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Blood Spatter
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Amount of Blood also Matters
Examinations of blood spatter must take into account the amount of blood
lost by the victim. As more and more blood falls in one location, the amount
of spatter from that point increases because of the splashing that occurs
when one drop falls onto another. Pooling blood from a slowly dripping
wound usually has many satellite spatters surrounding it. The energy of the
drops is dependent on the height of their fall—the higher the source, the
more energy the drops will have when they hit the ground. Satellite spat-
ter that is far from the parent droplet indicates the source was high off the
ground. Understanding the effect of an increasing amount of blood on the
spatter pattern helps during investigations of these sorts of spatters. Im-
