All Outputs (13)

Historic child homicide burial search in rural woodland (2023)
Journal Article
Pringle, J. K., Ruffell, A., Wisniewski, K. D., Davenward, B., Heaton, V., & Hobson, L. (in press). Historic child homicide burial search in rural woodland. Forensic Science International, 100324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsir.2023.100324

The cold case search for clandestine graves can be challenging due to the length of time elapsed since the crime and the search environment changing itself. This paper reports on a cold case search for “Christine”, a young girl who... Read More about Historic child homicide burial search in rural woodland.

Extended reality (XR) virtual practical and educational eGaming to provide effective immersive environments for learning and teaching in forensic science (2022)
Journal Article
Hobson, L., Stimpson, I., Wisniewski, K., Pringle, J., Heaton, V., Zholobenko, V., …Rogers, S. (2022). Extended reality (XR) virtual practical and educational eGaming to provide effective immersive environments for learning and teaching in forensic science. Science and Justice, 62(6), 696-707. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2022.04.004

Online virtual learning resources have been available for learning and teaching in forensic science for some years now, but the recent global COVID-19 related periods of irregular lockdown have necessitated the rapid development of these for teaching... Read More about Extended reality (XR) virtual practical and educational eGaming to provide effective immersive environments for learning and teaching in forensic science.

eXtended Reality (XR) virtual practical and educational eGaming to provide effective immersive environments for learning and teaching in forensic science (2022)
Journal Article
Wisniewski, Stimpson, Pringle, Rogers, Zholobenko, & Heaton. (2022). eXtended Reality (XR) virtual practical and educational eGaming to provide effective immersive environments for learning and teaching in forensic science. Science and Justice, 62(6), 696-707

Online virtual learning resources have been available for learning and teaching in forensic science for some years now, but the recent global COVID-19 related periods of irregular lockdown have necessitated the rapid development of these for teaching... Read More about eXtended Reality (XR) virtual practical and educational eGaming to provide effective immersive environments for learning and teaching in forensic science.

Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) Analysis of Heavy Metal Contamination in Graveyards with Contrasting Soil Types (2022)
Journal Article
Madden, C., Pringle, J., Jeffery, A., Wisniewski, K., Glanville, H., Heaton, V., …Oliver, I. (2022). Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) Analysis of Heavy Metal Contamination in Graveyards with Contrasting Soil Types. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 29, 55278–55292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19676-z

Human remains have been interred in burial grounds since historic times. Although the re-use of graveyards differs from one country, region or time-period to another, over time graveyard soil may become contaminated or enriched with heavy metal eleme... Read More about Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) Analysis of Heavy Metal Contamination in Graveyards with Contrasting Soil Types.

Monitoring of simulated clandestine graves of dismembered victims using UAVs, electrical tomography, and GPR over one year to aid investigations of human rights violations in Colombia, South America (2021)
Journal Article
Molina, C. M., Vasquez, A., Wisniewski, K., Heaton, V., Pringle, J., Avila, E. F., …Baena, A. (2022). Monitoring of simulated clandestine graves of dismembered victims using UAVs, electrical tomography, and GPR over one year to aid investigations of human rights violations in Colombia, South America. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 67(3), 1060-1071. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.14962

In most Latin American countries there are significant numbers of missing people and forced disappearances, over 90,000 in Colombia alone. Successful detection of shallow buried human remains by forensic search teams is difficult in varying terrain a... Read More about Monitoring of simulated clandestine graves of dismembered victims using UAVs, electrical tomography, and GPR over one year to aid investigations of human rights violations in Colombia, South America.

Geophysical monitoring of simulated clandestine burials of murder victims to aid forensic investigators (2021)
Journal Article
Davenward, B., Mirosch, N., Spencer, F., Jervis, J. R., Pringle, J. K., Stimpson, I. G., …Heaton, V. (2021). Geophysical monitoring of simulated clandestine burials of murder victims to aid forensic investigators. Geology Today, 37(2), 63-65. https://doi.org/10.1111/gto.12344

Locating murder victims buried within clandestine graves is one of the most important and difficult challenges for forensic search teams. This article details how applied geoscientists have been geophysically monitoring simulated clandestine burials,... Read More about Geophysical monitoring of simulated clandestine burials of murder victims to aid forensic investigators.

