Understanding Textiles

Bloodstains are commonly deposited on textiles during violent crimes and those bloodstains, particularly when deposited on clothing and footwear, can provide important evidence connecting the wearer to a crime scene or to a victim of crime and provide insight to the mechanisms that led to the bloodstain deposition. In many cases, the established criteria commonly used to classify bloodstains on non-porous surfaces typically found at crime scenes may not apply to certain textiles. Textiles generally have a textured surface and are porous, so blood will react differently when compared to how blood reacts with smooth, non-porous surfaces. Resultant bloodstains on textiles will often vary in shape and appearance when compared to similar bloodstains caused by the same deposition mechanism but deposited on non-porous surfaces.<p></p>