!Warning!
Please, proceed with caution.  The following link will bring you to a page
that will have real blood in the images.  Not only will there will be real blood, there
will be disturbing images of violent assaults and murders, some which may include images
of the victim where there are blood stains that show the many different types of
patterns there are.  I chose to use real examples of these stains because we do not
live in a clean and orderly world and not everything is as you see it in a
text book or computer generated image.  These images are geared toward being
more practical and educational.  Note, the privacy of any individuals will be
maintained and no names or faces will be shown.

Again, these are some very disturbing images and I recommend that you pass them by
if you do not feel comfortable looking at incredibly violent scenes.  I will list all the same
information here without the aid of the pictures.  This way you will get the same
literary exposure but is significantly less disturbing.

Different Patterns (without images):

High Velocity Mist:
  Most often seen accompanied with gunshot victims, this type of pattern is made of primarily super fine mist.  Much of the stain can be seen congregating around a central point.
Medium Velocity Impact:
  This type of pattern is usually seen with blunt force trauma, knife wounds, and other such injuries.  These are characterized by the tails that show directionality that we spoke about earlier.
Low Velocity Impact:
  Usually a stain that fell and struck a surface at a 90 degree angle.  This is normally perfectly circular unless it lands on a surface that is not smooth, such as the wood floor in the picture.  In this instance satellite patterns and spine patterns connected to the central stain.
Cast Off Pattern:
  Cast off patterns are often linear patterns caused by the motion of an object.  There is another type of these patterns; Cessation Cast-Off.  In Cessation Cast-Off, the blood stain forms from rapid negative acceleration.
Flow Pattern:
  Caused by a volume of blood moving due to gravity or from the motion of the surface that the blood is on.
Satellite Drop Pattern:
  A blood stain that originates from another larger blood stain, called the parent.  Is caused by blood impacting a surface.
Void Pattern:
  A pattern identified by the lack of blood.  Particularly useful when determining the location of an object or person at the time of the surrounding stains.
Transfer Stains:
  Stains that occur when there is contact between a surface with blood on it and a surface without.  Common transfer stains are bloody hand and shoe prints.
Arterial Spray:
  Quite self-explaining, this is a stain that is caused by being under arterial pressure.  In stains like these you can see the changes of high pressure and low pressure.

To reach the bibliography from here, click on the link with the same name.
The right-pointing arrow will take you to the Different Patterns with pictures.



Bibliography