Suspicious Deaths Research Articles

Retrospective Autopsy based analysis of nature and prevalence of Fatal Injuries in Lahore

Bacckground: Autopsy is a medical examination conducted after death to ascertain the cause of death. For Clinical autopsies, the permission of the next of kin is required. In suspicious deaths, an autopsy is a legal requirement and is performed by the coroner ormedico-legal surgeon.
 Methodology: Retrospective analysis of records of forensic medicine from January 1st, 2016 to December 31st, 2016, was done to observe fatal injuries causing death, their nature, and prevalence. The deaths, in which cause of death was Fatal Injury were included in our study. These cases were analyzed with respect to age, gender, cause and manner of death, number and location of injuries and the approximate time lag between injury and death. All data were entered into SPSS.
 Results: A total of 785 autopsies were conducted at the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, King Edward Medical University, Lahore in 2016, 42.8% fulfilled our inclusion criteria and were included in the study. Cases of firearm injuries were maximum constituting 46.4%, followed by RTA (13.7%) and blunt trauma (11.9%). Most victims were in the age bracket of 21-40 (55.1%) with a male to female ratio of 4.09:1. Head was the predominant site involved.
 Conclusion: Fatal injury deaths are mostly due to firearm injuries. Victims are more commonly males and majority cases die immediately after sustaining the injury. Manner of death is predominantly homicidal. Efforts should be made to prevent and properly manage fatal injuries.

A Post-mortem Observational Study of Suspicious Deaths in Married Females Aged 30 Years or Less.

Introduction – Suspicious death in married female is always a sensitive case and needs our full attention. So, current study was undertaken at S.S.G. Hospital, Vadodara for a period of 1 year.Material & Method –Of all cases coming for the postmortem examination, cases in which the victim is female and below 30 years of age were taken for the study when there was suspicion regarding the cause of death.Results – Out of all the medico-legal autopsies 5.7 % autopsies were Unnatural deaths of married females less than 30 years old. Maximum number (40 %) of deaths were observed in the age group of 21-25 years. (86.65 %) of female deaths occurred within 0-7 years of marriage. 75.55 % of deaths were suicidal in nature followed by accidental (18.88 %).Statistical Analysis –The data collected was analyzed using MS Excel worksheets for averages and percentage.Conclusion – Many of the findings of current study were correlated with earlier studies, while others were found contradictory. Further detailed study with larger sample size is required.

Study of Suspicious Deaths in Middle Aged Married Females

Introduction – Female deaths, especially young married females always arouse suspicions, but later age females who have crossed 30 years of age are not the cases which draws our attention. So, we conducted an observational study for a period of 1 year in autopsy of SSG Hospital, Baroda.Material & Method – Of all cases coming for the postmortem examination, cases in which the victim is married female and above 30 years of age were taken for the study when there was suspicion regarding the cause of death.Results – Victims having Illiterates (16.66 %), primary (45.83 %), secondary (33.33 %) school education were total 95.82 % of cases. It was observed that 72.91 % of deaths were suicidal in nature followed by accidental (22.91 %) and homicidal deaths (4.16 %).Statistical analysis –The data collected was analyzed using MS Excel worksheets for averages and percentage.Conclusion – Education holds a very pivotal role in the prevention of unnatural deaths in females.

Land conflict, murder, and the rise of “timeless culture” and girl blaming (Samburu, Kenya)

The paper examines youthful practices in the Samburu pastoralist age set system as they evolved into tropes of warrior girlfriends inciting masculine violence. Through a close examination of a well-publicized Kenyan court case surrounding the suspicious death in 1931 of Theodore Powys, a British settler, this paper documents the shaping of a discourse about feminine agency and masculine bravado among the youth that eventuated in harsh state-sponsored collective punishment of a pastoralist Samburu community. Colonial officers and European settlers strategically deployed Samburu youth “culture” in the form of girls’ sexuality and young men’s martial role in the tense, globally significant milieus of land policy and conflict in ways that persist in the twenty-first century. Thus, girls’ sexuality has had political implications that far exceed the lives of individual girls.

Skate or die: Unusual circumstances surrounding a natural cause of death

In a forensic pathologist's mind, a suspicious death scene involving inflicted injuries and a weapon always raises three possible hypotheses regarding the manner of death—homicide, suicide, or accident; the latter is slightly less common. We present a case of a 43-year-old homeless man with a history of chronic alcohol abuse who was found dead in a skate park in Geneva. He was inflicted with a stab wound to his abdomen, with a knife found in situ. With the suspicion of homicide, a crime scene investigation team, including a forensic pathologist, was summoned to the scene. However, further examination of the body revealed a deep cut with hesitation marks on the left forearm. This discovery raised the hypothesis of a suicide. Here, we have described the investigations made by the police and forensic department, along with the circumstances and autopsy findings that determined the cause of death as an effect of a natural disease.

