1 markDetectives investigating suspicious deaths will routinely try to establish the time of death (TOD), in order to construct a timeline of events before and after the victim's death.
Forensic scientists refer to a dead body as a cadaver.
Which factors from the list below would forensic scientists need to take into account when assessing the victim's TOD?
The cadaver's core temperature at the time of analysis
The victim's gender
Insect life on the cadaver
Body hair coverage of the cadaver
The victim's body mass
The cadaver's degree of muscle contraction
The position / posture of the cadaver when discovered (seated, lying down, lying on back or front etc.)
The ambient temperature
☐ | A | 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 |
☐ | B | All except 7 |
☐ | C | 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8 |
☐ | D | 2, 4, 6 and 8 |
3 marksA forensic scientist was called to the scene of a suspicious death. At 4 pm, the scientist measured the body temperature by inserting a rectal thermometer into the victim's rectum.
The cadaver's body temperature was measured to be 30.5°C.
The ambient temperature was 8°C. At this temperature, the cadaver's expected loss of heat would be 2°C in the first hour, followed by a rate of 1.5°C per hour thereafter.
Determine an estimate of the victim's likely time of death. You may assume that the deceased person's core temperature was 37°C at the time of death.
4 marksThe image below shows part of Lindow Man, the preserved remains of a man found in Cheshire, UK in 1984.
Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It is thought that Lindow Man was a man in his 20s who lived at around the date of 100 A.D. He was found in a peat bog during commercial cutting of peat for sale as a fuel and as a compost ingredient.
(i) State two conditions present in a peat bog that allow the remains of bodies like that of Lindow Man to be well preserved for centuries.
(2)
(ii) For each condition, you stated in part (i), give a brief explanation of how that condition assists in preserving a body.
(2)
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