What do we know about hair decomp ***REVISITED***

[TURBOTHINK]

The expert concluded, based on 20 years of research and expertise, that the hairs displayed “post-mortem root banding,” a hallmark of decomposition that only occurs while hairs are attached to a corpse that has been dead for at least 8 hours, if not days or weeks.


http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/171.php

In Bill Bass' new book, it just says within hours of death, and they may have a computer program perfected which now will identify if postmortem within an hour.

 

[shadow of my mind]

In Bill Bass' new book, it just says within hours of death, and they may have a computer program perfected which now will identify if postmortem within an hour.

I wonder if this has been court tested yet or will this be a case that would set presedence (terminology?)

 

[TURBOTHINK]

Turbothink, re Bill Bass' book - is that identifiable by banding alone, or other post-mortem changes?

IIFC (and I will read it again to be sure) the ONLY thing needed is the hair.

They had a case where they could not decide if someone was hijacked and being held hostage or if he was killed. They found the SUV the next day, but there was nothing there except some hair. The hair in the car showed the man was dead. They found his body later in the mountains close by where the SUV had been left.

 

[TURBOTHINK]

I wonder if this has been court tested yet or will this be a case that would set presedence (terminology?)

It has been used since 2004, I think I read........maybe before.

 

[shadow of my mind]

Thank you. Good night all.

 

[halleyscomet]

i still think LE is holding out for a body. mainly because, ok the hair says that she is dead, but we still have no idea how she died. as far as prosecuting goes (1st degree - manslaughter) it would just be easier if there was some idea of HOW she died.

also, i know that someone (kobi maybe?) said on NG that if hair was laying there long enough, it would form death bands. i remember this because i have very curly hair that falls out all over the place. and it made me think that if i ever go missing, they could find hair all over the place that could have been for god knows how long...

I don't trust anything Kobi says since he confirmed that he has been contacted by Baez to possibly be an expert witness for the defense.

 

[halleyscomet]

That is not what I was told by someone at U.T. yesterday. I was told it could be as few as 72 hours and they scalp actually "lets go" of the hair. Small parts of the scalp is usually found where a body has laid.

Turbo, do you know if it was confirmed that folks from the Body Farm came to Orlando? Someone posted that they had heard on a local Tenn radio station that they were travelling to Orlando re: the Caylee case.

 

[TURBOTHINK]

Shouldn't this be a "slam dunk" for the prosecuters? I mean it is proven that there are dead rings on Caylee's hair found in the trunk which means she would have had to been in this trunk and deceased? I do not get it. Her mother's car and this forensic evidence. It is confusing to me. If they keep waiting she may flee the country, who knows? She is certantley capable of that!

I believe there is much more in this case which they are investigating. I also believe there will be others charged in this. (disposing of the body)

It is not that easy to flee the country anymore. There are very few countries which do not have extradition treaties with the U.S. and in most of those if the U.S. is looking for someone, those persons just seem to die of mysterious circumstances in that country. Most countries do not want the U.S. authorities on their back.

 

[TURBOTHINK]

Turbo, do you know if it was confirmed that folks from the Body Farm came to Orlando? Someone posted that they had heard on a local Tenn radio station that they were travelling to Orlando re: the Caylee case.

I wish I knew. My friend who has classes though U.T. in anthropolgy said that was the rumor also, but he had nothing to confirm it for sure and they aren't privy to information in open investigations.

I tend to think it is accurate, because about a week after that it came out that the detectives were going to California this Thursday.

 

[halleyscomet]

I think it would be difficult for her to flee anywhere with her every move being watched. I do believe that she had planned on leaving the state and making it look like she, too, had been kidnapped but mommy thwarted her plans when she found her at AL's.

 

[treeseeker]

IIFC (and I will read it again to be sure) the ONLY thing needed is the hair.

They had a case where they could not decide if someone was hijacked and being held hostage or if he was killed. They found the SUV the next day, but there was nothing there except some hair. The hair in the car showed the man was dead. They found his body later in the mountains close by where the SUV had been left.

There's other pm changes to the hair, having to do with the root and how it looks, besides the banding. While its possible the hair in question does exhibit those changes, we haven't heard it - we've only heard about the banding.

 

[Darshana]

yeah thats true with her trying to leave. But with Casey you never know. One scary woman...

 

[halleyscomet]

yeah thats true with her trying to leave. But with Casey you never know. One scary woman...

You're right. Someone could sneak her into the back seat of one of the cars in the garage and we'd never know. As long as it was done during the time that she has permission to leave the house. It's my understanding that the monitor is not a gps, it only tells that the monitor is away from the home base.

 

[TURBOTHINK]

I think it would be difficult for her to flee anywhere with her every move being watched. I do believe that she had planned on leaving the state and making it look like she, too, had been kidnapped but mommy thwarted her plans when she found her at AL's.

I agree that her plans were to go to California. I don't think she had enough money yet though and that was holding her back a "few more days." Then mommy dearest caught her at Tony's with AH help.

 

[Advocate4]

Guess I am mistaken. They brought it up on Nancy Grace tonight and I have read it from various new articles. May, as you say, not be confirmed yet so sorry for bringing it up. Was under the impression this was actually true.

Don't feel bad, LOL! It's way too easy to get confused about a whole lot of things in this case! Besides, someone might still post a link that banding in fact has been confirmed on hair belonging to Caylee. Certainly there has been a whole lot to learn about it, pretty fascinating to say the least.

