How murder detectives are using aeroplane scanners to solve more than 100 murders

High-tech scanners used to pick up tiny defects in aeroplane turbine blades and car engines have been repurposed by murder detectives to solve 120 homicides.

Automotive experts at the University of Warwick have been working with West Midlands police ever since investigators approached them in 2014 asking them to scan a piece of charcoal found at the home of murder suspect Lorenzo Simon.

Simon had killed his tenant Michael Spalding, 39, and dismembered his body, before dumping the remains in a canal in a suitcase in Birmingham.

There was no evidence linking the body in the suitcase to Simon, but when experts put the charcoal through there micro CT scanner they found a piece of shoulder bone inside that perfectly matched a fragment of the remains.

Speaking at the British Science Festival, Professor Mark Williams of Warwick Materials Group, said: “That was our first case. They had no evidence to link the suspect to the suitcase.

“There was no blood or DNA of the victim in the house, zero evidence which was really unusual for a dismemberment, he’d done it in a plastic sheet, he was actually a fan of Dexter. He scooped up the mess an burned it in the back garden.

“The police came to us and said we’ve got this piece of charcoal, we don’t want to examine it physically because it’s so brittle and fragile. We looked at the results and we found human remains and we rang them and said you’ve got to come and see this.

“If someone told me five years that I would be working to produce expert witness testimony over 120 murder cases I would have said no way. I used to measure cars and parts and now its bones.”

The scanners pick up micro-defects which are thousands of times smaller than a human hair, allowing forensic experts to distinguish between different kinds of blades and weapons, and see exactly how much force caused an injury.

After scans have been carried out, the objects such as skulls and bones can be printed in 3d allowing juries to examine crucial evidence without being confronted with a real body. In the past judges have often thrown out evidence because it is too graphic for jury member to see.

And the technology is being used to study the delicate bones of young children or babies which are often damaged in post mortem, or to find the exact impact point of road traffic collisions.

The team has even discovered an area of bony cartilage in the throat which can help investigators determine whether a victim was strangled.

Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Payne, of West Midlands Police, said: “Using cases where we thought somebody may have been strangled we have been able to prove that actually was not the case, that that was not the cause of death.

“So you could imagine people die for all sorts of reasons, often in circumstances that are not clear.

“If we are able to categorically say that this person who is dead, was strangled and that the force used was significant, then it narrows down the opportunity for people to say it was an accident or actually it was a playfight, or those kinds of things that people are not able to take that route.

“Therefore they either have to lie or put their hands up and say ‘I did strangle this person.”

He said that the new technology was making it harder than ever for criminals to get away with murder.

“When I was starting off investigating murders it really was ablut feet on the ground, knocking on doors looking for witnesses,” he added.

“Now with all the science it’s increasingly difficult for people to get away with murder.

“We are incredibly good at solving murder, and people who commit murder more likely to go to jail for the rest of our lives, which is good news for everyone.”