Deer are generally considered one of the more benign creatures of the forest, going about their herbivorous ways in peace. But as new research shows, there’s a dark side to these ungulates. Using camera traps, forensic scientists have captured unprecedented photos of deer munching on the skeletal remains of a human…

In 1912 forensics was still in its infancy when a pretty girl was found dead in her parent’s parlour. Her boyfriend was the immediate suspect, but he had an alibi that couldn’t be broken. Here’s how make-up, and the people who analyze it, broke it.

There’s a basic test used to identify bodily secretions at crime scenes. It’s not the only test, but it is useful in primary investigations—unless you spill a lot of commercial flour around.

Why bother with fiction when you can be horrified by everyday life? We’ve found a paper about how to locate bodies in “clandestine graves” by analyzing the gas emissions they give off.

Set design’s loss may be criminal justice’s gain. A new technology may eventually replace luminol in detecting traces of blood.

It was an unbelievably monstrous crime: a three-year-old who was in the hospital recovering from pneumonia was snatched from her bed in the middle of the night, sexually assaulted, and murdered. It appeared the girl had been held by her legs and swung skull-first into a wall until she died.

A little less than a year ago, researchers announced a new technique that used DNA analysis to recreate the image of a person's face. It was a stunning idea—but a new a New York Times report reveals that there's more than one big problem with the scifi promise of DNA-based mugshots.

The results of a new study suggest forensic scientists could one day use the microbial signature of people's privates to identify sexual offenders. Think of it as a musty, microscopic, x-rated fingerprint.

Fingerprints have been used as a unique identifier for over 100 years — and chances are you've had your fingerprints inked or scanned recently. But who invented this process? Turns out that's the subject of a massive feud — which helped provide useful insights that benefited all of us.

If the Crystal Head Vodka bottles were modeled on a real skull, what would the person have looked like when he or she was alive? A forensic artist has used facial reconstruction techniques to sculpt a face that could belong to the vodka bottle.

Talk about a scene right out of Blade Runner: By zooming in on high-resolution photographs of faces, researchers recovered images of unseen bystanders from reflections in the subjects' eyes. The technique could eventually be used in criminal investigations.

In 1876, the outlaw Clelland "Clell" Miller was buried at Muddy Fork Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri. You can visit his grave. But the body interred at Muddy Fork may not be Miller's at all, as 3D scans of a skeleton discovered in Grand Forks, North Dakota – purported to belong to Miller – now show.

There have now been a series of incidents where state workers have taken light-haired children away from their Roma parents — a witch-hunt spurred by recent events in Greece. But unlike in the past, we now have a scientific way to fight this kind of racism.

Identical twins in the UK have both been charged with raping a teenage girl, even though forensic tests cannot prove which one carried out the attack.

The fascinating legend of the Shitz duzhe extended all over China in the twelfth century: the Shitz duzhe came from a lineage of forensic judges, allegedly escaped from the fires of hell, whose supernatural powers allowed them to see through flesh, commune with the spirits, and solve the most mysterious crimes. For…

Today we have body farms. Toward the end of the 19th century, we had pieces like "Body of a Courtesan in Nine Stages," by Japanese artist Kobayashi Eitaku.

By counting the cracks in pierced glass, forensic scientists can now tell how fast an object was going when it pierced through it.

Almost 40 years ago, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda died. Whether the Nobel prizewinner’s death was from prostate cancer (the official diagnosis) or poisoning has been a longstanding mystery. But earlier this week, Neruda's body was removed from its tomb, launching a forensic investigation that could establish once and for…

We've seen not one but two modern reinterpretations of Sherlock Holmes in the last couple of years, plus countless procedural dramas, including forensic-themed shows like Bones and CSI. Meanwhile, TV audiences are utterly charmed by historical dramas like Downton Abbey and Boardwalk Empire. And just this summer, ABC…