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Forensic Pathology

Bodies Recovered From Water: A Personal Approach And Consideration Of Difficulties

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Introduction

For the pathologist providing a routine necropsy service to the local coroner, examination of bodies recovered from water can generate the most difficult of interpretational problems, and this is probably the prime context where appropriate historical and circumstantial evidence is vital to interpretation and overall conclusions,' although such collateral evidence should always be available before any coroner's necropsy is undertaken. It must be appreciated, at the outset, that not all persons whose bodies are recovered from water will have died from its inhalation, although they may show features reflecting immersion in water. Such bodies should therefore be particularly carefully examined, both externally and internally, to catalogue (and subsequently to explain satisfactorily) all injuries present, to determine whether death indeed followed immersion in the water, and to see whether any natural disease, such as ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and hypertension, may have contributed to, precipitated, or even caused death.

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Forensic Aspects of Ballistic Injury

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The Clinician’s Role

Clinical forensic medicine is best defined as the application of forensic medical knowledge and techniques to the solution of law in the investigation of trauma involving living victims.1–5 In the setting of emergency departments, these techniques include the correct forensic evaluation, documentation, and photography of traumatic injuries, as well as the recognition and proper handling of evidentiary material for future use in legal proceedings.1–8 While the tasks of documenting, gathering, and preserving evidence traditionally have been considered to be the responsibility of the forensic pathologist or the police, the roles of the trauma physician and forensic investigators actually have several areas of complementary interest. These arise from the dual purposes of providing immediate care for the individual victim or patient and the longer-term reduction and prevention of injury and violence in the community as a whole.6,9 Appropriate documentation and handling of evidence by trauma personnel assist the forensic pathologist in evaluating cases of initially nonfatal traumatic deaths and assist the police

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Systolic and Diastolic Heart Failure: Differences and Similarities

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ABSTRACT

Background: Diastolic heart failure (DHF) and systolic heart failure (SHF) are clinical subsets of the syndrome of chronic heart failure that are most commonly encountered in clinical practice. Methods and Results: The clinically overt DHF and SHF appear to be separate syndromes with distinctive morphologic and functional changes although signs, symptoms, and prognosis are very similar. In DHF, the left ventricle is not dilated and the ejection fraction is preserved. In contrast in SHF, it is dilated and the ejection fraction is reduced. The neurohormonal abnormalities in DHF and SHF appear to be similar. The stimuli and the signals that ultimately produce these different phenotypes of chronic heart failure remain, presently, largely unknown. Conclusions: Although there has been considerable progress in the management of SHF, the management of DHF remains mostly empirical because of lack of knowledge of the molecular and biochemical mechanisms which produce myocardial structural and functional changes in this syndrome. Further research

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Langers Lines

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Incisions made in the direction of Langer’s lines are less likely to gape. This is because they run parallel to the predominant direction of collagen bundles in the dermis - Langer developed his lines by stabbing cadavers with a conical punch. The resulting defects were often oval, rather than circular, because of the direction of the underlying collagen bundles. Langer joined the long axis of these ovals to establish his lines. The direction of Langer’s line on the torso can be established by placing the patient in the foetal position. Then outline the perimeter of a 20 cent piece over the area of interest. When the patient stand upright the outline of the coin will be oval with the long axis indicating Langer’s line. It is useful to know the surface marking of the entrance of the superior vena cava into the right atrium when positioning a central venous catheter. It is...

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Forensic Interpretation Of Injuries | Wounds Found On The Human Body

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Abstract

Penetrating injuries of the body are most commonly the result of injury/wounds and are often associated with a range of potentially life threatening injuries. In every physical assault, no matter it led to death or not, the attacker had produced/left different types of marks in the victim's body that could be helpful to reconstruct the crime scene and guide to determine the cause of death. In the present study, we have demonstrated some examples of injuries/wounds found of the victim's body with illustrative photos. These provide a proper and useful data for the forensic crime scene investigators.

INTRODUCTION

An injury is define as any harm, whatever illegally caused to any person in body, mind, reputation or property as per Indian Panel Code (Sec. 44). In forensic science, the injuries/wounds are produced by physical violence, which break of the natural continuity of any of the tissues of the living body [1]. Different types of injuries are summarized in

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Introduction to Forensic Pathology | Gross

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Forensic pathology is the subspecialty area of pathology that is specifically involved in the investigation of sudden, unexpected, and/or violent deaths. Thus, the practice of forensic pathology involves applying forensic scientific and pathological techniques to the investigation of lethal episodes. In a more general sense, forensic pathology can also be considered part of the somewhat larger discipline of forensic medicine that applies forensic sciences to medical issues.

