What Does Death Mean To Me

The main job of this is to determine the cause of death to a person. In the case of a fire, they can determine if a person died before, during or after a fire.

They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they 'd say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn 't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn 't quite dying, because in a curious way, it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself. "

The coroner is responsible for identifying the victim as well as determining the cause and manner of death.

Solving a crime is difficult for detectives. Homicides are even harder cases to solve, the only person that can really tell what happened is dead. So many people are afraid to step up as witnesses, they fear their life would be in jeopardy for helping the detectives. For homicide detectives, the first forty-eight hours is the most critical part for solving a case. After that, the probability of solving the case reduces by fifty percent. Each passing hour gives suspects more time to get away, witnesses more time to forget what they saw, and crucial evidence more time to be lost forever. There are several steps to take in solving a homicide.

The evidence that they find gets relayed to the medical examiner. Forensic anthropologists have the ability to classify the cause of death by examining marks or fractures found on the bones which in return helps officials determine the weapon used. All of this information helps the medical examiner find the cause of death, based on damages to the bones that a forensic anthropologist finds.

This caught my attention right away and hooked me in. Along with being a topic I was quite interested in (reference to last nonfiction book report), the first two sentences got me wondering. What could be told from a murdered person’s body? I already had a lot of background information from research and watching shows on mystery and homicide but this question led to a million answers. Some answers were cause of death, manner of death. time of death, weapon used, etc, all of which were related because this was sparked from the thought of a dead person and my ideas. From this, I read on to determine what could be told from an expert’s point of view.

This method may have been sufficient in the 10th century when people were illiterate and believed the world was flat; however, the scientific world since then has grown exponentially. Science is a powerful study, aiding us in understanding the complex process life and the absence of life, death. Pathology, the science of disease, has assisted in the arrests of countless criminals, uncovering the truth and more notably providing a sense of closure for the loved ones of the deceased. A coroner system without the foundation of science is a system that keeps murders on the streets, the innocent behinds bars and prosecutors frozen in cases. The most memorable example of inefficiency is Dr. Paul McGarry, who made careless errors in not just one but four autopsies. In the case of new prison inmate Cayne Miceli, McGarry initially determined the cause of death to be a drug overdose. Upon the further examination, a second examiner found a heap of mucus in her lungs indicating she had severe asthma. The doctor then concluded the real cause of death was the jail restraints on her chest blocked her airways during an asthma attack (Thompson, 2011, para 13-16). A peculiar fact about the case was the McGarry concluded the cause of death before he got the test results. Could he had been trying to hide something? After all, he is an elected official which according to the NAS

The purpose of a forensic autopsy is to find out the time of death, the mechanism of death, and the manner of death. The time of death is what led to the death, the mechanism of death refers to anything used to kill the person, and the manner of death is either homicide or suicide.

The history of a Medical examiners origin started in France and Scotland and was brought to the United States in the late 1800s. A medical examiner is an appointed medically qualified officer whose duty is to investigate deaths and bodily injuries that occur under unusual or suspicious circumstances, to perform post-mortems, and sometimes to initiate inquests. The medical examiner (ME) is the person in charge of the forensic investigation of a death that has occurred in his or her area of jurisdiction, whether it is a homicide, suicide, accident, or other suspicious death. He or she has a number of tasks to carry out, chief of which is the determination of the cause and manner of the death through performing an autopsy . The medical examiner also takes charge of the analysis of evidence , works with the police investigating the scene of the crime, and presents evidence in court. In short, the ME is involved in both the medical and legal sides of a forensic investigation.

When investigating a crime scene before touching anything investigators must document and photograph everything, investigate all doors, windows, ect of any evidence of how offender got in and out of the crime scene, investigate every inch of the crime scene for blood, fingerprints, footprints, weapons, bullet holes, shell casings etc. and anything that looks out of place. Once this is done investigators can then collect any evidence using the right equipment.

This specific field is mainly biology, so you have to be an expert in biology in order to fulfil this career, they deal with toxicology, blood analysis,which is also known as serology, and DNA. DNA profiles between the victim and their living relatives is enough to confirm they are biological relatives, thereby helping to confirm their identity. If the living relatives are direct relatives, such as a parent and an offspring, identification is more straightforward as the amount of shared DNA markers will be higher than between more distant relatives. they spend majority of their days in laboratories examining biological specimens and conducting autopsies. You can go to a medical

An autopsy is an examination of the body after death. It usually consists of an external and an internal examination of the body. The external examination also documents identifying features such as scars, tattoos or other markings which may assist in the identification of the body. The internal examination looks at the internal organs to document any natural disease processes and/or injury .Its purpose is to learn the truth about the persons health during life and how the person really died, These situations include, violent deaths such as homicides, accidents, and suicides. Other categories are suspicious deaths, sudden and expected deaths, deaths in children and infants, prisoners, persons under the care of an institution,

Crime scene investigation and medical examiner television shows are always interesting and exciting to watch, but what happens when you make the contents of that television show your life? Often times, the one you see doing the investigating with not only the body at the scene, but also inspecting the body of the victim in their exam room is called the Forensic Pathologist. A Forensic Pathologist is often called to the scenes where a death has occurred so that they can legally gather information and observations so that they can proceed with the investigation. For example, they will try to find the time of death. It is very important that the forensic pathologist be contacted very early on in the investigation, due to the amount of evidence that needs to be overlooked. Forensic pathologists are educated as physicians, and are also licensed for the practice of medicine. Regional tests are given, which means that if you decide to move at any time after taking the regional test, you will be required to take it again if you move to a new state. Autopsies are a daily occurrence, and the goal of the forensic pathologist is to recreate the series of events that led up to the death of the victim.

But how do you tell what the bodies are getting to? I’ll tell you! There are forensic scientists that study bodies and then try to figure out how, when, where, and why whoever had this body, died! And how do these scientists do it, you ask? I don’t know! But what I do know, is that the scientists look at the height and weight of the skeletons, and then determine what age they were, so that they can then identify who the person was, and what they looked like. By doing this these special scientists

The specialized personnel that I would need at the crime scene include a medical examiner, sketch artist, photographer, forensic scientist, fingerprint specialists and investigating officers. The responsibility of the medical examiner is to determine the cause of death, time of death, and take custody of the body (Fisher, 2004).