image: Eugénia Cunha
Credit: FSR
https://academic.oup.com/fsr/issue/9/3
Special Issue: Forensic Identification in a Multidisciplinary Perspective: Focusing on Big Challenges
This Special Issue focuses on critical identification cases, as forensic experts increasingly face significant challenges in identifying human remains, both in routine and extraordinary circumstances. A video introduction to the issue by the Guest Editors is available to view at https://youtu.be/N4a4nhVVfu0
Guest Editors: Eugénia Cunha and Zuzana Obertová
This Special Issue focuses on critical identification cases, as forensic experts increasingly face significant challenges in identifying human remains, both in routine and extraordinary circumstances. The primary goal of this Special Issue has been to emphasize the significance of collaborative, evidence-based, and unbiased approaches, utilizing cutting-edge technologies and the expertise of interdisciplinary teams where forensic anthropologists play a key role. In addition to case studies, the issue also features theoretical contributions.
Papers in this issue:
Editorial
Forensic identification in a multidisciplinary perspective focusing on big challenges
Eugénia Cunha and Zuzana Obertová
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae063
Review
Angela Soler, Justin Z Goldstein, Aden Naka, and Stephanie Santiago
The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner (NYC OCME) investigates approximately 9000–10000 deaths every year, each of which necessitates a formal identification. Although standard identification protocols resolve the majority of these cases, there are still a substantial number of long-term unidentified persons cases that require a targeted investigation.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae039
Research Articles
Alexandre Biro, Bertrand Ludes and Tania Delabarde
“I still don’t realize that he’s dead.... I cried over it. It makes me sad to know that he was buried unaccompanied on his last trip. We were all shocked.” This testimony corresponds to a family whose relative was buried in an anonymous grave 6 months after his disappearance was reported to the police. It is estimated that between 1000 and 3000 unidentified bodies are buried in anonymous graves in France each year.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae051
Piece by piece—a computer-aided method for virtual re-association of commingled fragmented remains
Lise Malfroy Camine, Virginie Magnin, Ruben Soto, Christine Bruguier, Silke Grabherr, Vincent Varlet, and Negahnaz Moghaddam
Air crashes or explosions with numerous victims may result in thousands of fragmented human remains that present a massive challenge for disaster victim identification teams. Genetic identification may present important financial and technical limits, and the physical re-association of fractured bones by forensic anthropologists may require a time-consuming phase of cleaning and drying.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae035
Benoit Bertrand, Thibault Clauzel, Pascale Richardin, Anne Bécart,Philippe Morbidelli, Valery Hédouin, and Carina Marques
The estimation of the postmortem interval for skeletal remains is a crucial aspect of forensic anthropology. This paper illustrates the importance of radiocarbon analysis for establishing medico-legal significance and supporting forensic identification, through the analysis of three case studies for which the years of both birth and death were investigated. In Audresselles, Northern France, a partial skull was discovered with no contextual information or identity.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae046
Combining anthropology and imaging to reconstruct antemortem trauma for identification purposes
Anja Petaros, Maria Lindblom and Eugénia Cunha
Identification of unidentified remains involves a comparison of ante-and postmortem features using biological identifiers. Anthropological identifiers, referred to by International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) as secondary identifiers, have often been judged less reliable than DNA, fingerprints and dental records (referred to as primary identifiers). However, anthropological identifiers have been proven as discriminatory as the primary sources in many instances, and play a decisive role in positive identification.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae048
Zuzana Obertová, Inga Siebke and Grit Schüler
Forensic anthropology and forensic facial image identification are areas with two aspects in common: (i) the use of anthropological knowledge concerning human variation in their analyses and (ii) low numbers of accredited forensic units. While the low numbers are often explained by the uniqueness of human identification cases, given the high level of scrutiny in the forensic sciences, interest in and efforts to achieve accreditation have become increasingly prominent.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae047
Case Reports
An interdisciplinary forensic approach in a mummified child with evidence of abuse and neglect
Norbert Moravanský, Soňa Masnicová, Petra Švábová, Roman Kuruc, Branislav Gális, and Radoslav Beňuš
Mummification of corpses with partial skeletonization is not an uncommon occurrence in daily forensic work. Cooperation between different forensic fields is important in these cases in terms of obtaining the most accurate and forensically relevant results, especially when child abuse and neglect is suspected. In Central Europe, up to 21% of children are exposed to physical and psychological harm, which is mostly perpetrated by family members. This report describes a case of subadult female mummified remains in which interdisciplinary forensic pathology.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae049
Soren Blau, Dadna Hartman, April Stock, Fiona Leahy, Jodie Leditschke, Lyndall Smythe, Noel Woodford, and Samantha Rowbotham
When human remains are inadvertently located, case-related circumstantial information is used to generate an identification hypothesis, and the preservation of the remains typically informs which identification methods may then be used to validate that hypothesis. What happens, however, when there is no contextual information to generate an identification hypothesis? This paper presents the case of a near-complete human skeleton discovered at Sandy Point in Victoria, Australia.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae032
Human identification by medical findings in a forensic anthropology context
Yara Vieira Lemos, Alexandre Neves Furtado, Adriana Zatti Lima, Alexander Santos Dionisio, Ricardo Moreira Araújo, and Eugénia Cunha
This article presents a series of three complex forensic cases that posed significant challenges for identifying human remains. These include a mass dam disaster, burnt human remains, and extensively decomposed human remains. Positive identification was achieved using a shadow positioning technique with imaging comparisons of medical findings.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae041
Daniel Gaudio and Andrea Betto
If there is a category of war victims for whom the identification process has been and still remains an extremely challenging issue, it is the soldiers of World War One. There are various reasons for this, including unreliable identity tags, the unprecedented number of casualties, and the level of destruction caused by the massive use of “new” weapons. In Italy, this phenomenon was so severe and well-known that a monument was erected in Rome specifically in memory of those unknown soldiers (“Tomba del Milite Ignoto”).
