A drug rape case involving triazolam detected in hair and urine

Abstract

In recent years, there has been heightened awareness regarding the use of drugs to modify a person's behavior to facilitate crime. A drug rape case involving the potent, short-acting sedative triazolam will be presented. On three occasions, the victim consumed green tea and chocolate before being massaged and ultimately sexually abused. Screening for alcohol, commonly used drugs and illicit substances in blood and urine sampled during the forensic examination 20 h after the last incident, was negative. Consequently, hair samples for chemical analysis were taken from the assaulted individual 34 days after the last incidents. The hair was cut into three 2-cm segments (0-6 cm) that were washed, dissolved in extraction solvent and screened and verified by ultra performance liquid chromatography coupled with time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-TOF-MS) and with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS), respectively. In the 2-cm hair segment corresponding to the period of the alleged assaults, the presence of the sedative triazolam was revealed at a concentration of 1.0 pg/mg hair. The preserved urine sample, taken 20 h after the last incident, was reanalyzed by UPLC-MS/MS for metabolites of triazolam, and 39 μg/l α-hydroxytriazolam was detected in the hydrolyzed urine. This case illustrates that hair is a valuable forensic specimen in situations where natural processes have eliminated the drug from typical biological specimens due to delays in the crime being reported. Furthermore, it was possible to verify the hair finding with a urine sample by detection of a metabolite of triazolam.

Incorporation of Zolpidem into Hair and Its Distribution after a Single Administration

“…Disposition of drugs into hair can provide firm evidence and chronological information on individual drug use, which are often indispensable evidence of crimes and can also be used for therapeutic drug monitoring and drug adherence in the field of clinical medicine. In fact, hair drug tests have recently appeared more frequently in the cases of drug-related crimes, such as drug-facilitated sexual assault and drug abuse (Wada et al, 2010;Johansen and Dahl-Sørensen, 2012;Salomone et al, 2012;Kim et al, 2013;Vincenti et al, 2013;Wille et al, 2014;Kintz, 2016), and in the assessment of medical care (e.g., for HIV patients and alcoholic patients) (Agius et al, 2012;Crunelle et al, 2014;Hickey et al, 2015). It is believed that observation of drug distribution along the hair shaft can provide information about the long-term drug-use history because hair strands grow at a rate of about 1.0-1.2 cm/month, incorporating ingested drugs.…”

Variability associated with interpreting drugs within forensic hair analysis: A three‐stage interpretation

“…Many case studies have had success with corroborating the timeframe of an incident (Johansen & Dahl‐Sørensen, ; Villain, Chèze, Dumestre, et al, ). For example, Johansen and Dahl‐Sørensen () described the successful use of segmental hair analysis within an alleged DFSA case where blood and urine sampling 20 hours after an alleged incident had proven negative. The victim's hair was collected 34 days after an alleged incident.…”

Head and neck cancer: Response to p53‐based therapeutics

“…Mass analyzers with high‐resolution capability and accurate mass detection, such as TOF‐MS and FTICR‐MS, are particularly suited for a posteriori reevaluation of the presence of drugs not considered in a preliminary target analysis. UHPLC‐TOF‐MS and UHPLC‐MS/MS were both used in the development of a specifically validated confirmation protocol, aimed to quantification of triazolam in an emblematic case of DFC (Johansen and Dahl‐Sørensen, 2012). In the hair segments (2 cm) that corresponded to the period of the alleged assaults, the presence of triazolam was revealed at a concentration of 1.0 pg/mg.…”