Geophysical monitoring of simulated homicide burials for forensic investigations (2020)
Journal Article
Pringle, J., Stimpson, I., Wisniewski, K., Davenward, B., Heaton, V., Mirosch, N., …Jervis, J. (2020). Geophysical monitoring of simulated homicide burials for forensic investigations. Scientific reports, 10, Article 7544. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64262-3

Finding hidden bodies, believed to have been murdered and buried, is problematic, expensive in terms of human resource and currently has low success rates for law enforcement agencies. Here we present, for the first time, ten years of multidisciplina... Read More about Geophysical monitoring of simulated homicide burials for forensic investigations.

The Search for “Fred”: An Unusual Vertical Burial Case (2019)
Journal Article
D. Wisniewski, K., Cooper, N., Heaton, V., Hope, C., Pirrie, D., J. Mitten, A., & Pringle, J. K. (2019). The Search for “Fred”: An Unusual Vertical Burial Case. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 64(5), 1530-1539. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.14035

This case reports details of a multi-phased, geophysical survey to assist in a cold case search. The Police Service received witness intelligence that had stated an adult male “Fred” had been lured to an isolated area, killed and then buried vertical... Read More about The Search for “Fred”: An Unusual Vertical Burial Case.

The movement of fly (Diptera) larvae within a feeding aggregation (2018)
Journal Article
Heaton. (2018). The movement of fly (Diptera) larvae within a feeding aggregation. The Canadian Entomologist, 326 - 333. https://doi.org/10.4039/tce.2018.9

Dipteran larvae from a number of families feed in aggregations. Rotation of blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae within an aggregation has been reported anecdotally many times. However, there is a lack of quantitative data on such larval movement... Read More about The movement of fly (Diptera) larvae within a feeding aggregation.

Sexual Dimorphism of the First Rib: A Comparative Approach Using Metric and Geometric Morphometric Analyses (2017)
Journal Article
Heaton. (2017). Sexual Dimorphism of the First Rib: A Comparative Approach Using Metric and Geometric Morphometric Analyses. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1251-1258. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.13421

This research investigated the sexual dimorphism of the first human rib using geometric morphometric and metric approaches on a sample of 285 specimens containing European Americans and African Americans from the Hamann-Todd collection. Metric measur... Read More about Sexual Dimorphism of the First Rib: A Comparative Approach Using Metric and Geometric Morphometric Analyses.

The use of geoscience methods for aquatic forensic searches (2017)
Journal Article
Ruffell, A., Pringle, J., Cassella, J., Morgan, R., Ferguson, M., Heaton, V., …McKinley, J. (2017). The use of geoscience methods for aquatic forensic searches. Earth-Science Reviews, 171, 323-337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2017.04.012

There have been few publications on the forensic search of water and fewer still on the use of geoforensic techniques when exploring aqueous environments. Here we consider what the nature of the aqueous environment is, what the forensic target(s) may... Read More about The use of geoscience methods for aquatic forensic searches.

The distribution of blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larval lengths and its implications for estimating post mortem intervals (2015)
Journal Article
Moffatt, C., Heaton, V., & De Haan, D. (2016). The distribution of blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larval lengths and its implications for estimating post mortem intervals. International Journal of Legal Medicine, 130(1), 287-297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-015-1289-9

The length or stage of development of blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae may be used to estimate a minimum postmortem interval, often by targeting the largest individuals of a species in the belief that they will be the oldest. However, natural... Read More about The distribution of blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larval lengths and its implications for estimating post mortem intervals.

Quantifying the Temperature of Maggot Masses and its Relationship to Decomposition (2014)
Journal Article
Heaton, V., Moffatt, C., & Simmons, T. (2014). Quantifying the Temperature of Maggot Masses and its Relationship to Decomposition. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 59(3), 676-682. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12396

Numerous Calliphoridae species have been observed to form larval aggregations during the feeding stage of development, resulting in localized increases in temperature. This study investigates the relationship between maggot numbers in a mass and heat... Read More about Quantifying the Temperature of Maggot Masses and its Relationship to Decomposition.