Cats as Criminal Witnesses: Study Shows How Our Feline Friends May Be Essential in Crime Scene Investigations

Scientists claim that cats may be harboring DNA from crime scenes. According to a recent study, our domestic cat companions could be unexpected sources of evidence when a crime has been committed.

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In particular, a cat's fur can hold onto enough DNA from a human who has been in the area to prove a brief encounter between the two. This may imply that even while cats cannot be interrogated, they may still be able to detect criminals.

There is still much work to be done, as the current study is the first to look at how domestic pets may help DNA transmission. However, it signals a step in the right direction for the future gathering of more thorough forensic evidence, which would be incredibly beneficial in police investigations.

Forensic Study

According to forensic expert Heidi Monkman of Flinders University in Australia, "collection of human DNA has to become increasingly significant in crime scene investigations, but there is a paucity of data on companion animals like cats and dogs in their link to human DNA transmission."

These pets may be very important in determining the presence and behavior of the home's occupants or any recent guests.

Due to recent advances in DNA analysis technology, even the tiniest amounts of genetic material can now be significant for a crime scene investigation. And since we are messy, our DNA is everywhere. Traces of our genetic material can be transferred even after only a brief interaction with an item. So-called touch DNA can corroborate other lines of evidence or rule persons in or out, but it cannot be used to identify a suspect positively.

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Acquiring DNA

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One need not even physically contact the surface to get touch DNA from it. It can travel through many routes, such as in skin cells or hair that flies off a moving body, where domestic pets could come into play.

Forensic expert, Roland van Oorschot of the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia, joined Monkman and her Flinders University colleague Mariya Goray, an experienced crime scene investigator, to explore if they could recover readable human DNA from pet cats.

They examined 20 cats from 15 different houses for their study. The researchers gathered DNA from most of the human study participants while swabbing the hair on each cat's right side twice at the study participants' houses (one was a minor child who was not sampled). Then, the human DNA samples and cat swabs were processed.

Eighty percent of the cat swab samples had detectable DNA levels. The amount of DNA present, the period of time since a person had interaction with the cat, or the cat's hair length did not significantly change for any of the cats.

Needs More Study

It's possible that some of the "mystery" results can be explained by the fact that two of those cats frequently slept in the bed of the kid whose DNA wasn't tested. The origin of the four surviving cats' unidentifiable DNA is unclear. Before the swabs, no one had visited any homes for at least two days.

More study is needed on the transmission of human DNA to and from cats, the persistence of human DNA on cats, and whether factors, such as owner sheddability, may affect the various quantities of DNA discovered on cats.