Identification of a jawless skull by superimposing AM and PM CT images

Abstract

Introduction A victim of killing for life insurance. A jawless skull was found in the mountain area after the offender's testimony. The skull was thought to belong to the male victim who had been killed and buried in the mountain 2 years before. Before burying him the offender had cut his both wrists off and destroyed the jaws with a shovel not to be identified from the fingerprints or the dental records. Two years before the murder, the offender had attempted to murder the victim by running over to get money from a life insurance policy. Despite being unsuccessful, he still got some insurance coverage since the victim became vegetative after the false accident. The offender murdered him because of his expensive medical care. The issue was if the skull belongs to the victim. We tried to identify the victim with the ante mortem (AM) CT images of the missing person and the post-mortem (PM) CT data of the skull since it is known that the shape of frontal sinus is unique. Methods The AM CT images were obtained from the hospital, which were scanned when he had been run over. The skull was scanned with 4-slice MDCT scanner and reconstructed with the 3D image serving system (Aquarius NET) at our department. These two data sets were superimposed by the software function called “fusion”. Results Two data sets of the AM and PM CT images of the skull were nearly identical in the shape and the size in both multi planer reconstruction (MPR) and 3D volume rendering (VR). More specifically, the sizes and the shapes of parietal and temporal bones, the shapes, region, and the sizes of the orbit, and the shapes of the skull base are identical. Conclusions The results suggest that two data sets belong to the same person. We have done personal identifications by using PM CT data of the skull without jaws comparing with AM CT data of the head.