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13 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding
Article created by: Mantas Kačerauskas
Hollywood often portrays forensic science in a fascinating light. Many people have likely aspired to work in a lab and analyze delicate evidence after watching an episode or two of CSI.
But it can be a different story once you’ve done the actual work. You will likely have noteworthy answers to Reddit questions like this: “What was the most shocking thing discovered in your lab?”
As usual, those who’ve had firsthand experience, or know someone who has, delivered some of the most shocking responses. Prepare to read stories about babies testing positive for illegal substances, toys lodged inside internal organs, and oddly shaped kidneys.
Enjoy scrolling, but perhaps having a meal while doing so isn’t a good idea.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
That he WAS the father.
I’m a bookkeeper/billing guy at a clinic and we tested a baby to see if he was the father.
Mom and dad were both blonde hair, wife had blue eyes, both looked super white.
Kid was REALLY black. Was tested earlier and he didn’t have a condition, he was just black.
The dad wanted a paternity test cause when you have two white parents and a black kid, raises some questions.
Turns out the mom had a black grandfather that didn’t show up in their skin and that she didn’t know about.
Kid was biologically theirs, but just looked totally different.
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#2
In doing my MSc in forensic pathology and anthropology, there is a final practical exam component. The examiner hauled in a large cardboard box. The type/size you would store documents in.
When dumped on the table, it looked like a broken plant pot. No piece was bigger than 1.5 inches diameter. He then goes "could you find all the pieces of *example of bone* and reconstruct it please?
Turns out it was a ~16 year old girl whose boyfriend had caved her head in with a stone and cut her into tiny bits before burying her in a field.
Only reason she was found was because her decomposing flesh caused the plants right hear her body to be oddly large and lush for a dry forgotten field.
#3
I attended an autopsy where the subject being examined had one large kidney that extended to both sides of his body instead of having 2, one on each side of his body.
Magna Linnevers 4 months ago
Called “horseshoe kidney”. Unusual, but not as rare as you may think.
#4
I was working as a scanning electron microscope technician for the R&D branch of a private company when the head scientist gave me a unknown sample to cut up and investigate. There were a bunch of layers of paint on it and he wanted to know what elements were present. Most of the layers showed up as normal elements (O, Al, Cr, etc) but one layer had a peak at Pr (Praseodymium) which is so rare that I forgot that it was even an element. I thought I was going crazy but my engineer double-checked it and it was definitely there. Turns out that Praseodymium is used in certain military grade paints.
#5
So, not forensics (entirely), and not me. I had a professor in college that was pursuing her doctorate while working at the Mayo Clinic.
Year after year, a man came in to be tested for a disorder/disease that [ended] his father at that very hospital. Year after year, he tested negative. But every year, he got tested in an effort to stay ahead of it. Because, genetics.
One year, he tested negative as usual, but the staff had an idea. They cracked open the archives, dug his father's file out & put it next to his. DNA wasn't even close.
Poor guy has no idea his late father was never his biological father at all. And the hospital has no right or obligation to inform him.
#6
I only just started here so what’s shocking to me is probably super minor but i had a decedent that died and was found with multiple bottles of isopropyl alcohol around her with straws in them. She literally was sipping isopropyl alcohol through straws. It obviously [ended] her, but i cannot get past the thought of that. How serious of an addiction do you have that doing something like that makes sense? Just the thought of doing that makes my stomach turn.
#7
Not a scientist, but my last job involved scientific testing equipment and sending results to the legal team of the company. Using an XRF gun I found that almost 50 percent of this large companies inventory contains above the legally allowed amount of lead, and various other harmful chemicals. (At a company whose product most people will touch on a daily basis). The legal team sure had their work cut out for them.
#8
Horseshoe kidney. There were several autopsies going at once and when it was discovered every doctor dropped what they were doing and cake over to look. So I’d suspect the odds are higher than 1:500.
#10
This is my grandfathers story. While he was working in Forensics he had to take a body found at a bottom of a lake. After checking it out he apparently found that there was a hot wheels car lodged in the left lung. He assumed that they must have swallowed it while they were underwater.
#11
My friends ma used to work in forensics and we got told a bunch of stories, the most memorable being of when they found the dead body of a girl hacked into bits inside a bin bag.
They at first thought some sicko had [ended] her and cut her up, yknow like sickos do. But after further investigation they discovered something in her lady parts along with a giant hole. Some sciencing later and the something was an acrylic nail.
Turns out she and her girlfriend were doing it when her gf's nail snapped and ripped her open from the inside and she bled out. The girlfriend, in a moment of panic, chopped her up and tried to dispose of the body.
Edit: For all of you saying this is fake, I don't know if it is or not. Like I said I got told this by my friends ma, and she wasn't homophobic or anything. It does seem a little implausible but human beings are wack creatures so who knows.
#12
The [crime] weapon in my trainees bottom left desk drawer.
#13
I was working in the lab late one night, well one thing led to another and we
DID THE MASH WE DID THE MONSTER MASH.
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