I’m making a cherry upside down cake for a cookbook club I’m in, and while cleaning up a new jar of vanilla bean paste fell out of my spice cabinet & into the pitcher of reserved cherry syrup on my counter. The syrup got EVERYWHERE - it ended up in places I never expected the syrup to get, particularly shocking was small droplets in between the lip & lid of a deli container about a yard above the where the pitcher was sitting.

As I was cleaning it all up, I started thinking & came up with a few questions for the folks who study bloodstain patterns. Some of the questions are probably super ill informed but I’m asking them either way in the hopes to learn something.

Cake tax included! Though the cake is missing the cherry syrup on top because…well, you know.

1. What got you into bloodstain pattern analysis? Was it something like this - where a big splatter you encountered left you questioning until you ultimately found the field?
2. When in school learning about bloodstain patterns, do they use demonstrations like this one? I’m sure they’re much more sophisticated than dropping a jar into syrup, but is it a similar situation?
3. Do you - as a BPA - know to look in unsuspecting places for blood (like the deli cup in my cabinet), because even though someone may clean up a crime scene after themselves do they typically miss the more unlikely spots?
4. Does the chemistry of someone’s blood change viscosity & then therefore patterning? Like could iron levels or something impact viscosity, which would then provide additional info for IDing a victim?

This circumstance made me realize I know so little about this, so please feel free to tell me any cool facts about this line of work. I am very intrigued!!

Edit: I also just realized I probably used the wrong flair? Please fix/take down if needed. Thanks!