Blood Stains

Faith and Heresy

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In my story, my characters visit a place where murders occurred several years earlier. My question is how long would the blood stains last on the stone, if no one cleaned it up and it was in an area closed up from weather, moisture, and very few people have gone there since? Could the stone be permanently discolored or would they have gone back to normal after, say, 10 years?

I know it's a strange question, but I want to be accurate.
 

cornflake

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In my story, my characters visit a place where murders occurred several years earlier. My question is how long would the blood stains last on the stone, if no one cleaned it up and it was in an area closed up from weather, moisture, and very few people have gone there since? Could the stone be permanently discolored or would they have gone back to normal after, say, 10 years?

I know it's a strange question, but I want to be accurate.

Is this a decently porous stone? Not like a tightly-grained, polished granite? If so, oh yeah, it's still there. It'd be there on the granite too, if no one cleaned it, but perhaps not as visible.

Even if it couldn't be seen (though in your example it sounds like that's no problem), it'd still fluorescse. It's incredibly hard to clean blood when you try, nevermind if you don't. Blood is there for a long, long, long time.
 

WeaselFire

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It would look like a dirty spot. Normal people wouldn't guess it was blood at sight, investigators who have been exposed to this type of scene might. Mostly pattern recognition and logic (Someone was killed here, it may be blood...).

Otherwise, think about whether there is other debris/staining. Muddy boots? Built up dust? A spilled Diet Coke(tm)? It would look similar.

Jeff