Physiology dissertation examples

Post Mortem

After the question of cause of death; the question of time of death is the most sought after piece of information associated with a medical death investigation. As a consequence, death investigators find themselves in need of a means of ascertaining the period of time between when an individual's body is found and when they died, sometimes referred to as the post mortem interval. Establishing the time of death through the determination of post mortem interval may have a direct bearing on the legal questions of guilt or innocence by confirming that a suspect's alibi covers the period when the victim died, or demonstrating that it does not. If the time of death can be established to within hours, days, months or even years, an individual may be able to prove that they were at some other place at that time. On the other hand, if the suspect is known to have been in the vicinity of the victim during the appropriate time period, then they can be shown to have had an opportunity to commit the crime.

Currently, there are multiple techniques for determining post mortem interval that incorporate methods in almost every discipline of forensic science. Depending on the circumstances, these techniques can yield results that vary from a narrow accurate estimate (video of the victim, the victim's stopped watch etc.) to a wide range estimate (counting tree rings on trees growing over or through the remains). Regardless of the of the method used, the calculation of post mortem interval is at best an estimate and should not be accepted as accurate without considering all of the factors that can potentially impact the result.

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