Postmortem CT in the investigation of decomposed human remains: advantages and limitations

Abstract

The investigation of decomposed bodies is a difficult task for the forensic practitioner due to the effect of taphonomy on the remains. Facial characteristics are missing, soft tissue is altered, and the remains are often disarticulated and/or scattered, which makes both the identification and the reconstruction of the death scene very challenging. These cases require maceration, which often is not possible in routine forensic pathology facilities. Postmortem Computed Tomography (PMCT) has emerged a few decades ago as a complementary modality to forensic autopsy and offers an alternative way of investigation of human remains1,2. This paper presents a series of cases from two forensic pathology departments in Scotland and Crete where PMCT was used in the investigation of human remains in different states of preservation (varying post-mortem interval) recovered from different environments (terrestrial, aquatic). Fig. 1 illustrates the 3D reconstruction from a PMCT of a decomposed body recovered in the northern coast of Crete. PMCT offered in all cases a quick inspection of the remains for the presence of foreign bodies and traumatic lesions, morphological information for the reconstruction of the biological profile and comparative material for positive identification. In addition, post-autopsy PMCT has proven to be very helpful in providing answers to specific forensic questions. The preliminary results of this study confirm the advantages in incorporating PMCT in the protocol for the examination of heavily decomposed remains, as a complement to the forensic pathology examination.