 

[icherish]

Hi Everyone,

(since the root-band has it's own thread now I'm copying my post in another thread earlier this evening)

As my signature states, I'm more of a subjective analyzer until all factual information is presented. At this point I live more on the fence than any place but feel much more welcome with the Alive crew. I cannot bring myself to commit to either side because there is compelling evidence & reasons for both positions.

I decided to do a little research on the infamous "death band" that alot of people say confirms Caylee is deceased yet LE has NOT come right out and said anything other than she was in the trunk and "the totality of evidence" leads them to believe she is deceased... I'm not here to debate semantics in this thread.

Now on to my discovery.... I read a thesis on the Analysis of Postmortem Deterioration of Human Head Hair. Hair samples from the subjects were taken from the TN "Body Farm". Rather than bore you with details I'll get to the punch lines... "The reason for the yellow-banding at the proximal end is unknown... there is a possibility that the yellow-band is a precursor to root-banding."

Of the 10 subjects (9 cadavers & 1 live control subject) 6 of them presented normal with yellow-banding (including the LIVE control) and 4 presented with hard keratin point, root-banding and brush like ends. The 9 cadavers were PMI from 8 days to 633 days... the only cadavers with actual "ROOT-BANDING" had been deceased for 89 to 633 days.

This science would strongly suggest they either don't have Caylee's hair with root-banding or they found forensic evidence that a close to 90 day old cadaver had been in her car at some point....

Maybe KC was robbing graves to support her lifestyle... (insert sarcasm) :crazy:

I agree that they most likely don't have root-banding on Caylee's hair. I know Dr. Baden has talked about banding- I don't recall him mentioning a specific frame before it appears, though.

I would like to read this thesis you're quoting. May we have a link, please?

 

[TruthSeeker]

I know these links were working five minutes ago! Is anyone else having trouble?

The FBI and edu links are not working for me either.

 

[CHICANA]

That is interesting.... the reports & studies that I read from UT & the FBI indicate that it takes closer to 90 days for the root-band to occur. Is it possible they were talking about the yellow-banding? That can occur in live subjects as well though it is harder to see depending on the hair pigmentation.

I haven't seen anything that states specifically that they found death rings on the hair. I could have missed it, but what I've heard is that the hair and air
tests reveal there was decomposition from a human body. I haven't heard them come out and say that Caylee's hair had the "death rings". I've seen clips about how and why the rings form, but it's general info from the media to give the 'illusion' that it was actually found. When LE said 'hair evidence' was one of the indicators that she was dead, it could simply mean the fact that her hair was in the trunk period, was an indication she was in there.

 

[FootballMom]

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First, let me make you aware if you didn't notice this was done in 2002-2003. The research has been ongoing since that was done and has had some astonishing discoveries since.

If you look on page 3 of her thesis, you will notice that fungal tunnels were visible in 3 days even though this was 5 years ago, and the transformation of putrid root ONLY occurs in roots which remain in scalp and DOES NOT occur if prior to death.

If you follow on through to page 12, you can actually see the banding pictures. The control group in there were two cases which were 12 days or less. One was 8 days.

In Bill Bass' new book, he talks about this, and states that any hair is now identifiable as to whether the subject is alive or dead within hours of death.[/QUOTE]
____________________________________________________________________________________

Good Morning!

The study began in the late summer of 2003 the thesis was written in May 2005 so I wanted to be sure we were accurate with the dates. That does not discount the technology for reading current data has improved in the past few years.

Page 21 - There was only one control subject and it was hair taken from a live subject that also exhibited the same yellow-banding & normal PEM as the cadavers ranging from 8 to 44 days. Another interesting point was that the only fungal growth exhibited was found on cadavers that were 311 days to 633 days. The 89 day cadaver had the dark root-banding but no fungal growth.

Page 23 - "the presence of a normal root or yellow-banding on the proximal end and no fungal growth on a head hair would suggest a PMI of <90 days. In contrast, the presence of a hard-keratin point, root-banding, or brush-like proximal end and fungal growth on a head hair would suggest a PMI of >90 days."

I'm sorry the links aren't working for everyone. I can't explain why that is happening. The only suggestion I can make is to google "root-banding" "forensic" "thesis" "cadaver". Be sure you include the quotations to help weed out non-specific results.

 

[FootballMom]

I haven't seen anything that states specifically that they found death rings on the hair. I could have missed it, but what I've heard is that the hair and air
tests reveal there was decomposition from a human body. I haven't heard them come out and say that Caylee's hair had the "death rings". I've seen clips about how and why the rings form, but it's general info from the media to give the 'illusion' that it was actually found. When LE said 'hair evidence' was one of the indicators that she was dead, it could simply mean the fact that her hair was in the trunk period, was an indication she was in there.

I concur... LE has not made a statement that Caylee's hair had the root-banding. They said they found her hair and the totality of forensic evidence (some of which they have not revealed) leads them to believe she is deceased. Conversly someone made a good point the other day that LE would lose credibility if they were "baiting" the POI's and the public with leading everyone to believe she was deceased when they don't have definitive proof otherwise. However - since we are not privy to ALL of the information that LE has the possibility does exist (no matter how big or small) that maybe they have their reasons for this and could provide valid arguments for taking those steps to find her alive.

Again - I'm living on the fence.