Is this charred material from a VHS video cassette?

摘要

At his residence, a victim in a double homicide had installed a home-built video surveillance system. The suspects either knew of or discovered this system and removed it. In a backyard at a location associated with the suspects was a barrel used for burning trash. Could charred debris recovered from a metal bowl found among the contents of the barrel be the remains of a VHS video cassette? A positive answer to the question was obtained through a combination of optical microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS).