preprints.org > environmental and earth sciences > other > doi: 10.20944/preprints202310.0335.v1

Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Version 1 : Received: 5 October 2023 / Approved: 6 October 2023 / Online: 6 October 2023 (11:31:13 CEST)

Criminal investigations aimed to track the route walked by Missing Persons and Fugitives (MPFs) usually involve Intelligence analysts, military planners, experts in mobile forensics, traditional investigative methods, and sniffer dog handlers. Notwithstanding, when MPFs are devoid of any technological device and move in uninhabited rural areas devoid of tele cameras and densely covered by vegetation, tracking backwards the route walked by MPFs may be a much more arduous task. In such complex cases, a very efficient approach may consist in comparing the geological traces found on the MPFs with soils and plants exposed in the event scenes. In particular, the search for peculiar or rare particles and aggregates may strengthen the weight of the geological evidence comparisons. A match of mineralogical, textural, and botanical data may demonstrate the provenance of the traces from the soil of a specific site, linking in this way the MPFs to the scene of events. Based on the above, the present paper reports geological and botanical determinations accomplished for a “mediatic” casework. Results allowed to ascertain a general high degree of compatibility among traces collected on the MPFs and on the soil from the scene of events. The most significant positive matches, based on the finding of a ten of peculiar and rare particles and assemblages, allowed reconstructing a route about 1.1 km long, as the crow flies, on the event site. Notwithstanding this procedure was extremely time consuming and available only in a backwards reconstruction linked to the MPFs’ findings, it was of uttermost importance in strengthen the inferences proposed, where other methods could not provide any information.

Geoforensics (Forensic Geology); Sedimentology; Provenance; Comparative analyses; Optical Microscopy; SEM-EDS; Image Analysis; Missing Persons and Fugitives.

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Other

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