READ: Death Investigation

Post Mortem Interval

Mortality

Mortality refers to death, or the fact that people are subject to death. One of the grimmer aspects of crime scene investigation is dealing with a scene where a victim has died. If a body is found the main question that investigators will want answered, is when the person died. Depending on the state of the body, this can range anywhere from minutes to years. There are many different specialists that may become involved depending on the state of the body. These specialists are trained in how to determine the time of death based on different information they can find from the body.

We will be learning more about each of these specialties this unit, but the main ones are forensic pathology, anthropology, and entomology. If the body has not decomposed to the point that it is mostly a skeleton, a forensic pathologist, or a medical examiner will perform an autopsy to determine how and when they died. If the body is skeletalized and anthropologist can use information from the bones to determine when, and possibly how a person died. Entomologists are people who study insects, they can be involved if there are insects present on a body.

Post Mortem Interval

After a person has died it is the goal of many people to determine the post mortem interval. The post mortem interval is the time that has passed since a person died. There are many different changes that take place after a person dies. Some of the more immediate ones may be noticed at the crime scene, and will later be noted by the medical examiner.