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae037
Applying multidisciplinary methods to forensic casework in North Carolina
Nicole Long, Kimberly Sheets, Erin Kennedy Thornton, and Ann H Ross
A multidisciplinary approach in the investigation of unidentified decedents employs the use of a variety of scientific approaches. This approach is applied to casework in North Carolina, USA and has led to successful identifications using anthropological analysis and population affinity estimation using 3D-ID, investigative genetic geneaology (IGG), and isotopic analyses. Results from one scientific approach can help to inform the others, providing more information about the decedent, and thus enhancing the investigation.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae038
Still waters run deep: a unique case of mummification under extreme conditions
Despoina E Flouri, Efstratios Kougios, Efthimios Fasoulakis, Konstantinos Spanakis, Elena F Kranioti, and Antonios Papadomanolakis
In rural Crete, Greece, a mummified body was discovered inside a screw-top plastic barrel next to a dry riverbed. Local authorities conducted a field investigation along with a forensic pathologist, and the body was transferred inside the barrel to the Forensic Medicine Unit of the University of Crete for further investigation. Forensic examination included radiographs taken using a portable X-ray machine in situ followed by extraction of the remains, a full-body postmortem computed tomography scan, autopsy, DNA extraction, tissue and biofluid sampling, and histological and toxicological analyses. https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae040
Human identification through forensic skeletal analysis: three case reviews
Joe Adserias-Garriga, Shelby Feirstein, Dakota Bell, Hannah Skropits, and Dennis C Dirkmaat
Establishing a positive identification of human remains found in a forensic setting is often accomplished through DNA, fingerprints, or odontology. However, when these primary identifiers cannot be applied, practitioners can rely on combining points of concordance derived from other identification modalities such as antemortem trauma, pathology, or unique skeletal morphologies to build up a case for identification.
https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae053
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Guest Editor Biographies
Eugénia Cunha
Eugénia Cunha, Ph.D., C-FASE, is a forensic anthropologist and the director of the South Delegation of the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Lisbon, Portugal. She is also a full professor at the University of Coimbra since 2003, where she created and co-coordinates the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology. She is a co-founder and former President of FASE—Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (2009–2016); Vice-President and Founder member of ABRAF—Associação Brasileira de Antropologia Forense; Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences; Member of the Pathology and Anthropology Sub-group at the Interpol DVI Working Group; Roster member of JRR—Justice Rapid Response. Invited teacher, among others, at Stanford University, USA (Tinker visiting research, Center of Latin American Studies, 2020). Since 1997, she has conducted more than 600 forensic anthropology cases in Portugal and abroad (Brazil and some African countries). She has been a consultant and evaluator to several entities in around 15 countries and invited speaker in about 25 countries. She is a top peer-reviewer and a member of the Editorial Board of some scientific journals. She is the coeditor/author of five books and author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. To this date, 26 Ph.D. students have already accomplished their Ph.D. under her supervision. In 2023, she was the T. Dale Stewart recipient award from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. In 2021, 2023 and 2024, she is among the top 2% of most cited authors in the world in the area of Forensic Sciences. Selected as one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford for 2024, her research aims are focused on forensic anthropology, specifically in identification.
Zuzana Obertová
Dr. Zuzana Obertová is currently an adjunct lecturer in forensic anthropology at the University of Western Australia. She is the Vice-President of the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE), assistant editor at Forensic Science International, certified technical assessor for facial image comparison, and co-editor of the book Statistics and Probability in Forensic Anthropology. Her current research interests encompass morphological assessment of skeletal remains, trauma analysis, stable isotope analysis, and facial image comparison.
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Forensic Sciences Research (FSR) is a publication of the Academy of Forensic Science (AFS), Shanghai, P.R. China, that publishes the latest research in various disciplines of forensic sciences. It aims to promote forensic sciences through quality research articles, reviews, case reports, and letters to editors. The journal has been publishing highly impactful articles and achieving a 1.4 Impact Factor and 3.6 CiteScore (Scopus) while averaging 11 days from submission to first decision.
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1.4 (2023) Impact Factor
4.7 (2022) CiteScore (Scopus)
Q1 (2022) CiteScore Best Quartile
1.767 (2021) SNIP
0.894 (2021) SJR
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39% acceptance rate
Print ISSN: 2096-1790
Online ISSN: 2471-1411
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Journal
Forensic Sciences Research