The tests are performed on specimens from all ages of cadavers, the problem is that they have no data base of controlled human child decomposition events with which to compare it. Yes, they have a data base of controlled human adult decomposition events, but there is none for children. When specimens are tested, those tests are run against those control samples collected from known, observed and measured human decomposition events. They can test specimens all day long, but if there is nothing to compare it with, it is essentially, scientifically meaningless. An example would be the lack of measured floridines found in the specimens from the car trunk, they have measured the rate at which floridines leach from the body in controlled adult human decomposition but the rate, if any, of children is unknown. The reason for that is that child bodies are not used at the Body Farm for controls, so while they can take an educated guess and assume that children have not yet ingested enough floridines as adults have which can then be measured. However, they still do not know for adults or children how much floride is absorbed, at what rate and under what circumstances the floride is ingested and absorbed in living people, so while they can measure the rate at which floride leaches from adult cadavers they cannot state with scientific certitude that this rate is a marker of human decomposition.
The data base is information collected from controlled human decomposition events over 100 adds which is known and observed. That is how they built their data base at the body farm.
Their library is something all together different from the data base. The library is a program that compares the chemical signature of known substances such as gasoline by brand, household cleaning products by brand and those chemicals used to make up those products along with the signature of other gases such as chloroform, alcohol, methane, etc.
The report is saying that an unusually higher level than usual, in the opinion of the observer, of chloroform has been recognized. This is his educated and informed opinion - it is known that chloroform is manufactured after death, that it is manufactured quite early in the process and that higher levels are observed in anaerobic conditions. The report also makes very clear that those components used in the manufacture of chloroform by means other than human decomposition have NOT been observed, namely acetone and alcohol. He doesn't scientically know yet why this level is as high as it is, because he has not run it against the data base. The report also does NOT mention chlorine as unusually high as it would be if the chloroform had been manufactured by means other than human decomposition.
This is a PRELIMINARY report. Now we can make all kinds of suppositions and assumptions from this preliminary report, but until the report is written and I doubt that it is for many reasons, that is all we have - suppositions and assumptions. What this report is telling us is that a human decomposition took place in the trunk of the car, that an unusually high amont of chloroform was detected, but higher levels of chloroform are detected in anaerobic conditions, which can explain why the amount if higher than usual. There is not one place in that report where that level of chloroform can be explained by means of introduction PRIOR to death. There is no such thing as a "typical occurance" in science. There is known and unknown data. Even if it was "typical" it would be necessary to "make a note of it" because assumption isn't a scientific method of observation. Based on this report alone, no scientist is going to stand up in court and say with scientific certitude that this higher level of chloroform is the result of manufactured chloroform being introduced to the victim before death and that there are no other reasonable, scientific explanations for this level of chloroform (and we're talking about RESIDUES found in the trunk on some samples and not others and traces were found on the control samples) detected in that trunk - there is NO data base of control samples of human child decomposition events. An accumulation of evidence might point to the decomposition of a child in that trunk, but this report ALONE does not confirm that with scientific certitude.
So I'm going to go with what the report says, too.
