By Joelyn Hansen
Idaho Falls Post Register
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — What patterns appear when blood is squirted from a syringe at a height of 6 feet?
That’s just one of the questions instructor Steven McGibbon asked a dozen detectives from the region during a bloodstain pattern interpretation course this week.
The experience the detectives gain in the class will help them decipher bloodstain patterns or spatters at a future crime scene, McGibbon said.
“It gives them a firsthand opportunity to see what happens to blood in flight,” McGibbon said.
Idaho Falls Police Detective Jeff Pratt is no stranger to blood spatters, as he has been involved in crime scene investigations for years. He said he found McGibbon’s class a good refresher course and a chance to learn about the latest forensics technologies.
“You confirm within yourself that you’re still doing the job right,” Pratt said.
McGibbon, a former police officer and retired federal agent in charge of forensic units, has spent 33 years in law enforcement and said a majority of his work has focused on analyzing bloodstain patterns and spatters. His expertise has taken him all over the country, even to the witness stand in federal court trials.
In the past two years, he started a mobile classroom that has traveled around the United States, particularly to rural areas, teaching police departments not only about bloodstains but also about crime scene investigation and crime scene protection.
Students in a bloodstains course will participate in a number of different experiments, McGibbon said. They look at what happens to blood when it is dropped on different surfaces, when dropped at different angles, and when transferred between objects or surfaces.
They even look at bloodstain patterns and spatter caused by gunshots.
Idaho Falls Police Detective Steve Avery, who works with Pratt investigating violent crimes for the IFPD, said he has taken many courses on homicides and bloodstain patterns, but never a course like this.
“This is probably the most in-depth and hands-on classes in bloodstain interpretation and analysis,” Avery said.
Officers are often amazed at the results, McGibbon said. For example, when a drop of blood is dropped from a height of 6 feet onto glass, most expect it to splatter on contact.
Instead, McGibbon said the drop maintains its shape.
McGibbon says this information is invaluable to a crime investigation as it helps detectives better understand what likely happened during a crime.
“The primary reason is to prove or disprove whether a witness or suspect is telling the truth of what happened based on forensics,” he said.
The class, sponsored by the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, began Monday and will end Friday, McGibbon said.
Copyright 2009 Idaho Falls Post Register