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Monday, August 30, 2021

Spilled Blood in Crime and Literature

     Blood is the great bedrock of forensic science, the foundation of murder detection itself. When a body is found, very often death from natural causes can be assumed. But if blood is discovered on the corpse, the the ugly question of murder arises.

     Most murders involve the spilling of blood, and from earliest times the written records abound with references to that red substance which pumps through all our veins and arteries. The Bible is full of allusions to blood: the spilling of blood, blood sacrifice and so on. Shakespeare too had his way with blood--blood feuds, ties of blood, blood-lust, blood money--and who can forget Lady Macbeth's obsession with the blood of her victim? [More recently, the popular TV series "Dexter" (2006-2013) featured a protagonist, Dexter Morgan, who was by day a police blood spatter analyst and by night a serial killer who targeted evil people who had evaded criminal justice.]

Brian Marriner, On Death's Bloody Trail, 1991

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