Bitemarks in forensic odontology

Abstract

Person identification is important in criminology, and forensic odontologists are key personnel for identifying a highly individual dentition which could cause a bitemark and which could be used to convict or exculpate a suspect. Bitemarks may be observed in skin, wax, from a dental model indirectly from a photograph, a scanned image of a dental model or food. This paper shows that bitemarks constitute reliable evidence for person identification and that a tolerance of approximately 1mm existed between measurements of a wax bite, dental model, photograph and computer scanned image.