Bitemarks 315
large diastema (space or gap) between the upper two central incisors. Roy
Allen Stewart was subsequently arrested and charged with the murder of
Margaret Hazlip. Mr. Stewart had a large diastema between his upper cen-
tral incisors. The defense hired Dr. Lowell Levine to analyze the bite and
testify at the subsequent trial of Mr. Stewart. As mentioned previously, the
trial took place in the same courthouse and at the same time that jury selec-
tion was being conducted in the Bundy trial. Mr. Bundy’s defense team (five
attorneys) all attended the prosecution’s forensic dentist’s testimony and
made notes to challenge his later testimony at the Bundy trial. The defense
expert, Dr. Levine, did not take the stand but provided useful information
for the defense to cross-examine Dr. Souviron. Mr. Stewart was subsequently
convicted, sentenced to death, and after numerous appeals, executed in the
electric chair at Florida state prison in 1994. Because of the bologna used at
the Stewart trial to show that Ms. Hazlip could not have bitten the bologna
and that Mr. Stewart could, the case was referred to as “the bologna case.”
Dr. Souviron was referred to as an expert in bologna, implying that the same
adjective could be applied to bitemark analysis. This was brought out in a
humorous way by Judge Coward in the Bundy trial.^12
These cases show that bitemark evidence has been used to link a sus-
pect to bitemarks not only in cheese or bologna, but in other objects and in
human skin. Bitemark evidence consists of patterned and other features that
contain variables, not only in the teeth of suspected biters but in the material
bitten, especially if that material is human skin. Three-dimensional informa-
tion can be critical, not only in making a correlation between the biter and
the injury, but also in determining if the injury occurred around the time of
death. These cases point out the importance of cooperation and consultation
among forensic dentists, the value of applying science to the analysis of bite-
mark evidence, and underscore the need for caution and the recognition that
bitemark evidence can become controversial. The valid question “How can
highly qualified experts have different opinions when analyzing the same
material?” deserves an answer. The quality of the evidence, the distinctive
patterns of a biter’s teeth, the abundance or paucity of individual charac-
teristics that are recorded in the bitemark—all go to the value and weight
of the evidence. In the 1979 Hazlip case, although the defense expert could
not exclude the defendant as being the biter, he was able to provide valuable
information to the defense attorney in challenging not only the validity of
bitemark evidence, but the credentials and testimony of the expert witness
for the state. Each and every bitemark case that has proceeded to trial, and
especially those that have been reported, contain valuable information that
can help odontologists in obtaining, analyzing, and presenting bitemark
evidence in a court of law. Had these cases been reviewed and analyzed by
attorneys and odontologists in some of the bitemark cases that followed,