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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forensic dentistry | 2/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_dentistry | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:19:59.890392+00:00 | kb-cron |
== High-profile criminal cases == Forensic odontology has played a key role in famous criminal cases: In 1692, during the Salem Witch Trials, Rev. George Burroughs was accused of witchcraft and conspiring with the Devil, with biting his victims supposedly being evidence of his crimes. His bite marks and the bite marks of other people were compared to the victim's marks. The judges readily accepted the bite marks as evidence and this was the first time in what would become the United States that bite marks were used as evidence to solve a crime. He was later convicted and hanged. About two decades later, he was exonerated by the State, and his children were compensated for the wrongful execution. One of the first published accounts involving a conviction based on bite marks as evidence was the “Gorringe case”, in 1948, in which pathologist Keith Simpson used bite marks on the breast of the victim to seal a murder conviction against Robert Gorringe for the murder of his wife Phyllis. Another early case was Doyle v. State, which occurred in Texas in 1954. The bite mark, in this case, was on a piece of cheese found at the crime scene of a burglary. The defendant was later asked to bite another piece of cheese for comparison. A firearms examiner and a dentist evaluated the bite marks independently and both concluded that the marks were made by the same set of teeth. The conviction, in this case, set the stage for bite marks found on objects and skin to be used as evidence in future cases.
Fredrik Fasting Torgersen Wayne Boden – an early case of Forensic Dentistry State of Florida v. Ted Bundy State of New Jersey v. Jesse Timmendequas (Megan's Law case) People of California v. Marx, the 1975 case which established evidentiary standards for forensic odontology People of Arizona v. Ray Krone, bite mark evidence led to a wrongful conviction.