Although hair is one of the most common and abundant types of evidence found at a crime scene, the currently used forensic analyses do not yield its full potential evidentiary value. Microscopy is the fundamental technique used to analyze forensic hair evidence, but even this routine and well-accepted method has limitations. The current study incorporated multivariate statistical analysis in differentiating with high accuracy spectra collected from dyed and non-dyed hairs. After hair spectra were determined to be dyed or non-dyed, dyed hair spectra were successfully differentiated among themselves based on brand (or manufacturer) and dye color. The methodology developed here enabled the prediction of whether an individual used a permanent hair dye, and then the brand and color of hair dye used, with at least 90 percent confidence. The high accuracy shown in this study illustrates the ease and robustness of coupling ATR FT-IR spectroscopy and multivariate statistics for forensic hair analysis, specifically for the analysis of hairs dyed with dark colored hair dyes. The use of spectroscopy for forensic hair analysis, as demonstrated by this initial proof of concept study, would advance the field of trace evidence, and can potentially be used to confirm conclusions drawn from current methodologies, in turn leading to increased individualization. (Publisher abstract modified)
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