Crime Scene: Suicide or Murder?

[dessskris]

My group 4 project is on 14-15 April. Teachers introduced us to the G4 project last month, I’ve been away from school for one month and my group hasn’t done much for this G4 project. I just read my school weekly newspaper and the front page reminded me of this G4 project!! It says: Students will not have normal lessons during those 2 days, but instead will plan and perform individual experiments with results being presented on the second day.

I still do not really get what this G4 project is all about. What do we do? Do we have to conduct experiments? How many ones? Do we have to conduct one physics experiment, one chemistry experiment and one biology experiment?? Then what kind of report should we present? 3 separate lab reports or what?

Particularly talking about my G4 project, our school topic is Crime Scene. We are divided into 2 groups and my group’s G4 project topic is Suicide or Murder?. We’ve got 4 physics representatives, 2 chemistry ones and 1 biology one. Both chemistry representatives are taking physics HL, so I think my group has too many physicists and we are lacking of biologist.

Anyway here is my task:

We were given that picture and we are asked to investigate whether it’s a suicide or a murder and then justify our guess. My group has had only 2 discussions: one at school without the biologist, and another one outside school with only 2 physicists and the biologist. We concluded that it was a murder. We’ve got a good draft containing the Setting of the Scene; Possible Murder Weapons; Possible Suicide Arguments; Weird, Unsolved Points / Questions to ask; and Important Notes. However I am worried about the subject-specific evaluations! What we’ve got so far is:

Physics: The murderer might have hit this guy’s neck with a hammer. The force/velocity at which he swung the hammer might have been so great that the neck was bleeding. I have no idea of what kind of experiment we can conduct though, as experimenting on human beings or any other living things is unethical and if we happen to kill them it will be problematic

Chemistry: The sandwich and/or coffee might have contained something poisonous. This guy might have eaten/drunk it and died (though this will contradict our conclusion that it wasn’t a suicide)… So we can conduct a chromatography experiment. I’ve got a very good idea of an experiment that we can conduct for this.

Biology: nothing

I am not worried about chemistry at all but I am stressed about physics not to mention biology! Can anybody hint me to the right direction? And are we really supposed to conduct three separate experiments?

I am looking forward to replies. I would appreciate any kind of hint/tips. Thank you beforehand!

[ILM]

First of all i think that there is a blood on the hammer and under the head of the guy, so i suggest that a hit from the hammer was the reason not the poison.

I am with your group about the murder, and the book, coffee, sandwich and the glasses suggest that one had hit him on his back. so my conclusion is that it is a murder and because of the hammer.

For your G4 Experiments i suggest:

Physics: you can do it about inertia, since the glasses, sandwich and the coffee were thrown away.

Biology: it should be something about the blood.

[Keel]

Just random ideas.

Socket: Electric shock.

Carpet not parallel to wall: slipped on carpet/moved when murdered

Glass near victim's hand: away from glasses, therefore somehow moved.

Book is in triangular position: unlikely when dropped, suggests it was possibly staged.

Time: 2.00 increases probability of crime.

[dessskris]

anybody knows anything about Chinese drywall?

[IBavictim]

This is really interesting!

Just some quick questions though >_<

Do you think he was wearing the glasses as he was hit? Say he was wearing the glasses. If the hammer was the murder weapon that hit him behind the head, shouldn't the glasses be in front of him rather than behind him? (Unless of course, he put up a struggle with his attacker and dropped his glasses as he was fighting) I like to contradict myself

Was he reading the book as he was hit? Did it get knocked over too? (If they WERE fighting before he was murdered) o.o . Though he must have put up a good fight without touching that chair. The chair doesn't seem like it was moved at all in comparison to all those other objects that are lying everywhere, along with the rug not parallel to the wall as one of these guys said.

Then there's the sandwich, the plate and the mug. If they fell or were knocked over, wouldn't they have been broken or maybe chipped at least? (here comes another contradiction : maybe they didn't chip because they were plastic. Oh man, with pictures like these, you have to consider so many possibilities =\ )

I don't know. To me, some of the objects seem like they're deliberately placed there

Here comes the over thinking part

I don't like the looks of his leg in a 90 degree angle and his shoe on the rug like that. I also don't like how symmetrical the top half of his body looks o.o

You can completely forget about what I just said. Just thinking out loud

Edited May 22, 2011 by IBavictim