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Abstract

This study investigates whether ATR-FTIR can differentiate human pubic and underarm hairs, either on its own or as a supplement to morphological examination via light microscopy. Determining somatic origin may provide useful context in criminal cases, especially in sexual assault cases. The morphological similarity between pubic and underarm hair means that these somatic regions are particularly in need of a more quantitative method of differentiation than the current qualitative approach. The ATR-FTIR spectra of pubic and underarm hairs collected from nine volunteers were not visually differentiable. Six peaks in the fingerprint region shared by all the spectra were selected and analyzed using pooled T-tests. All six pooled T-tests showed no statistically significant difference between the signal strength of pubic and underarm hairs. In other words, this study found that ATR-FTIR cannot effectively differentiate pubic and underarm hairs, either visually or through basic statistical analyses.

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