Title |
Crime scene and body alterations caused by arthropods: implications in death investigation
|
---|---|
Published in |
International Journal of Legal Medicine, June 2018
|
DOI | 10.1007/s00414-018-1883-8 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
A. Viero, M. Montisci, G. Pelletti, S. Vanin |
Abstract |
The activity of arthropods on corpses has been largely investigated, since they can produce information to reconstruct the peri-mortem events. However, the feeding/movement activity of insects around the crime scene, among the clothes and on the body, can also cause some alterations that can lead to wrong reconstruction and misinterpretations. This article summarises all the post-mortem arthropods artefacts related to the scene (i.e. fly artefacts and floor stripes) and the body (i.e. skin and other soft tissue alterations, bone alterations and hair alterations) that can mislead the forensic pathologist, discussing macroscopic and microscopic findings derived from forensic casework and from experimental laboratory studies, in order to provide a useful instrument to avoid misinterpretations and evaluation errors. Finally, some procedural notes for the documentation and the interpretation of findings are proposed. |
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Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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United Kingdom | 3 | 23% |
Spain | 1 | 8% |
Indonesia | 1 | 8% |
India | 1 | 8% |
Canada | 1 | 8% |
Austria | 1 | 8% |
Unknown | 5 | 38% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
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Members of the public | 11 | 85% |
Scientists | 2 | 15% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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Unknown | 77 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
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Student > Bachelor | 14 | 18% |
Student > Ph. D. Student | 8 | 10% |
Researcher | 5 | 6% |
Student > Postgraduate | 5 | 6% |
Student > Master | 5 | 6% |
Other | 13 | 17% |
Unknown | 27 | 35% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
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Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 17 | 22% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 10 | 13% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 6 | 8% |
Chemistry | 4 | 5% |
Environmental Science | 2 | 3% |
Other | 9 | 12% |
Unknown | 29 | 38% |