Suspicious death – trace evidence identified the complainant as accused: A real crime scene report

Unnatural death incidents are reported to police wherein the dead body appearance confuses the first officer in the crime scenes. Generally, the forensic medicine experts are not involved in crime scene visit, but waiting for the body at the autopsy room. Anyhow, the forensic crime scene investigators or mobile forensic scientists have an active part in the examination of the crime scene and the body under suspicious condition. Through keen crime scene observation, they may able to link the physical evidence in the scene with the dead body in the suspicious death cases and solve the mystery. In the present suspicious death case study, a woman was found hanged in her residence under suspicious condition. The complainant husband alleged that his wife committed suicide by hanging while he was away from home. The examination of physical evidence and the dead body in the crime scene indicated it as a homicidal hanging rather than suicidal hanging as alleged by husband. This fact was confirmed by the forensic medicine expert in the autopsy examination.

Lay Judgment of Suicide by Japanese University Students in Suspicious Death Investigations

Lay Judgment of Suicide by Japanese University Students in Suspicious Death Investigations

On the absence of a doctor's dilemma in India: Reflections on impatient violence.

On June 10, 2019, Mohammed Sayeed, a 75-year-old patient was admitted to the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal (1). He died that night due to a cardiac arrest and this led to a scuffle between the patient's family and duty doctors. In retaliation, the doctors refused to discharge the body, asserting that since the family claimed it was a suspicious death, a post-mortem was required. A mob arrived, and in the confrontation, a doctor was injured. The medicos struck work. Doctors and medical associations across the country have voiced unanimous support for the doctors, and called for protective legislation against the violence of the public. As a consequence of these nationwide doctors' protests, the Supreme Court has now proposed a law that protects doctors by severely punishing those who attack them (2). Meanwhile, it does seem as if such attacks are increasing.

An autopsy review of 78 cases of suicide by hanging in benin

Introduction: Hanging is one of the most common methods of suicide. It can also be used to conceal a crime. Thus, it is important to systematically have a forensic autopsy performed in cases of hanging. Only that examination can determine the actual forensic form of the death. At the national level, there is no epidemiological data on suicide by hanging in Benin. Aims: This study aims to describe the epidemiological and forensic features observed in the cases of suicide by hanging in Benin. Material and Methods: This is a descriptive and retrospective study of all the suicidal deaths by hanging collated in the Forensic & Legal Medicine Unit of the Faculty of Health Sciences (UML_FSS) for a period of 12 years, 2005–2017, in Benin. Result: Suicides by hanging accounted for 8.3% of the cases of suspicious deaths autopsied in the south and center of Benin. Males represented 85.9% of the corpses, and most individuals were under 40 years old (62.0%). Hangings were complete in 65.4% of the cases. The material used most often for hanging (28.7% of cases) was nylon rope. Subcutaneous hemorrhages (46.2%) and ecchymosis in the sterno-cleido-mastoid muscles (61.3%) were the most common finding at the neck dissection. Conclusion: Hanging is a common method of suicide, especially among young men. In Benin, it occurs behind closed doors and by means of tools used in everyday life. Forensic autopsies, however, remain infrequent in cases of suicides. Keywords: Hanging, Suicide, Autopsy, Benin.

Application of NGM detect™ PCR amplification kit for degraded forensic evidence samples

The Applied Biosystems™ NGM Detect™ PCR Amplification Kit is a new Human Identification solution with increased sensitivity in comparison to NGM SElect Kit.The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of the NGM Detect™ kit compared to AmpFℓSTR® NGM Select™ and AmpFlSTR® Identifiler® Plus kits, using a variety of casework samples. The study is being carried out on samples obtained from forensic cases such as sexual violence, exhumations, paternity, homicides and suspicious deaths. The sample typologies refer to: buccal swabs, nail swabs, swabs deriving from sexual violence, human biological tissues and liquids, clothes and objects of common use.The preliminary results show that the combined use of NGM Detect and NGM Select kits provide maximum information in a dual amplification strategy, as the size of several markers are complementary. Furthermore, the NGM Detect and NGM Select kits appear more sensitive than the Identifiler Plus kit. In conclusion, together with the NGM Select™ kit, the NGM Detect™ kit offers the possibility of recovering a lot of genetic information from degraded samples, delivering the best likelihood ratio value of identity compared to other ESS-focused solutions in the market today.

Long-term insect successional patterns on pig carcasses in central Spain

Baseline data on the insect successional patterns on carcasses can be a valuable estimation tool in the investigations of suspicious deaths, particularly when the post-mortem interval is longer than months or years. However, although carrion insect succession is a recurrent topic in forensic science research, the duration of the published studies is typically shorter than 1year, with only one published study from central Europe documenting successional patterns beyond the first year of decomposition. We provide here the first data on the long-term insect successional patterns in southern Europe, using pig carcasses exposed in the four seasons of the year and documenting the carrion entomofauna during the second and third year of decomposition. Our results confirmed previous observations from central Europe that several Coleoptera species are able to recolonize cadavers during the second and third year after death, with their larvae residing on the remains for long periods. The season of cadaver exposure appears to be a main factor determining the composition of the insect fauna that exploits the remains during subsequent years. Our results suggest that it might be possible to estimate the year and season of death analyzing the composition of the insect fauna occurring on a cadaver. The present data highlight the need for further studies on the long-term insect succession on cadavers in different seasons and geographical areas, in order to fully understand its patterns and ensure its proper application in PMI estimations.

Landscapes of impunity and the deaths of Americans LaVena Johnson and Sandra Bland

On July 19th, 2005, American Army Private First Class LaVena Johnson died in Balad, Iraq, just 8 days shy of her 20th birthday. On July 13th, 2015, almost 10 years later, 28-year-old Sandra Bland’s life came to an abrupt end in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Both women’s deaths were ruled suicides, and both women’s families and friends reject these judgments. Instead, they insinuate foul play by the state, which directly governed the militarized spaces within which the women both died. At first glance, these women appear to have had very different life trajectories, one a United States soldier and the other a Black Lives Matter activist. However, in both of their cases, the ruling of the suspicious deaths as suicides illustrates the state’s attempt to render their deaths banal, and thereby diminish the state’s own culpability. In understanding the unremitting acts of violence, on women’s bodies, especially women of color, this paper focuses on how a Black feminist praxis extends feminist notions of an ethics of care.

A retrospective study on clinical manifestations of neonates with FXIII-A deficiency

We assessed clinical presentations and the rate of central nervous system (CNS) bleeding in neonates with FXIIID who exhibited bleeding diathesis in the early days of their lives. A total of 27 neonates presented bleeding or abnormal clinical symptoms, diagnosed with FXIII deficiency were evaluated. Factor XIII concentrate was initiated as the first-line of treatment, and prophylactic therapy was given to all patients. Umbilical cord bleeding, delayed detachment of umbilical stunt, seizure, hematoma, and ecchymosis were concurrent complications in 27 (100%), 5 (18.5%), 5 (18.5%), 3 (11.1%), and 1 (3.7%) of the patients, respectively. History of having CNS bleeding was detected in 13 (48.1%) patients. There was no significant association between CNS bleeding and gender, familial history of FXIIID, or other clinical presentations. Also, there was no significant difference in the mean age of the patients who had CNS bleeding (3.4 ± 0.9 days) and without CNS bleeding (2.9 ± 0.7 days). However, a near significant threshold difference between the patients with and without CNS bleeding was found regarding the mean number of suspicious FXIIID death in their family (1.8 ± 0.5 and 0.7 ± 0.1, respectively, P = 0.05). Therefore, a suggested diagnostic algorithm based on prenatal diagnosis could be useful for timely detection of FXIII deficiency in neonates.

Rectal Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria phyla fitness belong to post mortem intervals in the terrestrial environment death victims evaluation in Malang, East Java, Indonesia

The increasing of urbanization will lead the increasing violence-related death, like traffic accident, murdered and suicide which contribute to 20 leading causes of death. Post mortem interval (PMI) estimation is important information for suspicious death. Microbes have important role for decomposition of bodies. By evaluate the certain bacteria will know the post mortem interval because the community of bacteria have certain condition regarding to the composition. The aim of this study is to figure out the community of Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria from rectal swab post mortem interval of the terrestrial environment in Malang, East Java, Indonesia. We used Wistar carcass as a model for human decomposition. Identification of bacterial phyla using Real Time PCR (qPCR) method after cultured in nutrient broth solution. The results showed that Firmicutes has dominant composition in fresh stage (0-24 hours) and in advance decomposition at 120 hours after death. Actinobacteria was dominant in the early decomposition, observed from the 48 to 72 hours after death. While Gammaproteobacteria was dominant in the end of fresh stage and early decomposition stage when bloating time occur.

Doing death work: a typology of how homicide detectives orient to their work

ABSTRACT Homicide investigation is among the most prestigious and challenging undertakings in modern day law enforcement agencies. Most metropolitan police departments assign the investigation of suspicious deaths to a dedicated homicide unit staffed by an elite group of specially trained and highly competent investigators. These units are commonly associated with close-knit cultures, high individual and collective expectations, and high status within the organisation. Drawing upon roughly 300 hours of ethnographic work within the homicide unit of a major metropolitan police department in the US, this paper provides insight into how homicide investigators construct their occupational identities within the context of their work environment. A 4-part typology of homicide detective identities emerged from the data with one’s primary motivation for solving cases and general approach to investigative work shaping membership outcomes. The theoretical and policy implications that follow are considered, especially the way that detectives orient to their work and its potential impact on homicide casework and clearance levels.

