The entire world paid attention in 1986 when Lindy Chamberlain claimed that a dingo ate her baby, Azaria. Tragically, a family in mourning would soon find themselves dealing with a media circus and two wrongful convictions. So-called forensic experts found evidence that Lindy had slit her baby’s throat in the family vehicle. The problem with this, though, is that the “evidence” wasn’t actually blood at all; it was spilled juice.

Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murder and her husband was charged with being an accessory to murder, mostly due to public opinion. Lindy was imprisoned for three years before a new piece of evidence – the baby’s jacket – was found to exonerate her. Despite this happening in 1986, the baby’s official cause of death wasn’t changed to death by dingo until 2012.

In 1993, a heinous, racially motivated attack at a bus station left teenager Stephen Lawrence dead. The case went unsolved for many years and was instrumental in changing London’s double jeopardy laws. Finally, in 2011, a single microscopic spot of blood was found on one of the accused men’s jacket collar, along with a hair on the other’s pants. This was all prosecutors needed to move forward with a murder trial.

By early January 2012, Norris and Dobson had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the opportunity for parole. They were both minors at the time of the crime, so they are eligible for release in 2026.

Brittany Norwood constructed an elaborate cover-up just moments after she brutally murdered one of her coworkers at a Bethesda, Maryland, yoga store. This included tying herself up in an attempt to make it look like someone else was the killer.

After she was caught, Norwood agreed to plead guilty, but her defense attorneys claimed she committed the crime in a fit of rage. The prosecution was tasked with proving the murder was premeditated. One of the key pieces of evidence in the trial was provided by an expert in blood spatter analysis who testified the murderer beat her victim as she lay unconscious on the ground. Blood was found on the underside of a nearby bookshelf that couldn’t have got there from anywhere but the position on the floor.

In total, the victim suffered more than 300 injuries before she died. Norwood was found guilty of first-degree murder, and she’s serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

In 1998, 158 blood spots so tiny they could only be seen under a microscope were what sent Sion Jenkins to jail for the murder of his foster child. Blood spatter analysis enabled prosecutors to successfully argue that those tiny drops of blood were caused by an impact from above. This fit the narrative that Jenkins had murdered Billie-Jo by hitting her multiple times.

The problem with this analysis, however, was that it was later discovered Billie-Jo suffered from pulmonary interstitial emphysema. This condition could have caused expiration spatter blood to release from Billie-Jo’s lungs when her foster father touched her dead body. The new evidence led to an overturning of the murder conviction, though the case is still unsolved as of this writing.

Marissa DeVault changed her story multiple times when charged with murdering her husband with a hammer. At first, she claimed her husband, Dale Harrell, had choked her until she was unconscious and that she awoke from an attack by an unknown man with a hammer who had already killed her husband.

DeVault’s next story was that she murdered Harrell after he sexually assaulted her. Neither of these stories held up in court and blood spatter analysis was the key to her conviction. The evidence revealed Harrell was alone in the bed when attacked. Spatter on the man’s clothing also had the telltale signs of someone repeatedly hit from above.

Warren Horinek’s case is a cautionary tale about what can happen when blood spatter evidence is considered more closely than the other elements in a murder trial. Horinek’s wife, Bonnie, died from a gunshot wound, and the blood on his t-shirt evidenced that he was there when it happened. However, Horinek claimed that his wife killed herself and he attempted to save her with CPR.

In some cases this would be a likely cover-up. In this situation, though, everyone except the deceased woman’s parents eventually decided Horinek was telling the truth. This includes the medical examiner, the district attorney’s office, and the homicide sergeant. However, Bonnie’s parents hired a blood spatter expert, Tom Bevel, who testified that Warren’s t-shirt proved he killed their daughter. Based on this one testimony, Horinek was convicted and is serving a 30-year sentence. Horinek’s lawyers have since filed a writ of habeas corpus to try to get their client released.

Christopher Vaughn murdered his wife and three children and then tried to blame his children’s deaths on his deceased wife. According to Vaughn, she killed the children, attacked him, and then committed suicide.

Paul Kish, a blood spatter expert, said that the evidence left behind in the family SUV told a completely different story. It was Vaughn’s blood that made it clear he was telling a lie. He had minor wounds after the incident, which he claimed were caused by his wife attacking him. However, his blood ended up in areas of the SUV that don’t match up with this assertion. Based on this evidence, Vaughn was convicted and sentenced to four life terms.

Darlie Routier is currently on death row for the murder of her five-year-old son Damon and six-year-old son, Devon. Darlie claims she was sleeping near her children in the living room when she awoke to an attack. She did sustain cuts, but her conviction pivoted around the testimony of blood spatter expert Tom Bevel. Mr. Bevel testified that the blood spatter on Routier’s shirt proved that she was the one to stab her son from above, and that she pulled the knife back out above her head, and stabbed him again.

Since that case, Bevel’s credibility has taken several big hits. His testimony was used in numerous cases that were later overturned or are now viewed as questionable, including Warren Horinek’s murder trial. Routier’s request for further DNA testing of evidence was granted in 2014. She’s still currently facing the death penalty.

Johnson was only 16 years old when her parents were murdered in 2005, but this didn’t stop a judge from sentencing her to two life terms plus an extra 15 years when she was found guilty of the crime. Interestingly, in this case the jury completely ignored the blood spatter evidence.

In fact, blood spatter expert Michael Howard testified that it was impossible for Johnson to have pulled the trigger without getting covered in blood, which she wasn’t. Evidence that may have overruled Howard’s opinion was testimony from a cellmate who claimed Johnson admitted to the murders.

Murder trials can get especially tricky when two blood spatter experts give contradictory testimony. This happened when Craig Perry was accused of murdering his terminally ill uncle, Robert. Craig claimed that his uncle had committed suicide, but the first blood spatter expert said the evidence made this extremely unlikely. Additionally, Craig had a pattern of blood on his pants that is typical in a gunshot murder.

A blood spatter expert for the defense told the jury that the blood on Craig’s pants could have come from his ill uncle coughing up blood before killing himself. Whatever the truth may be, the jury acquitted Craig due to inconclusive evidence that he had committed any crime.