Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used to analyse glass evidence from a case in which a person broke a window in each of 15 vehicles in a parking lot in order to gain entry into the vehicles. The results of the analysis by traditional methods, which measure the properties of colour, thickness, density and refractive index are also reported. A total of 15 known samples representing the windows on the cars and 42 questioned glass fragments recovered form the suspect and the police vehicle where the suspect was sitting were submitted for analysis. Density comparisons separated one of the known samples into 3 samples, increasing the number of known samples from 15 to 17. The concentrations of 16 elements were measured for all but three of the samples using an external calibration ICP-MS method with internal standardisation.
