Bite Mark Analysis with “Stamping” Method in Child Abuse Case

A Case Re

Dina Karimah Putri

, Mieke Sylvia MAR

and Ahmad Yudianto

Student in Postgraduate School of Forensic Science, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Department of Forensic Odontology, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Department of Forensic Medicine and Medicolegal, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: Bite Marks, Child Abuse, Forensic Odontology, Human Identification

Abstract: Bite marks as evidence of a crime cases are commonly found in cases such as sexual assault, struggle,

homicide and child abuse. Bite marks are thought to help uncover the biter because human teeth are

individualistic and have different shapes, sizes and patterns for each individual, even identical twins. This

report is to explain how to analyze bite marks using a “stamping” method in child abuse cases. In this case

report, we present a case of 17-month-old toddler who was found dead in his house with head trauma and two

scars resembling human bite marks on the right chest and abdomen. Those scars appeared not as a new bite

and that implies these bites happened before the death of the toddler. Investigators assumed that he was a

victim of child abuse which led to the murder. Although the autopsy results showed the cause of death was

not from the bite but from the blunt object trauma to his head, by analyzing the evidence of bite marks found

on the victim's body it can be expected to provide information about the motives and background of the murder

and help find the perpetrator of the bite-related injury. Analysis was done by using a "stamping" method of

the suspect’s bite marks who was asked to bite a wax that had been flexed with heat and then superimposed

with a photo of bite marks on the victim's body with a size close to the actual size. The result showed that the

bite marks matched the bite of the victim's father who was also suspected of being the murderer. The bite

pattern of the toddler’s father had similarity with the bite marks found on the victim’s body, so he has

possibility to be included as the suspected biter.

1 INTRODUCTION

Abuse is a word commonly translated into violence,

ill-treatment, torture, or mistreatment, improper

behavior that results in physical, psychological or

financial harm, whether experienced by individuals or

groups. Child abuse (CA) is a term often used to

describe violence against children, sometimes

referred to as child maltreatment. In an Encyclopedia

Article from Encarta, CA is defined as a deliberate act

that causes harm to children physically or

emotionally. The term CA covers a wide range of

behaviors, from direct physical threats by parents or

other adults to neglect of the basic needs of the child

(Huraerah, 2007).

CA is a common case type in Indonesian society

with low handling and uncoordinated levels and lack

of cooperation from related fields. CA itself can

adversely affect the child's life from the failure of

growth and development, brain damage, bone

fracture, mental retardation, psychiatric disorders and

even death (Huraerah, 2007).

Bite marks as evidence of a crime are commonly

found in cases such as sexual assault, struggle,

homicide and child abuse, in consequence ante-

mortem human bites are highly significant from a

medico-legal point of view (Prasad et al., 2013). Bites

can be attack actions by the perpetrator as well as a

form of self-defense for the victim. Bite marks are

thought to help uncover the biter because human teeth

are individualistic and have different shapes, sizes

and patterns for each individual, even identical twins

(Verma et al., 2013).

A bite mark may be defined as the physical

alteration on a surface such as skin or food that is

caused by the dentition of a human or animal (Kieser

et al., 2007). Bite mark is a pattern mold as a result of

contact with an object or teeth (bite) on the skin. The

bite pattern has an image of highly characteristic

dental anatomy that leaves the bite pattern on human

Putri, D., MAR, M. and Yudianto, A.

Bite Mark Analysis with â

AIJStampingâ

I Method in Child Abuse Case.

DOI: 10.5220/0007542403330336

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 333-336

ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3

333

connective tissue caused by both animals or humans,

each of which is very different. Bite patterns in child

abuse cases can occur in all locations or around the

body of children. This is due to an application of

impingement of the psychic disorder of the offender.

Location of bite pattern on certain body parts

includes back area, upper shoulder, and neck

(Lukman, 2006; Senn and Weems, 2013).

Occlusional bite marks are described as oval-to

circular-patterned injuries that typically consist of

two opposing U-shaped arches, each representing a

maxillary and mandibular arch, separated to some

degree at their bases (Kieser et al., 2007).

Bite mark comparisons are accepted in court as

roughly equivalent to finger prints (Rhai and

Vidanapathirana, 2008). Analyzing bite marks is a

complicated procedure which is conducted by

forensic odontologists because it requires comparison

data from the biter (Adams, Carabott and Evans,

2014). The reliability of bite mark evidence rests on

the assumption that no two humans have identical

dentitions in respect to the size, shape, or arrangement

of the teeth (Kieser et al., 2007). Based on American

Board of Forensic Odontologist guidelines, there are

some methods to compare exemplars of human bite

marks, such as overlays, test bites, comparison

techniques, and other methods including

transillumination of tissue, superimposition

histology, computer enhancement and/or digitization

of mark and/or teeth, and so on (American Board of

Forensic Odontology, 2016).

2 CASE REPORT

A 17-month-old toddler, boy, was found asleep by his

mother after work at his home. The mother thought

her son was sick and then took him to the hospital. At

that time his father was at home. After being

examined at the hospital, the toddler was already

dead. Because so many injuries were found on his

body, it was presumed that the toddler was a victim

of murder. Since the last person with the toddler was

his father, then his father was arrested and examined

related to injuries found on the victim’s body. Upon

investigation, it turned out that the father of the child

had a history of being treated at a mental hospital.

The victim was found dead at his home with his

body wrapped in an adult jacket and still wearing

pampers. There were many bruises on his face and

there were livor mortis and rigor mortis when

examined in the morgue. There was no sign of

violence in the neck and genitals but many scars and

bruises were found on parts of his body, including:

- on the lower area of the right armpit to the chest

there was a dark brown scar resembling a bite mark

with size 3 cm x 2.5 cm (see Fig. 1).

- on the abdominal area below the right nipple, there

was an oval-shaped scar, dark brown in color,

resembling a bite mark with size 3 cm x 2 cm. (see

Fig. 2).

Figure 1 Bite mark on victim's body, near right armpit.

Figure 2 Bite mark on the abdominal area below the right

nipple.

The results of internal examination (autopsy)

found blood absorption in the right chest cavity,

middle and lower right and left lung and also in the

liver and kidney. There was bleeding as much as 81

ml on the underlying scalp tissue. There were

fractures on the forehead bone, left cranium, left

eyelid bone and occipital bone. There were rips

behind the left cerebral membrane and on the back of

the left cerebrum along 8 cm, as well as bleeding in

the cerebellum. There were no abnormalities in

toxicology, pathology and bacteriology

examinations. Based on the autopsy result, cause of

death of this toddler is homicide caused by blunt

objects.

3 ANALYSIS METHOD

Analyzing bite mark is done by various steps. Before

the comparison, firstly, the bite mark should be

carefully documented by digital photography from

different angles with the plane of the film at right

angles to that of the lesion with a scale. Bite marks

should not be touched before the swab is carried out

to recover saliva. This step is important in helping to

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identify or exclude the perpetrator. But sadly in our

case, this step can’t be done because the bite mark

was not a new lesion that happened during the

incident, so the saliva was already dry.

After those steps, an impression of the bite should

be made. In this case, authors used a test bite method

with wax material, which is a dental modelling wax.

Although in this method we didn’t use the technique

of "stamping" in general due to a condition that was

not possible, but we still call this method "stamping"

because we did teeth printing – it's just that in this

case we used wax not alginat -then tracing it on mica

paper, without first stamping the occlusal plane on the

stamp pad. The wax was heated using spiritus brender

until the wax is pliable and easy to bite. Authors chose

to use this material to make prints of the subject’s bite

mark due to the condition of the subject who

experienced mental disorders, so we thought if we

used impression materials such as alginat, it would be

more difficult and could make the subject

uncomfortable and uneasy.

