10.1177/0162243904270722 ARTICLE Science, Technology , & Human Values Bal / How to Kill with a Ballpoint How to Kill with a Ballpoint: Credibility in Dutch Forensic Science Roland Bal Department of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Medical Centre A woman is found lying dead on the floor of the living room of her house in Leiden, the Netherlands, and because of a swollen and a slightly wounded eyelid, an autopsy is per- formed on the body the day after it is found. Behind the wound, there is a whole ballpoint pen, which entered the head of the deceased through her right eye causing mortal brain damage. How did it get there? This question was to cause a stir in Dutch society, holding a group of police detectives and several (forensic) scientists in its grip for several years. In this article, the ballpoint (murder) case is analyzed as to the boundary work between credible and noncredible expertise. As it is often assumed that boundary work in conti- nental law is preempted by the structure of these law models, this case study adds a com- parative note to the growing literature about science and the law. Keywords: forensic science; boundary work; ballpoint (murder) case On May 26, 1991, at 6:10 p.m., the police in Leiden, the Netherlands, received an emergency phone call from a somewhat confused young man. He told the police that he had just found the body of his dead mother. Within min- utes, the police arrived. The woman’s body was found lying facedown in the living room. On inspection, some blood spots were found on her clothing as well as on the rug. Because of this and the unexpected nature of her death, the next day, an autopsy was performed. During this autopsy, a whole Bic ball- point pen was found in the woman’s head. The pen was wholly intact and had 52 AUTHOR’S NOTE: The author would like to thank the participants to the “Demarcation Social- ised” workshop as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Juulke Broskij is warmly thanked for her help in collecting material for the research. The research was made possible by a grant from the Department of Cultural Sciences from the University of Maastricht. An earlier version of this article was published (in Dutch) in the journal Krisis. Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 30 No. 1, Winter 2005 52-75 DOI: 10.1177/0162243904270722 © 2005 Sage Publications at Erasmus Univ Rotterdam on June 24, 2015 sth.sagepub.com Downloaded from