Part III : Murder Most Brutal

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Okay so we're back with two more questions this week! :D Let's get down to business? hehe 

Question 5 

Match the photos of the victims’ pieces of evidence, explaining your rationale for doing so. 

Here are the following people who were reported missing. 

• Herman Hartono ( Father of Adi Hartono )
• Adi Hartono ( Son of Herman Hartono )
• Anya Suriati, 9 year old girl

Let's address the obvious evidence first.

From the picture above, we can see that the jaw is actually smaller compared to the rest of the evidence provided.So we can safely assume that..... It belongs to a female which is Anya Suriati! 

Okay now let's move on to the rest of the evidence ! 

 

As you can see from the above evidence.... the third molar has erupted already, so our first assumption will be that it belongs to Herman Hortono ... BUT! because the pictures only shows a section of the jaw thus, we cannot conclude anything because we're unsure as to whether the rest of the third molars have erupted or not and whether its the FIRST third molar to erupt. 

MOVING ON.... 

  

Looking at 48, it looks like it has not erupted. Again, we would jump to conclusions... assuming it belongs to Adi Hartono.... but LISTEN!(lol) the tooth might have been impacted or disfigured.... HENCE! It could also belong to his father, Herman Hartono! 


Question 6

The DNA profile showed evidence for a father and son. In addition there was DNA profiling pattern that matched one living twin (Tanya Rosilawati). With this, match the evidence to these victims who were earlier filed for missing persons. Explain your rationale.


Since the DNA results shows evidence of a father and a son, there is a high possibility that Herman Hartono and Adi Hartono may be the victims of the crime as both of them are reported missing together & they live a few blocks away. 

How DNA profile show evidence for father and son ?

Every child inherits half the chromosome from their parents, for example 23 from the mother and 23 from the father. This being the reason why there are two sets of alleles which n=46 for each person ; Biology is definitely a fascinating and wonderful science,  the inheritance of patterns of the markers being used does not have to correspond identically with one set of column of alleles of each parent but rather be a combination of allele from each parent. We test a system of 16 genetic markers which is more than sufficient to establish a 99.99% inclusion probability whether a alleged father is actually the father but 100% exclusion probability whether a alleged father is not the father . Since your DNA is the same throughout every cell in the body, paternity test can be determined using DNA samples collected just from every part of the body, in this case, the skull and the jaw fractions. Then PCR is carried out to give scientist the ability to billions of copies of DNA from just a small sample. As a final step in DNA testing for paternity, a combined relationship from all the alleles that were tested is tallied and it appears below with the chart. 

Next, there is also another DNA profiling pattern that matched a living twin, Tanya Rosilawati. This can confirm that the DNA profile must belong to Anya Suriati because identical twins share the same DNA profile. It is almost impossible to distinguish the difference of DNA profile between a pair of identical twins as they are monozygotic. 

What are monozygotic twins ? 

They are zygotes that are formed from a single fertilised zygote. This zygote divides into two individual zygote AFTER conception and undergo mitosis from then. This results in the development of two identical embryos consisting of the exact same DNA. They have remarkably similar physical characteristics. The only way to differentiate between a pair of identical twins is by their fingerprints pattern. This is because fingerprint is not entirely a genetic character but rather a phenotypic character - meaning the interaction of an individual's genes as well as the developmental environment in the uterus. 

The ultimate shape of fingerprints are believed to be influenced by environmental factors during pregnancy, like nutrition, blood pressure, position in the womb and the growth rate of the fingers at the end of the first trimester. Thus, you will find similar patterns of whorls and ridges in the fingerprints of identical twins. But there will also be differences -- just as there are differences between the fingers on any individual's hands.

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& Thats it for today ! Bits and pieces coming together and we are slowly having a clearer picture and a proper direction as to how the investigation should go on. Cannot wait for the final part to be up next week and that's when we would come up with a conclusion with what exactly happened :D

Stay tuned .. :)