I questioned Kate Kyriacou (Courier mail reporter/best tweeter for the trial) about the hair last Wednesday evening. I explained why it crucially dated the time the blood dripped in the car.
She replied (surprisingly promptly, what a lovely lady!) saying she thinks perhaps the hair was not DNA-matched and she vaguely recalled Amanda Reeves (forensics expert) mentioning how difficult it was to get DNA from hair (although no tweets with #badenclay record such testimony from anyone). I replied with the link to her (with others) article stating that it was:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...his-wife-allison/story-fnihsrf2-1226948779375
Attributed to Todd Fuller in his opening address:
"He said a hair attached to the blood stain was later confirmed with DNA as belonging to Ms Baden-Clay."
She said she would check if they have reported incorrectly. As of now the article still states the hair DNA did match and I never heard back - so no idea what happened there.
This article about hair DNA testing is very interesting:
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles...na-testing-and-forensic-analysis-hair-samples
Especially this bit:
"Peroxides, one of the main constituent chemicals in hair dyes, heavily contribute to the degradation of DNA in hair. Peroxides act by specifically breaking the phosphodiester bonds in DNA. Once the hair is exposed to water on washing, the DNA is easily washed out of the hair fibers. The higher the number of washes, the more DNA is lost from the hairs. This loss of DNA is not only due to the degradation and breaking down of the phosphodiester bonds in DNA but also to the damage caused to the hair by simply washing it."
So the one thing (bleaching) that could have dated the blood in the car (hence making the case a slam-dunk) also probably destroyed the DNA to prove it (if the CM article is wrong). Ironic and very devastating to the case.
Even so, IMHO the prosecution has not emphasised the hair (and the blood) enough. We would still have evidence of very very recent bleaching. The bleaching can be confirmed by microscope it creates significant changes to the surface and thickness of the hair - and they would have other hair of Allison's to compare with - from her (I hate typing this) corpse. Prosecution could have brought in a forensics person to compare the hair with her known hair on parameters other than DNA (IDK, structure, appearance, colour shade shown to be the exact same with a colour spectrometer etc).
They've had 2 years to send a bit of the hair to America or wherever the extra clever science people are for super-dooper advanced DNA testing. They might have been able to make a mitochondrial DNA match and then exclude Allison's brother and sister by visuals. They might have been able to chemically match product (hairspray or serum) used by the hairdresser. They could have brought in a blood spatter expert (like Australia's answer to Dexter perhaps) to talk more about the blood pattern and what scenarios it did and did not indicate.
All 'what ifs' that we may find out if they really tried hard on this after the trial, or never. :banghead: