EFFORTPOST Different medical cases including photos and info!

Case one :

Body in a state of mummification.

Mummification occurs in hot, dry environments.

• The body dehydrates and bacterial proliferation may be minimal. The skin becomes dark, dried, and leathery. The process occurs readily in the fingers and toes in dry environments, regardless of the temperature. Most mummified bodies are found in the summer months or in hot, dry climates. Mummification can occur in the winter indoors, especially if the heat is turned up, creating a hot, low-humidity environment. It is possible for an entire body to mummify in only a few days to weeks in the right conditions. Once a body is in this state, it can remain preserved for many years.

Case Two:

Gunshot wound on the hard palate.

• This individual died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the hard palate inside the mouth. Self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the palate result in complex bony and soft tissue trauma to the mid and upper face.

Case Three:

Postmortem animal activity on a suicide victim.

• This individual committed suicide by hanging. Postmortem animal activity can be seen on the ear and chin of the deceased. A broad range of carnivores can be involved in the postmortem destruction of corpses located in open spaces or indoors (e.g. wild animals such as foxes and big cats or domestic animals such as dogs and cats). The wound margins caused by carnivores often appear more regular than those caused by rodents and V-shaped or rhomboid punctured wounds are often seen upon the intact skin in the immediate vicinity to the actual wound margins. Such stab wound-like defects represent canine tooth marks of carnivore origin. An additional criterion for animal depredation by carnivores is the presence of claw-induced linear scratch-type abrasions in the vicinity of the damaged skin areas.

Case Four:

Note that the eyes are intact whilst the lower part of the body is partially decayed due to influence of faces and urine/bacteria. Upper part of body mummified (dried out).

• Maggot crawling tracks—note the curved shape of tracks indicating that they are not simple tracks caused by oozing decomposition fluids or blood.

• An elderly woman was found dead in October 2002 in her third floor apartment in urban Cologne, Germany. The apartment was very clean except of the bath room in which a bath tub had been filled with water and clothing. The minimum interval of around 3 weeks would have been a misconduct of the paid professional care giver who was supposed to check for the women every week. The care giver, however, claimed that she had called the women ca. 2 weeks ago to check on her; the now dead women allegedly rejected any visits. This possibility could not be ruled out since the old woman was known to be healthy, yet mentally unstable and behaving ‘‘difficult’’ against everybody. The prosecution assumed that the care giver tried her best, and therefore, the D.A.’s office closed the case.

Case Five:

Note the matching pressure marks indicating that the head had been resulting on the neck for a prolonged time interval whilst the woman was still alive yet severely neglected by her son.

• In March 2002, the corpse of an old woman found in her apartment in an urban apartment in a Western German town. The apartment was untidy in non-organic terms but no rotten organic matter was seen. In this case, further evidence for neglect of the living person was found in the fact that the skin of the corpse was not fed on by the larvae, and that pressure spots had formed. The son of the woman was accused of misconduct of taking care of his mother. He claimed that he fed his mother the evening before she died, and that she was well at this point. Referring to the pressure spots, his statement was not believed by the judge.

Case Six:

Decomposed sclera showing hemorrhagic discoloration of the whites of the eyes.

• Decomposed sclera showing hemorrhagic discoloration of the whites of the eyes. This is sometimes misinterpreted as true injury. There was no more info about this case.

• the only Subconjunctival bleeding, also known as subconjunctival hemorrhage or subconjunctival haemorrhage, is bleeding from a small blood vessel over the whites of the eye. It results in a red spot in the white of the eye, and usually occurs as a result of increased blood pressure. In some cases, subconjunctival hemorrhages can appear without any identifiable cause. It may result from being choked or from a head injury, among other things.

Case Seven:

The image shows a partially skeletonized corpse at autopsy (seen from the back). Careful evaluation of the soft tissues and consultation with a forensic anthropologist in such a case can provide valuable information.

• Skeletonization is the state of a dead organism after undergoing decomposition. Skeletonization refers to the final stage of decomposition, during which the last vestiges of the soft tissues of a corpse or carcass have decayed or dried to the point that the skeleton is exposed. By the end of the skeletonization process, all soft tissue will have been eliminated, leaving only disarticulated bones.

• Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable, as might happen in a plane crash. Forensic anthropologists are also instrumental in the investigation and documentation of genocide and mass graves. Along with forensic pathologists, forensic dentists, and homicide investigators, forensic anthropologists commonly testify in court as expert witnesses. Using physical markers present on a skeleton, a forensic anthropologist can potentially determine a person's age, sex, stature, and race.

Case Eight:

Scene evaluation shows a decedent lying on her back with lethal stab wounds. The knife in her hand had been placed there in a clumsy attempt to make a homicide look like a suicide. No further info about this case.

• Crime scene staging, by common understanding, is an attempt to misdirect a police investigation away from the true facts. Beauregard and Martineau (2014) found 0.9% of sexual homicides involved some form of crime scene staging. Crime scene staging is described as intentional efforts by an offender to add, remove, or rearrange physical and/or forensic evidence within the scene to resemble the event they would like the police to believe happened. One important element of the staging effort could be the 911 call to police reporting the death, which would be the first step in the offender’s attempts to misdirect the police investigation.

• The 911 call is an example of verbal staging where the caller implants false information to the police hoping to influence their response. For instance, reporting a suicide to 911, the police may respond to the scene with the mindset they are responding to a suicide. One study of staged homicides found that 21.5% of them involved verbal staging, which involves providing a false verbal report with police in order to misdirect the investigation (Schlesinger et al., 2014). Chancellor and Graham (2017) note that a staged scene is not designed to withstand a long-term investigation; rather it is only to get through the initial police response to the scene.

• If the responding police officers are convinced that the death is the result of suicide, it is likely there will be no further investigation and the offender will have achieved the goal of successfully getting away with murder. The 911 call thus is an essential part of the offender’s effort. It should be noted that while offenders in staged homicides frequently “discover” the victim and reported the death, this is not always the case (Ferguson & Petherick, 2016). Offenders may stage the homicide by manipulating both the scene and others, which includes having others call 911 for them.

Case Nine:

This individual was found in a state of advanced decomposition. Evidence of postmortem animal predation could be seen on the body.

• Postmortem animal predation may cause significant damage to bodies left outdoors and make the assessment of antemortem wounds difficult. Note especially the absence of tissue around the face and the left leg, the result of animal feeding. Also of note are other significant decompositional changes, including dark discoloration and mummification of the skin. No further info.

Case Ten:

Note the bloated face of the deceased. This victim’s body was found indoors during the summertime. He had been dead for only 60 hours when discovered.

• Decomposition, or putrefaction, is a combination of two processes: autolysis and bacterial action. Autolysis is the breakdown of cells and organs through an aseptic chemical process caused by intracellular enzymes. Because it is a chemical process, it is accelerated by heat, slowed by cold, and stopped by freezing. Bacterial action results in the conversion of soft tissues in the body to liquids and gases. The chemicals produced as a result of putrefaction are cadaverine and putrescine, hydrogen sulfide and other sulfides, which generate a horrible smell.

• Putrefaction begins immediately upon death and usually becomes noticeable within 24 hours. As soon as death occurs, the bacteria or microorganisms within the intestinal tract escape from the bowel into the other tissues of the body. As they grow, they begin to produce gases and other properties that distort and discolor the tissues of the body. The discoloration is a dark greenish combination of colors and is generally pronounced within 36 hours. As a result, the body begins to swell from the putrefactive gases, emitting an extremely repugnant odor.