A Deadly Pair: Conflicts of Interest Between Death Investigators and Prosecutors

As an inevitable fact of life, death is a mysterious specter looming over us as we move through the world. It consumes our literature, religions, and social dialogues — the death of a prominent figure can change policies and perceptions about our approaches to many problems. Given death’s significance, it is reasonable to try to understand causes of death generally, as well as on a case-by-case basis. While scholars and mourners attempt to answer the philosophical questions about death, the practical and technical questions are typically answered by death investigators. Death investigators attempt to decipher the circumstances surrounding suspicious and unexplained deaths to provide solace to family members and information to law enforcement services to help them determine whether further investigative steps are necessary. But while the answers provided by death investigators may provide some direction, in many ways the death investigation system actually inhibits the pursuit of justice. The current death investigation system creates conflicts of interest between death investigators and prosecutors. Death investigators and prosecutors are often organized under the same governmental structure or even within the same offices. This close association between the two systems results in patterns of relationships that disadvantage defense teams and prevent equal access to death investigation resources. This Article explores the ways in which the death investigation system is constrained by prosecutorial discretion and the institutional proximity of the two offices. This Article also examines how this relationship constitutes a failure of the justice system in the form of both overt and discreet conflicts of interest between death investigators and prosecutors. The effects of these conflicts can be remedied, however. The Article thus provides recommendations to enhance the accuracy and integrity of the death investigation process.

‘Arrow line incision’-A new approach for neck dissection

Police inquest is an integral part of medicolegal autopsy process in india. Autopsy surgeon usually makes dissection plan based on the information about the circumstances of unnatural or suspicious death in police inquest. Conventionally ‘Y ’or Modified ‘Y ’autopsy incision is practiced for examination of neck structures in cases of suspected neck compression. Unknown cases without any history of neck compression autopsies are done with usual midline straight incision or ‘I ’incision but once the autopsy is started with ‘I ’incision, no type of ‘Y ’incision is possible subsequently. I have developed a new incision called ‘Arrow line incision ’which can be practiced for neck exposure even after usual ‘I ’incision. This new dissection technique, ‘Arrow line incision ’can be practiced in all cases as routine autopsy incision for internal examination with or without history of neck compression.

An unperformed autopsy does not exclude the possibility of proving a physician´s error

Introduction/Objective. Clarifying cases involving suspicious natural death and all forensic problems connected to such cases is possible only with the aid of a timely and adequately performed autopsy. The objective of this paper, however, is to point out the fact that it is possible to prove the existence of a physician?s error, even when an autopsy had not been performed. Case report. The Emergency Medical Service (EMS) team had been dispatched to respond to a call for help by a 53-year-old woman, complaining of chest pain, shortness of breath, and dizziness. The pain was located in the center of her chest and would increase in response to palpation, change of body position, and deep breathing. The physical examination was normal. The EMS physician concluded that it was not necessary to perform electrocardiography (ECG). Forty minutes later, the EMS team was dispatched to see the same patient again, this time for suspected cardiac arrest. Protocol-based cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for asystole was performed, without success. After 30 minutes, CPR was discontinued and the patient was declared deceased. Although the patient?s relatives did not allow an autopsy to be performed, they did send a claim to the Health Inspector at the Ministry of Health of Serbia, demanding an internal review of the physician?s professional work. It was concluded that the physician should have performed ECG, but that the true cause of death could only have been determined through a timely and adequately performed autopsy. Conclusion. An unperformed autopsy does not exclude the possibility of proving a physician?s error.

Sudden suspicious looking unexpected natural cardiac deaths: A case series study and in-depth review

Sudden suspicious looking unexpected natural cardiac deaths: A case series study and in-depth review

Insect succession pattern on decomposing pig carcasses in Tasmania: a summer study'

Insect succession has been studied around the world using the predictable and mostly sequential arrival pattern of different insect species that are attracted to a decomposing carcass. In cases of suspicious death of humans and animals, carrion insects may be used to assist in crime scene reconstruction. The present research represents the first study in forensic entomology to be undertaken in Tasmania, investigating insect succession patterns on decomposing pig carcasses and providing a preliminary database of forensically important insects. Six pig carcasses were placed in two contrasting locations (rural and urban) in northern Tasmania. Insect successional waves were recorded over a 40-day study during the austral summer season. Results showed that decomposition rates and insect assemblages varied between each location. Eleven insect taxa, representing nine families, were identified in association with the decomposition of the pig carcasses at both localities. Blowflies present on the pig carcasses throughout the decomposition process were Calliphora stygia Malloch (Diptera: Calliphoridae) at both sites and Lucilia sericata (Meigen) at the urban site only. These preliminary results will provide useful information in any future casework involving human remains and associated insect material in Tasmania.