ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is not to create bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) experts but, instead, to introduce students and novice scene scientists/investigators to the topic. Hopefully, using this as a base, they should recognize critical patterns when they encounter them and document them properly so that the potential value of the evidence is not lost. The take-home lesson of this chapter is that the most inexperienced student or novice scene scientist/investigator should realize that no bloodstain pattern should be overlooked or go unarchived photographically and possibly videographically. Sketching is not a satisfactory method to archive bloodstain patterns except to show where they are and to record their breadth and width (see Chapter 15).
