TERENCE MCADAM – Cross by Mr. Costello, May 11, 2004
Volume 24, page 1504
A. Yes, that’s true.
Q. So the relative location of the object to that blood source is, again, crucial?
A. Yes.
Q. Whether another object is between the source of blood and the object in question, that’s also very important, wouldn’t it be?
A. Yes, it would be.
Q. So if we have a situation where there are multiple people in close proximity to a victim who’s on the ground, the victim is bleeding, the victim is being struck, whether blood ends up on one particular article of clothing is highly dependent on where the others are in relation to that wearer. Does that make sense?
A. Yes. I think you’ve described a very dynamic event. There’s lots of things going on and lots of movement. Certainly, that movement can effect where blood lands, yes.
Q. If for example, a victim it’s on the ground and bleeding from a number of head wounds and suppose I have an object such as a bat and I crouch down and strike the person, might my body get in the way of blood landing on my shoes? What I’m indicating here is I’m kneeling down and the supposed victim would be on my right. I’m striking with my right hand and in this fashion?
A. Yes. To paraphrase that, for blood to strike an
Volume 24, page 1505
object, it has to be an unimpeded space for the blood to fly through, for it to strike the object. If anything, the blood has to be, the blood that is or is on has to be exposed to blood. The scenario you’ve outlined whereby kneeling down, the shoes would be covered by the rest of the body and clothing, the blood may not hit the shoes.
Q. Would you agree that predicting then in any given case whether blood might have landed on something becomes, it becomes rather speculative without fairly concrete information, answers to certain questions? Isn’t that right?
A. Yes. Obviously, the more information you have, the more you can say about it, but with limited information, you can only say limited amount of —— make a limited statement.
Q. Now, supposing airborne blood were in fact deposited on an object such as boots, whether it might remain there is also subject to a number of variables, wouldn’t that also be right?
A. Yes. That’s true.
Q. It could be deliberately cleaned off, true?
A. It could be cleaned off. Indications sometimes —— I’ve seen indications of that, yes.
Q. It might be mechanically removed by contact with something else, true?
A. True.
Q. It would depend in large part, wouldn’t it, on the
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