Dr. Kristen Clarke and SSgt Donna MacGregor ANZFSS QLD Branch 2025 Symposium Award Presentations
Please join us in celebrating some of the Qld Branch Symposium Award winners who presented either their research from the recent ANZFSS Symposium. Presentations will begin at 6:30 pm, followed by nibbles and light refreshments. Please indicate in the booking form whether you intend to attend in person or online, and advise us of any dietary requirements.
Dr. Kristen Clarke: Water we waiting for? Evaluating a greener, safer, more cost-effective strategy for applying 1,2-indanedione to latent fingermarks on paper
Developing fingermarks on paper-based evidence with 1,2-indanedione and zinc chloride is a fundamental evidence gathering methodology; however the most widely-used carrier solvents to effect it, HFE-7100, will be phased out after 2025, necessitating new 1,2-indanedione formulations. While flammable hydrocarbon solvents have been suggested as suitable replacements for HFE-7100, the compromise to safety makes them unsuitable long-term alternatives. This work opted for a fundamentally different approach; a water-based, non-flammable xanthan gum gel medium to host 1,2-indanedione that allowed for detection of natural fingermarks.
The optimised xanthan gum hydrogel formulation develops highly fluorescent fingermarks with minimal blurring and demonstrated effectiveness for fingermarks in the tenth natural depletion of a series. From a holistic frugal forensics perspective, the gel delivery shows promise in terms of major benefits for cost, safety, accessibility, and availability, and provides further development in this area to deliver a safer, longer-term alternative to HFE-7100.
SSgt Donna MacGregor: From police to universities and everyone in between: a multiagency collaborative partnership for the reporting, management, and storage of medical (anatomical) teaching skeletons – a Queensland perspective.
In Queensland, when unidentified human remains (UHR) are discovered, they must be reported to the Police or Coroner. An investigation will then commence to first determine if the UHRs are ancestral Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander remains or a contemporary forensic case. If the remains are contemporary in nature, then a full investigation will ensue to determine the identification and circumstances of death for this individual. However, what if the UHRs are neither ancestral remains or a contemporary forensic case but instead a medical (anatomical) teaching skeleton?
The reporting of these type of human remains cases to police, comes about mostly by family members as they clean out the contents of the deceased’s’ office etc and locate a “box of bones”. These teaching skeletons, mostly sourced from India, were exported to medical and educational institutes around the globe including Australia. It is estimated that 2.4 million skeletons were exported between 1947 and 1985, when the practice ceased.
Teaching skeletons are being reported to police in increasing numbers in recent years, even though they are not “reportable deaths” by definition. Previously, lacking other viable options, teaching skeletons were lodged into local mortuaries thereby entering the Coronial process. This has significantly increased time pressures on forensic officers and investigators within the QPS and members of the Coronial system, whilst also contributing towards long-term storage issues; the situation was becoming unsustainable.
In 2023, members from the Forensic Services Group commenced working with academic and technical staff at all Queensland universities with accepting schools of anatomy (i.e. able to receive human cadavers). These universities include Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Queensland, and James Cook University. Working collaboratively, a universal donation form and new management workflow, supported by the State Coroner, has been established that negates the need for lodgement of teaching skeletons at local mortuaries.
This presentation will discuss the process for triaging all UHRs in Queensland and the new workflow for managing teaching skeletons.