Sierra+Essay

My name is Sierra Legg and I am a registered Forensic Scientist specializing in Hair Identification. I was called to testify today on the behalf of the results that I found by collecting and testing hair samples from this crime scene.

Hair Evidence is the most common type of evidence collected at a crime scene because it's the most easily transferred. We are constantly losing hair and taking other peoples lost hair with us, due to the Principle of Exchange. The characteristics of a strand of hair consists of the shaft and the root. The root contains the DNA and the shaft is the part of the strand that you see. Within the shaft, we have a section of hair called the cross section. There are three parts to this section; the cuticle, the cortex, and the medulla. The cuticle is the outside layer covering the shaft. This is often scaly and can be in a variety of patterns including coronal, spinuous, and imprecate. The cortex is the middle part of the hair and the medulla is the central core of the strand. The medulla can be translucent or opaque, which is see-though or not see-thourgh. The pattern of the medulla can also be continuous, intermittent, or fragmented. All of these factors play a part in hair identification.

I believe that the suspect's hair samples are a perfect match to the hair found on the victim and at the crime scene. I have found this by examining the style of medulla, cortex, and the cuticle; all of which are highly unique. Both hair samples have translucent medullas with perfectly matching intermittent patterns. The cuticle is also an interesting and unique factor because it is a very rare coronal pattern. The hair samples collected from the suspect and the crime scene are identical. We also ran a DNA test off of the root of the hairs collected and found a match. Therefore, I believe that the hair from the suspect and the hair from the crime scene are, in fact, a match.

In conclusion, I have found that by testing the DNA and looking at the characteristics of the hair, it is a match from the suspect tthe crime scene. My research on hair has led me to confirm the exact matches of these hairs.