An Aquatic Decomposition Scoring Method to Potentially Predict the Postmortem Submersion Interval of Bodies Recovered from the North Sea.

This study aimed to develop an aquatic decomposition scoring (ADS) method and investigated the predictive value of this method in estimating the postmortem submersion interval (PMSI) of bodies recovered from the North Sea. This method, consisting of an ADS item list and a pictorial reference atlas, showed a high interobserver agreement (Krippendorff's alpha ≥ 0.93) and hence proved to be valid.

Comparing six commercial autosomal STR kits in a large Dutch population sample.

Regularly, STR results obtained with different PCR amplification kits are compared, for instance with old cases, when revisiting cold cases or when addressing cross-border crimes. It is known that differences in primer design for the same loci in different kits may give rise to null alleles or shifted alleles. In this study, the genotyping results of 2085 Dutch male samples were compared for six autosomal STR kits (Promega's PowerPlex(®) 16, ESX-16 and ESI-17 Systems, Qiagen's Investigator(®) ESSplex Kit and Applied Biosystems' AmpFlSTR(®) Identifiler and NGM PCR Amplification Kits).