A comparative study on the death of unclaimed homeless males and females based on autopsy and circumstantial findings in a large North Indian population

Abstract

Unclaimed homeless corpses in forensic settings constitute a big global problem. Unclaimed bodies for medico-legal autopsy have also shown an increased trend in the last few years in India. This study was done to identify the circumstances and establish a comparative pattern of death between male and female corpses based on autopsy findings. Retrospective observational analytical study. Autopsy and circumstantial-based findings of 5,542 unclaimed homeless corpses were reviewed comparatively between males and females brought to mortuaries between Jan 2004 to Dec 2013 in Lucknow, a major metropolitan city and tertiary care centre of India. Lucknow Province has a population that roughly equals that of the nation of Georgia or the US state of Louisiana. A total of 39,872 autopsy cases were registered mean time, out of which 5,542 (13.9 %) were unclaimed corpse. The majority of cases belonged to males (3,950, 71.3 %) as compared to females (1,592, 28.7 %). Most homeless unclaimed bodies in the case of the male group were in the age group of 40–49 years (23.3 %; p < 0.001), while in the case of the female group it was 20–29 years (21.80 %; p < 0.001). The least-affected age group in males was 0–9 years (4.8 %; p < 0.001), while in the case of female it was 40–49 years (6.9 %; p < 0.001). The most common cause of natural death in both males and females was chronic lung disease. Railway and road traffic accidents accounted for 15.5 % (p < 0.001) deaths in males, whereas in females they accounted for only 8.7 % (p < 0.001). Violent sexual activity was present in 18.7 % (p < 0.001) cases and associated with homicidal death in females. Asphyxial death was present in 10.9 % cases within the male group and was 10.6 % (p < 0.001) of the cases within the female group. Cases of poisoning within the male group were 8.1 %, whereas it was 12.3 % (p < 0.001) within the female group. Poisoning was the main mode of suicide in females, while in the case of males our study reports it was asphyxial death. The majority of the cases were reported during the summer, while in the month of February the least amount of cases were reported. This is the largest autopsy-based study of unclaimed homeless corpse from India which tries to identify the circumstances of death and to establish a comparative pattern based on factors associated with the deaths of the males and females. The age groups of 40–59 (43.6 % within gender) in males and 10–29 age groups (40.3 % within gender) in females were the most affected victims. Age, gender, weather conditions and socio-economic status played an important role.