Lividity And Temperature Analysis

Forensic science has come a long way from where it was less than 100 years ago. It has only been relatively recently that the advancement of technology we use, has occurred. The Body Farm, an institute in Knoxville, Tennessee, is a place where dead corpses are left to rot and then studied on how the body decays in different circumstances. Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Body Farm tells about the farm from Dr. Bill Bass’ point of view, from the establishment of the farm, to the impact in the world of forensic science the farm has caused. David Pitt and Alynda Wheat offers their insight into the book in their reviews. The Body Farm has been a monumental stepping stone to the advancement of modern day forensic sciences. Dr. Bill Bass, is making

Probably, the bodies of the victims can reverse the decreasing blood pressure by increasing the heartbeat and constricting the arterial walls to initially increase the pressure to normal rate.

Immediately after death the body will begin to lose heat, and the liver temperature can help to determine when a person passed away (Young & Ortmeier, 2011). This first stage after death is referred to as the “fresh” stage. While the body is cooling down, it is also experiencing liver mortis, or the pooling of blood. Since the heart is no longer functioning, the blood begins

Death and burial was a close companion for people in the ancient world, because of their short life expectancy. They developed ceremonies and rituals centred around the dying, the dead and their survivors. The practices adopted by ancient peoples allowed individuals to cope with the mysteries of death and the fear associated with it. When bodies are not mummified their skeletons can help Archaeologists discover information about age, physical fitness and to some extent, diet of the corpse (through the preservation of stomach contents.) Burials usually take place with in a short time of the person's death.

On an episode of law and order the ME will arrive on the scene and look at the body. She will exam the body and determine roughly the time of death. Saying it occurred approximately 12 hours ago, she will then take the body to her lab to examine for more details, but now the detective when interviewing the suspects can ask where were you approximately twelve hours ago to determine if they have an alibi. Later the ME will call the detective to give further details of what she found if the body was moved? if any DNA or semen were found on the body? and how the victim died exactly? With the new details and the time of death the detective can narrow down the suspect list and find the perp. An accurate estimation of the time of death can lead to discovering the identity of the assailant. In criminal cases, it can eliminate some suspects while focusing attention on others. For example, a husband says that he left for a business meeting at 2 P.M. and returned at 8 P.M. to find his wife dead. He says that he was home all morning and that she was alive and well when he

I am going to discuss the differences of the passing and internment customs of the contemporary American culture with the old Egyptian culture and their primitive methods for entombment. Also, I am going to discuss how the old Egyptians would safeguard the dead bodies (mummies). Furthermore, I am going to discuss how in present day America and in advanced Egypt bodies are covered in the normal structure to imply demise as a transitional experience.

Rigor mortis, Latin for “stiffness of death” is the body’s natural occurrence after death (google.com).What causes this stiffness of the body is the loss of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) from the body’s muscles. Rigor mortis usually begins to show throughout the body approximately two hours after the deceased has passed away. While rigor mortis obviously affects and takes place throughout the whole body, it first affects the smaller muscles first, such as the ones in the face, arms, neck, and shoulders. After the contracting of the each of the body’s muscles has occurred, this state of stiffness usually remains for eight to twelve hours (exploreforensics.com).

Good Evening Duncan, Bradley, in response to your discussion post concerning rigor mortis the Encyclopedia of the death and dying (n. d). highlights that within the first two to six hours of death rigor mortis begins in eyelids, neck, and jaw. The author suggests that rigor mortis first begins in the eyelids neck and jaw possibly because of the lactic acids found in muscles. Within the next four to six hours rigor mortis begins in the internal organs. Rigor mortis can be determined by analyzing smaller joints and larger joint. After twenty-four to eighty-four hours the sequence reverses. The article Postmortem Changes written by the author Presnell (2015) was very informative about all Rigor Livor and Algor. Another limitation of rigor is the

“Rigor mortis, the stiffening of a body several hours after death, arises from a combination of two of the oldest definitions of death – cessation of the heartbeat and cessation of breathing” (Zhou). Investigators, trying to determine time of death, often use the science of rigor mortis. Although it is widely accepted to be a reliable method of estimating time of death, it can be influenced by a variety of factors that must be taken into consideration.

Sometimes these “Corpses” have revived in the funeral house during embalming or when accidentally dropped by the pall bearer’s. But in most of the cases, there is no happy beginning. when these people suddenly awaken in a narrow, dark coffin most go into cardiac arrest or are not heard by the people

Among the many pursuits of forensic scientists, one of the foremost attempts is that of establishing time of death of a victim by use of whatever evidence is available. Even though some calculations for estimations are claimed to be available to a few branches of the forensics community, such as medical examiner determination by use of internal temperature of the body, or the onset of rigor and livor mortis, or that of the entomologist 's estimations based on the pupal and larval stages of different carrion insects, it may be that the body is in such an advanced state of decay that these calculations cannot give an accurate calculation, or, even worse, that a body may be absent. In light of such possibilities, it may however be possible to use other types of evidence to establish time of death, time of deposition, and render a partial, if not full reconstruction of events on the scene based on the age and order of deposition of other evidence.

Estimating the age at time of death from an unidentified individual’s remains is an important factor of forensic anthropology. There are certain standard processes and procedures that are employed in the lab to help determine the age as well as other biological profile data. In young adults, bone and tooth maturation are often used to roughly estimate the age of the body. In adults, the deterioration of bones is used to predict the age of the unknown body.

When faced with an unknown set of remains it is a difficult task to establish an age for the individual. The sex and the ethnic origin of the deceased can usually be determined reasonably easily just by observing key characteristics in the bone structures; however working out the age is usually done by giving just a rough estimation, instead of a specific age. This is due to the fact that as age increases, the range for a correct estimation widens and identification becomes even harder.

Postmortem interval estimation is very important in a suspicious death investigation. Myoglobin is a hemoprotein present in striated muscles of living body. After death, myoglobin is exuded from muscles to blood, tissues and organs. So, the aim of this study was to estimate postmortem interval from myoglobin concentrations in glandular tissues. This study was done on rats to detect the postmortem concentration of myoglobin in pituitary, parotid and adrenal glands at different time intervals. There was a significant correlation between myoglobin concentration in glandular tissues and postmortem interval. By multiple stepwise linear regression analysis, the most predictable model was the combination between pituitary, adrenal and parotid myoglobin concentrations (R2= 0.992). The second predictable model was the combination between adrenal and pituitary myoglobin

2 Asst. Prof., Institute of Research & Development, Gujarat Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India)