After the bite patterns on the wax were obtained,

then these patterns were traced on mica paper. The

tracing results of the bite patterns on mica paper were

then put on top of a photo of bite marks on the

victim’s body with scale close to actual size, for a

comparison. To prevent anxiety from the suspected

perpetrator who is the toddler’s father, so the process

of taking bite patterns was also done to the mother of

the toddler. It is also used as comparison material in

the analysis of bite marks on the body of the toddler.

We just did a comparison on the bite marks found on

the victim's abdominal area because it is easily done

for analysis and no distortion of the pattern.

The typical features to record for comparisons

include rotation of teeth, displacement of teeth from

the arch form, spacing between teeth, and anatomy of

incision edges (Omar et al., 2015). After observing

carefully, bite marks found on the victim's body were

similar to the bite patterns on the upper teeth of the

toddler’s father, because there was a space between

left central insicivus and right lateral insicivus of the

bite mark, which means there were missing teeth of

right central insicivus, as seen on upper teeth wax.

The use of image editing and computer-assisted

bitemark analysis has been documented for more than

20 years. The efficacy of such techniques has been

tested among forensic odontologists and general

dentists. The most commonly used image processing

software is Adobe Photoshop (Kieser et al., 2007),

but because that software is not free software,

therefore, the authors then did superimposition

images using computer software (GIMP 2.0) to

compare patterns of upper teeth bite with bite marks

on the victim's body, by changing the opacity of the

image until both pictures truly coincide and match

(Fig. 5).

Figure 4 Tracing on mica paper from (A) upper teeth and (B) lower teeth.

Figure 3 Bite patterns on the dental modelling wax from the suspected biter (toddler’s father). (A) upper teeth; (B) lowe

teeth.

Bite Mark Analysis with â

AIJStampingâ

I Method in Child Abuse Case

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4 CONCLUSIONS

Based on this analysis, we can conclude that the bite

mark which is on the abdominal area of the victim’s

body was from the upper teeth which means the

strongest bite comes from the upper teeth. Also the

position of the biter was next to the right of the victim

during the attack. As forensic odontologists in

Indonesia, we can not make our own conclusion about

who the biter is, because the decision is for the

investigator. We only act as experts who help the

investigator to analyze the bite marks according to

our ability and knowledge. That is why, we can only

conclude based on this analysis result that the bite

pattern of the toddler’s father has similarity with bite

marks found on the victim’s body, so he has

possibility to be included as the suspected biter. To

confirm more precisely, we need to do DNA analysis

from a saliva swab on bite marks and then compare

with DNA from the suspected biter, but because this

bite mark was not new we can not do that. Because

the bite marks were not the bite performed while

killing the toddler, which is marked by prints of each

tooth, it was not so clear and dark brown in color

which means skin tissue has already started to repair,

then it is presumed that before the incident which

caused the death, the toddler was already a victims of

violence/abuse. This can be proof in digging for

information related to the motives and background of

the murder committed by the victim's father, who is

also known to have a history of mental illness.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Forensic Medicine and Medicolegal

Department RSUD Dr. Soetomo, Polsek Tambaksari

Surabaya, our advisors, and all those who have

supported us furthering our case report through

feedback and presentations opportunities.

REFERENCES

Adams, C., Carabott, R. and Evans, S. (2014) Forensic

Odontology: An Essential Guide.

American Board of Forensic Odontology (2016) ABFO

Bitemark Methodology Standards and Guidelines

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content/uploads/2016/03/ABFO-Bitemark-Standards-

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Huraerah, A. (2007) Child Abuse (Kekerasan terhadap

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Kieser, J., Tompkins, G., Buckingham, D., Firth, N. A. and

Swain, M. (2007) ‘Bitemarks: Presentation, Analysis,

and Evidential Reliability’, in Forensic Pathology

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Rhai, R. and Vidanapathirana, M. (2008) ‘An alleged case

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Figure 5 Superimposed images of traced-bite patterns and bite mark on victim’s body with opacity, from left to right: 100

%; 60 % and 30 %.

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