You might not think that your trusty duffle bag would have much of a forensic value, but it turns out that it has a few hidden nooks and crannies that can reveal a lot about the person who has been using it as well as the crime for which it has been used. Who needs a CSI machine when you have a duffle bag? In this article, we explain how to use your duffle bag to detect a murder weapon. It may sound a little unorthodox, but it really works. If you’re ready to find out how, just keep reading.
What You’ll Need
– A duffle bag
– A knife
– String
– A pen or pen with a metal tip
– Tape
– Forming tool (optional)
How to Detect A Murder Weapon With Your Duffle Bag
First, you will want to clear out all of the items in your bag. If you don’t, you might accidentally leave a piece of evidence behind. Secondly, make sure that the area around your bag is free of any fingerprints. You can do this by using a few paper towels and placing them around it to absorb any trace evidence.
Next, place the duffel on its side with the bottom facing up and open it so that it lays flat. Now, check inside each pocket to see if there are any metal objects inside. If there are metal objects, this would be a strong indication that your bag has been used as a murder weapon.
Step 1: Smell the Bag Before you get too far into your duffle bag, take a whiff and see if you can detect any unusual odors. This can help you figure out what the bag has been used for.
If you sniff the bag and smell something that resembles bleach, the bag has been used for cleaning purposes. If you smell smoke, the bag has most likely been used to store a weapon or gun. The smell of blood is also common, so if your duffle bag reeks of this scent, it’s been used as a makeshift blood bank.
Step 2: Check the Stitching
One of the first things to look for when you’re trying to detect a murder weapon is the stitching. Look for stitches that have been taken apart, which usually happen when someone uses a knife as a tool. A knife works like this: you stick it into one of the two pieces of fabric and then pull on both of them at the same time, taking longer strips in opposite directions. This creates holes in the fabric, which means that whoever used a knife did not want to leave any evidence behind.
To check your bag’s stitching, all you have to do is open up one of the compartments and flip through it with your fingers. You’ll be able to feel if there are any gaps or loose threads. If there are, inspect them more closely using your fingers and light from outside sources such as sunlight or lamps.
Step 3: Look at the Zippers
One of the most interesting places to look for a murder weapon is inside the zippers. You may be surprised to see what you find. Look around where the zipper meets the fabric of the bag and you can find small, hard pieces of metal, which are called teeth. These teeth can sometimes have blood on them or some other type of organic material. This organic material can give away a lot about what happened at the crime scene.
If you look in your duffle bag’s lining, it will be harder to find these teeth because they are less visible when they are inside a lining that isn’t white like your duffle bag’s fabric. But don’t worry if you only see one or two teeth in there; it still might be worth looking into.
Step 4: Look at the seams
The first thing to look for is the seams. If you’re in a situation where a crime has occurred and you need to find out what was used as a murder weapon, the first step is to identify the seam on the bag. It could be any type of seam that separates one piece of fabric from another.
A killer might have taped up an entire bag or sewn it shut to hide something inside, but they’ll inconsistently leave a seam unattended. The side seams are easily seen because they run all the way around an object placed inside the bag. Since these seams are running all the way around, they can help you figure out which end of something was left exposed. In cases where there is a large object inside the bag, like a gun or something else that takes up too much space, you should look for signs of rips or tears on this side of the bag near this seam for clues about what kind of weapon might have been used.
Final Step: Compare your Find to Crime Scene Photos
There is a final step before you can be sure that your duffle bag has found its match. You need to compare your discovery with crime scene photos and determine if the items look similar enough. For example, in this article, we use duffle bag-to-duffle bag comparison. This will help you determine if your findings are from the same murder weapon, but it’s also possible to do side-by-side comparisons as well. In a more traditional side-by-side comparison, you would work with two different sets of crime scene images and line up the objects on them to see what they look like together.
It may sound difficult to do, but this is actually one of the easiest ways to ensure that the item you’ve found is indeed related to your crime scene evidence. Just make sure you have all of the information about the specific case when doing so!