The main role for most forensic pathologists is to perform medicolegal autopsies; however, the nature of the practice is very variable depending on jurisdictions. In certain countries, such as Australia, forensic pathologists will only perform autopsies at the direction of the State Coroner, who is a lawyer and a judicial officer. In some jurisdictions in the United States, such as certain county-based medical examiners systems and most coroner systems, the official, legally mandated responsibility for the...

Additional Resource: Introduction to Forensic Pathology

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Strangulation & Suffocation

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It is defined as a mode of violent asphyxial death which result from the constriction of the passages at the neck by any means other than the weight of the body and where there is no suspension. The constriction may be effected by (a) ligature around the neck (b) by hand i.e. by throttling (c) by squeezing between two sticks or by one stick against a hard surface. In strangulation, asphyxia plays a prominent role than in death due to hanging. In strangulation cases, the following post-mortem appearances could be seen: Face swollen and blue, lips blue, eyes opened, eyeballs bulging out, pupils dilated, tongue swollen and between the teeth, •• blood stained froth from mouth to nostrils (Photo-11).Hands clenched due to relaxation of the muscles, urine, and faeces may come out. In cases of strangulation due to ligature, the mark would be in the lower part of the neck, and is transversely circular and complete.

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Forensic Evaluation of Soils for Presence of Decaying Flesh

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I. Introduction

I.1 Forensic Searches for Human Remains The nature of police work is such that sometimes only vague clues are available regarding the location of a clandestine grave (e.g., “in farmer Brown’s bottom field.”). However,oftentimes without information of this type even the best available forensic tools have little hope of finding a grave. A variety of forensic tools can be used to locate clandestine graves. These are more efficient once the general location of a suspected grave site is identified. The forensic methods range from non-invasive techniques to extremely invasive techniques, and include aerial photographic surveys of suspected areas, ground level photographic surveys, magnetometer and metal detectors, dogs trained to search for cadavers, ground penetrating radar, infrared photography, vegetation differential (pioneer plants), and penetro meter. Treatments such as wetting the site and then using ground penetrating radar and/or magnetometer, plowing the siteand looking for color differential or other evidence of disturbances, and finally perform the actual forensic exhumation are also performed [1].

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Death Care Industry Regulation Varies Across States And By Industry Segment

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States vary in their approach to regulating the various segments of the death care industry. Twenty-nine states have more than 1 state organization such as a state agency, bureau, or board that are responsible for regulating all or most of the five death care industry segments, whereas 21 states rely on 1 state organization for regulating the death care industry. For example, in Florida, a board within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and a board within the Department of Financial Services are responsible for regulating segments of the death care industry. In contrast, California has a bureau within the Department of Consumer Affairs that regulates the death care industry. Further, in some states, the state regulatory organization focuses solely on the death care industry, whereas in other states, organizations also have regulatory responsibilities for other industries. For example, the Texas Funeral Service Commission focuses exclusively on regulating death care-related businesses, whereas Hawaii’s

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Differential Decomposition in Terrestrial,Freshwater, and Saltwater Environments: A PilotStudy

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The study of decomposition is essential for any forensic anthropologist for estimating postmortem interval. While surface rates of decomposition have been studied, especially in certain areas (Mann et al. 1990), the decomposition rate of bodies submerged in water has rarely been studied using controlled experiments (Haglund & Sorg 2002; Sorg et al. 1997). Most forensic anthropologists simply rely on generalizations, such as a body decomposing one week on the surface of the ground is equivalent to a body two weeks in the water (after Mann et al. 1990). In addition, there has not been much investigation into whether a saltwater environment affects decomposition differently than a freshwater environment. This differential decomposition in diverse environments, whether open-air terrestrial or in fresh or saltwater, is important to consider in Texas because there because of an abundance of freshwater lakes and rivers and the proximity of the Gulf of Mexico. This study aimed to address two questions: 1)

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Decompositional Odor Analysis Database

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ABSTRACT: This study, conducted at the University of Tennessee’s Anthropological Research Facility (ARF), describes the establishment of the Decompositional Odor Analysis (DOA) Database for the purpose of developing a man-portable, chemical sensor capable of detecting clandestine burial sites of human remains, thereby mimicking canine olfaction. This “living” database currently spans the first year and a half of burial, providing identification, chemical trends and semi-quantitation of chemicals liberated below, above and at the surface of graves 1.5 to 3.5 ft deep (0.45 to 1.0 m) for four individuals. Triple sorbent traps (TSTs) were used to collect air samples in the field and revealed eight major classes of chemicals containing 424 specific volatile compounds associated with burial decomposition. This research is the first step toward identification of an “odor signature” unique to human decomposition with projected ramifications on cadaver dog training procedures and in the development of field portable analytical instruments which can be used to locate human remains buried in shallow graves.

