Identification of Booth's body

[AussieMick]

From what I read on the internet, its not essential to have the root of the hair (although much more preferable) to conduct successful DNA testing.

But as to whether hair's DNA can be analysed depends on how long it has been exposed to heat, water, sunlight, and oxygen.

"Detective and criminal investigation films are somewhat misleading especially when the police pick up the hair sample with a pair of tweezers for DNA analysis. Hair that is cut or shed does not unfortunately contain any nuclear DNA. For hair DNA testing to be successful the hairs must have the hair follicle attached. Most serious and responsible DNA testing companies will discourage strongly using a sample of cut or shed hair for paternity testing and most other tests.

Cut hair samples are not of course entirely useless- they in fact do just fine for a very specific type of test known as the MtDNA test. The MtDNA test (Mitochondrial DNA test) is used to determine whether two people share the same maternal line and given the low rate of mutation in the type of DNA, this test is rather accurate. However, this is the only type of hair DNA test you can have carried out unless you can specifically see a white ball attached to the end of the hair (this little ball would be the hair root)."

https://www.homednadirect.co.uk/knowledg...a-testing/