Instrumental neutron activation analysis in forensic science in Jamaica: The case of the Coral Springs beach theft

Following the theft of sand from the Coral Springs beach in Jamaica, authorities approached the International Centre for Environmental and Nuclear Sciences to determine if geochemical analysis could add evidentiary value to collected sediment samples. Forty-three beach sediments comprising of scene and suspect samples were submitted for inorganic elemental investigation by neutron activation analysis. The samples were analyzed for thirty-five elements of which nine (Al, Ca, Ce, Cr, Dy, Fe, Mn, Sc and Sr) were used in statistical evaluation including agglomerative hierarchical clustering, of the dataset. Al, Fe and Sc were the elements with greatest discriminatory power. The methodology illustrated clear similarities in elemental profiles between the donor beach and some suspected receptor beaches while excluding other suspected receptor beaches and potential donor beaches. Interrogation of the dataset provided additional and important information for the authorities and indicated that neutron activation analysis with the use of multivariate statistics can contribute significantly to geoforensic investigations.