Comparison of stubbing and the double swab method for collecting offender epithelial material from a victim's skin.

After manual strangulation, epithelial cells originating from the offender can often be found on the skin of the victim. In order to obtain a conclusive DNA profile, it is important to secure as many epithelial cells from the offender and as few epithelial cells from the victim as possible. In this study, two methods for securing offender DNA were compared: the double swab method and an adapted tape-lifting method, so-called stubbing.