix