DIFFERENTIATING PERIMORTEM AND POSTMORTEM BURNING

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DIFFERENTIATING PERIMORTEM AND POSTMORTEM BURNING

Journal Title: Journal of Evidence Based Medicine and Healthcare - Year 2015, Vol 2, Issue 3

Abstract

One of the most challenging cases in forensic medicine is ascertaining the cause of death of burnt bodies under suspicious circumstances. The key questions that arise at the time of investigation include:1  Was the person alive or dead prior to fire accident?  Did the victim die because of burn?  If death was not related to burns, could burns play a role in causing death?  Were the burns sustained accidentally, did the person commit suicide or was the person murdered?  Are the circumstances suggesting an attempt to conceal crime?  How was the fire started?  How was the victim identified?  In case of mass fatalities, who died first? Postmortem burning of corpses is supposed to be one of the ways to hide a crime. Differentiating the actual cause of death in burn patients is therefore important. Medical examiners usually focus on the defining the changes that occur in tissues while forensic anthropologists deal with the changes related to the bone with or without any the influence of other tissues. Under the circumstances of fire, differentiating the perimortem trauma from that of postmortem cause of bone fractures is vital in determining the cause and motive of death.

Authors and Affiliations

Brahmaji Master P, Chandra Sekhar V, Rangaiah Y. K. C.

EP ID EP222440
DOI 10.18410/jebmh/2015/36
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