I’ve seen this in multiple movies/shows where they just dumb bleach on everything. What does it actually do?
Does it erase things like finger prints?
In: Chemistry
It ruins biological samples so DNA can’t be used to match. It just becomes “blood stain” instead of “identified person X’s blood stain”.
And it would show up under those special lights so patterns and stuff are all messed up.
From what I’ve seen, it just basically screws up a lot of different kinds of evidence so that it would be inaccurate. If something has been bleached then it’s harder to have an accurate read, so it can be questioned if presented as evidence.
Not an expert, just my cursory understanding.
Bleach is extremely basic. It’s the complete opposite end of the spectrum from an acid but has similar effects of an acid in terms of its ability to react with everything and rip molecules apart. This makes it a formidable cleaner for crime scenes
Edit: For all our education i encourage you to read some of the comments regarding bleach’s other important chemical properties that make it specifically useful for cleaning human fluids
Investigators use luminol to identify trace amount of blood under a uv lamp. Bleach will also appear the same as blood under the lamp, so you wouldn’t be able to tell what was bleach and what was cleaned up blood.
Its basically chemically burning everything. I think the main advantage is that it stops the smell and any bugs. I tried to clean up roadkill once infront of our house when I was younger and put the corpse in a plastic bag waiting for the trash to collect it, but after like two days outside the stench was repulsive and there was very steady drone from all the flies around.
It was a rabbit, but ou KNEW something died somewhere 10 meters around the corpse.
Anyways I dumped like a half liter of 5% bleach and within seconds the odor is totally gone, all the flies are gone, all the maggots aren’t moving… its honestly a miracle chemical.
OP, what did you do? Let it out.
I used to do trauma cleanup, bleach was rarely used. We had specialized chemicals that were less likely to stain or damage the stuff being cleaned.
But it was even more likely that we would just remove and replace stuff. Unless it was structural or would cost a ton, we’d just cut out the affected material and replace it. Carpet? Cut out the *red* bits and put it in bio disposal, throw away the rest, replace with new. Same with linoleum, underlayment, subfloor, unfinished drywall. Furniture? Complete loss, replace it.
Cleaning bio material is time consuming and expensive, and insurance companies don’t want to spend money on it if there’s even a chance that the end result won’t be perfect. *And it must be perfect*. The last thing you want is some family replacing their carpet 10 years in the future and seeing a big red reminder of the time dad couldn’t stand living any longer.
Edit: I typed all that before I realized you were talking about criminals covering their tracks, not actual cleanup. Sorry.
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