Forensic Dentistry, Second Edition

Bitemarks 361

able to determine tooth position, spacing between teeth, broken or missing

teeth, and other individualizing features (Figures 14.30 and 14.31).

With the use of technology developments and improvements, especially

three-dimensional or pseudo-three-dimensional techniques such as laser

scanning (LS), cone bea m computed tomography (CBCT), or scanning elec-

tron microscopy (SEM), forensic odontologists may be able to discern even

more detail in the bitemarks and in the individual teeth of biters. With bites

in other substrates, be they foodstuffs such as cheese, cookies, bologna, or

chew i ng g u m, or nonfood items, li ke ex pa nded polyst y rene cups, penci ls, or

golf tees, with almost any item that can go into the mouth, forensic dentists

may be able to isolate specific individual tooth characteristics that are found

in the teeth of the suspected biter. Although bites in material other than skin

do not indicate violence, they may have the ability to show greater detail of

both class and specific individual dental characteristics.

The characterization of bites in human skin in relation to the time of

death of victims is another area in which bitemark evidence may prove to

be valuable. As in the 1975 Marx case with the bitemark on the nose, or in

other cases where the three-dimensional nature of the marks, especially the

retention of indentations from the teeth, played a prominent role, a forensic

odontologist may be able to offer an opinion related to when the wound was

inflicted in relation to the time of death. Forensic odontologists must be very

careful to not overstate the significance or accuracy of this finding, and limit

the opinion, if and when indicated, to “around the time of death.” To state

that the bitemark was inflicted at any specific interval of time prior to or after

death is not currently scientifically supportable.

Advances in science when applied to bitemark analysis and interpreta-

tion are very likely to provide greater assistance to the examining and testify-

ing expert and to enhance the value of evidence in specific cases.

14.6 Responsibilities and Consequences of

Forensic Odontology Expert Testimony

As expert witnesses in criminal trials, forensic odontologists are under oath;
they swear to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
In fact, they are required to answer truthfully only the questions asked. It is
the responsibility of attorneys to ask the appropriate questions to get the
whole truth from expert witnesses. Experts for the prosecution in a criminal
bitemark case may be pressured to provide a “positive link” between the
putative biter and the bitemark. With the best evidence and a limited or
closed population odontologists may be able to associate the two with rea-
sonable medical or dental certainty, but never with absolute certainty. Terms