BALLB 2013 Shashwat Jindal

Any person who gets involved in death investigations, becomes quickly aware about the con-nection between dead bodies and insects. Insects are major players in the natures recycling process and to them a corpse is just any other recyclable organic material. Left to its own de-vices, nature quickly populates a corpse with a diverse population of organisms, all dedicated to reduce the body into its basic compounds. For a layperson, signs of insects, worms, and other organism on a decaying corpse is nothing but a sign of death, but for a forensic scientist, it is much more. In 1235, Sung Ts'u, a Chinese death investigator, wrote a book titled 'The Washing away of wrongs', where he gave a very interesting account of an incident, where flies were to find a person guilty of murder; there was a murder in a Chinese village, and the victim had been repeatedly slashed with a sickle. Even after a lot of investigation by the magistrate and other in-vestigators, nothing came out of it. Finally, all the men from the village were assembled, and told to bring their sickles. In the hot summer weather, flies started assembling on the sickle, which had residue of blood and flesh on it. Confronted with the evidence, the guilty person con-fessed to the crime and was thus arrested by the magistrate. An example of how entomological (evidence based on insect clues) evidence starting being used for investigation in modern foren-sic science, was for the murder of a Lady named Isabella Ruxton, who was the wife of a local physician in Scotland. On September 29, 1935, a woman found a severed human hand over a bridge, which spanned over a small stream. After investigation, about 70 more pieces of human flesh were found in that area, which has since also been known as the Devil's Beef Tub. The pieces were finally identified as of Isabella and her maid Mary Rogerson. Among all the evi-dence collected, it was found that a group of maggots were feeding on the decomposing body parts. The investigators, identified the maggots to belong to a blow fly, called Calliphora Vicina, and it was estimated that they were not more than 12-14 days old, on the day of collection. The investigators concluded that since the maggots had developed from the eggs laid by adult flies in the vicinity, the bodies could not have been there for more than 12-13 days. This was the least time between the deaths and the finding of the dismembered bodies. Due to a number of other reasons, the suspicion fell on Isabella's husband, Buck Ruxton, as only a skilled physician like him could have so dexterously cut the body into pieces like this. Though Buck never con-fessed to the murder, he was eventually found guilty and hanged.

Though presence of insects and other organisms on dead corpses has several times helped forensic scientists in solving crimes, but they may also become an impediment for forensic sci-entists while solving murder cases. Often, insects and other micro-organisms affect ante-mortem wounds on a corpse in such a way that the wound appears as larger than it originally was. It may also happen that insects may leave certain marks on the body of the corpse, which are mistaken for ante mortem wounds. In a study conducted by the 'Forensic Anthropology Cen-ter at Texas State', it was found that marks left by arthropods on a dead body may often be mis-taken for "attack, abuse, neglect or torture". They also said that arthropod activity is often "misidentified as sources of intravenous drug use, bite marks, [or] defensive wounds.” Entomol-ogist Natalie Lindergreen from the SouthEast Texas Applied Forensic Science Facility, recounts an interesting incident, where an animal had bitten off the toenail off a dead body and blood had started pooling at that place, making it look as if the cadaver had very brightly painted toenails; one day, she noticed that a caterpillar had started chewing on a toenail of the cadaver and be-cause of which it had started looking as if a major ante mortem injury been inflicted on the foot of the body. Insects and other organisms, usually start invading the bodies from the natural body openings such as eyes, ears, nose and mouth, followed by the anus and genitals (if they stay exposed). Sometimes, when there is an open wound, insects start entering the body through these wounds; insects usually prefer to enter through ante mortem injuries or peri mortem injuries, as these wounds often bleed profusely. Wounds inflicted after death are not as attractive to insects as the blood flow slows down as the heart is no longer pumping blood. An

BALLB 2013 Shashwat Jindal

example of how real wounds were hidden due to wounds inflicted by an insect, is through an in-cident which occurred in Tennessee a few years ago: The body of a young woman was found in an advanced form of decomposition and it was difficult for the coroner to find the cause of death. Investigators noted that there were some peculiar signs of insect invasion on the chest and hands of the body. The case was then referred to the local entomologist and anthropologist to determine the cause of death, even they were of the opinion that the patterns and marks on the body were unusual and recommended further examination of the body. The body was thus exhumed and the evidence revealed that the cuts to the ribs and hands were basically stab wounds to the chest and defense wounds to the hands. This incident, further corroborates the point that how insects may effect the dead body and make it difficult for examiners to determine the cause of death.

Thus, a conclusion may be formed, that it is imperative for investigators to involve entomological experts while solving crimes and make it a point to carefully examine evidence before creating a conclusion. It is also important for investigators and other people involved in the handling, ex-amining and preservation of corpse to take care that no outside organism such as insects, mi-cro-organisms or even small animals and birds do not come and contaminate the corpse. For this purpose, special provisions should be made, including cold storage and airtight containers so that evidence is not tampered with.

BALLB 2013 Shashwat Jindal

Bibliography

O’Neill, C. (2015) Postmortem insect activity may be mistaken for antemortem wounds. Avail-able at: https://ncforensics.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/postmortem-insect-activity-may-be-mis-taken-for-antemortem-wounds/ (Accessed: 1 November 2015).

Goff, L. M. (2000) A fly for the prosecution: How insect evidence helps solve crimes. Cam-bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Finding crime clues in what insects had for dinner (2015) Available at: http://www.npr.org/sec-tions/health-shots/2015/01/22/379091257/finding-crime-clues-in-what-insects-had-for-dinner (Accessed: 1 November 2015).

Mirza, F. H., Makhdoom, P. A., Medical, S. and Karachi (2006) Importance of correct interpreta-tion of Postmortem artifacts in Medicolegal autopsies. Available at: http://www.jpma.org.pk/full_article_text.php?article_id=3592 (Accessed: 1 November 2015).

Wilson, E. O., Winston, M. L. and Cardé, R. T. (2012) A world of insects: The Harvard university press reader. Edited by Ring T. Carde, Vincent H. Resh, and Ring T. Card. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.