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Pediatric Forensic Pathology As Forensic Science: The Role Of Science And The Justice System

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Pediatric forensic pathology is a field of forensic science. As such, it shares the frailties that many forensic sciences currently share. It was created by the justice system to serve its purpose and as such is an “uneasy partner” with the justice system; uneasy because the law demands a single casual theory in order to attach responsibility for precipitating or aggravating a victim’s condition while science can never supply absolute theories but rather presents findings in terms of probabilities. Forensic results in the relatively new field of DNA analysis represent the pinnacle of the scale of probability. Probabilities can be supplied in terms that approach absolute certainty. Nevertheless, even evidence of DNA analysis cannot be presented in terms of absolute certainty. As one moves down the scale from approaching absolute certainty to uncertainty, it is ironic that the terms in which evidence is presented appear to become more certain. For instance, bite-mark comparison, which has been recently...

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The Effect of Various Coverings on the Rate of Human Decomposition

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Abstract

A multitude of factors can affect the decomposition process, increasing or decreasing its rate. Some of the most frequently observed variables are temperature, moisture, insect activity, and sun or shade exposure. Coverings can impact the decomposition process, and are found frequently in forensic cases. In a survey of New Mexico cases, Komar (2003) reported that sixteen individuals were found wrapped in plastic, and twenty were noted as wrapped in a cloth or blanket. In a survey conducted of eighty-seven cases, fifty-four of the bodies were wrapped in some type of covering. Plastic was most common, but a variety was noted, including rugs, sleeping bags, and blankets, (Manhein, 1997). In order to document how coverings affect early decomposition an experiment was designed to mimic a forensic setting. Three human cadavers were used in each of two repetitions of this experiment. Two of the cadavers were covered, one in plastic tarp......

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The Forensic Analysis Of Sediments Recovered From Footwear

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ABSTRACT

The forensic analysis of sediments recovered from footwear has the potential to yield much useful information concerning the movements of a person before, during and after a crime has taken place. Three experimental studies and a number of examples of forensic casework provide insight into the complexity of the spatial distribution of geoforensic materials on the soles of footwear and the persistence of these materials over time on the soles and uppers. These findings have implications for both the geoforensic sampling protocols and procedures for footwear submitted for analysis in a criminal investigation and also for the analysis of any materials recovered. The preservation of sediment on a shoe sole will vary, with certain areas generally retaining more sediment than others. The sequential layering of sediments that have been transferred to the shoe will be preserved in some

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Forensic II Asphyxia

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Homicides due to asphyxia are relatively uncommon. To better understand the presentation of such cases, the files of the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office were reviewed from January 1, 1985, through December 31, 1998, for all such homicides. A total of 133 cases were found. The largest category was ligature strangulation with 48 deaths (21 male, 27 female). Petechiae were present in the conjunctivae and/or sclerae in 86% of the cases; fractures of the hyoid and/or thyroid cartilage were present in 12.5%. There were a total of 41 deaths from manual strangulation (27 female, 14 male). Petechiae were present in 89% of the cases. In cases of manual strangulation, fractures of the hyoid, thyroid, or cricoid cartilage were found in all the male victims and slightly more than one half of the female victims. Twenty-six cases of suffocation were found; 20 of the victims were ≤2 years of age. Only....

See Also: Homicidal Asphyxia

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Pediatric Forensic Pathology: Limits and Controversies

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Chapter 1—Pediatric Forensic Pathology: Some Background

Chapter Overview
Clinical medicine serves patients; forensic pathology serves the state to find out why its citizens die. Being involved in investigating possible crime is very different from treating patients. Medicine has developed quite a strong evidence base to its practice, and this has not been mirrored to the same extent in forensic pathology. The massive expansion in the size of the knowledge base of medicine has had implications for forensic pathology. Forensic pathology is a very small operational medical specialty; pediatric forensic pathology is a subset of cases within forensic pathology, and is not an operational specialty. Knowledge in forensic pathology evolves, not always in a uniform forward progression.

Introduction
Medicine exists to serve patients. Starting with doctors’ training as medical students, everything revolves around the patient. Doctor’s obligations to patients are central. This culture, imbued during medical training, survives intact through to the practice of virtually every branch of medicine, including all the disciplines within pathology...

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