Crime and Science Radio: A Fly for the Prosecution: An Interview with Forensic Entomologist Dr. Lee Goff

Join Jan Burke and me as we discuss bugs and bodies with forensic entomologist Dr. M. Lee Goff.

BIO: Dr. M. Lee Goff is one of the founding members of the American Board of Forensic Entomology, from which he retired in 2013.  Professor Emeritus, in Forensic Sciences at  Chaminade University of Hawaii and Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Hawaii, Manoa,, he received his B.S. in Zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1966, M.S. in Biology from California State University, Long Beach in 1974, and Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1977. He was Professor of Entomology and Chair of the Entomology Graduate Program at University of Hawaii at Manoa from 1983 until 2001. He then moved to Chaminade University of Honolulu as Director of the Forensic Sciences Program. Dr. Goff has been involved in forensic entomology for a period of over 25 years. He is currently a consultant in forensic entomology for the Office of the Medical Examiner, City and County of Honolulu and other state and federal agencies throughout the world.  He also serves as a consultant for the crime dramas CSI and Bones. He is curator of a traveling museum exhibition called CSI: Crime Scene Insects.

Additionally Dr. Goff has served as a member of the instructional staff for the FBI Academy course in Detection and Recovery of Human Remains taught at Quantico, Virginia. He has published over 200 papers in scientific journals, authored the popular book, A Fly for the Prosecution, co-edited the recent publication “Advances in Forensic Entomology” and participated in over 350 homicide investigations, consulting on cases worldwide.

LISTEN: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2015/04/30/crime-and-science-radio-with-special-guest-dr-lee-goff

LINKS:

Professor Emeritus Goff’s faculty Page on Chaminade University’s site https://www.chaminade.edu/natural-sciences/faculty/M_Lee_Goff.php

PBS Nature‘s Crime Scene Creatures Interview: Forensic Entomologist Lee Goff http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/crime-scene-creatures-interview-forensic-entomologist-lee-goff/302/

Dr. Goff Interviewed on KHNL-TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnNe8SNAz08

National Geographic Channel 2004 Interview with Dr. Goff http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0423_040423_tvbugman.html

American Board of Forensic Entomology http://www.forensicentomologist.org

Insects.org  http://www.insects.org

Acarological Society of America https://sites.google.com/site/acarologicalsociety/home

Acarology: The Study of Mites and Ticks (UK’s Natural History Museum) http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted-sites/acarology/

Entomological Society of America http://www.entsoc.org/home

Insect Collections, Zoos, Museums, and Butterfly Gardens in North America http://www.entsoc.org/resources/links/zoos

Amateur Entomologists’ Society: Forensic Entomology http://www.amentsoc.org/insects/insects-and-man/forensic-entomology.html

How Stuff Works: What do bugs have to do with forensic science? http://science.howstuffworks.com/forensic-entomology2.htm

Smithsonian Channel Catching Killers: Insect Evidence http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/catching-killers/insect-evidence/1003122/141561

 

Q and A: What Would My Victim of Scaphism Look Like After Two Weeks in a Pond?

Q: My question is what would a corpse be like, a victim of scaphism and encased in leather with only the head, hands and feet protruding, discovered after about two weeks in a stagnant pond in summer in England.

Alicat

 

 

A: This is a very complex situation which means that almost anything can happen. Particularly in face of your killer employing scaphism in your poor victim’s ordeal. There are many forces in this circumstance conspiring to destroy the body. After two weeks the decay process would be well along and the body should be swollen and discolored and there might already be some sloughing of tissues, particularly in the hands and the feet so that the fingernails and toenails might have slipped away. The leather binding might lessen the degree of abdominal swelling but maybe not.

Or the decay might be a little less and the body might appear only slightly swollen and discolored. Either is possible. When you add the insects and marine predators such as fish to the picture, tissue destruction could be significant—-or again very mild. Once the body floated or if it were placed on a wooden float of some sort, the insects would easily reach the corpse. These insects prefer warmer and moister areas so they tend to accumulate around the eyes, nose, mouth, groin, and any wounds such as an open abdomen or a stab wound.

Their activity could be significant or minimal, often depending on the weather. If it has rained a lot or if it is windy or if there has been a great deal of fog, insect activity would be diminished as insects do not like these conditions. But, i the weather was warm and sunny, they would be more active. Often when the medical examiner is determining the time of death in bodies that are several weeks old, he will consult a forensic climatologist to assess the weather effects in play and from this make his best guess as to insect activity and this in turn will tell him how long it took for the insects to reach the level of infestation seen. Again is always only his best estimate. And then you throw in predators, both marine and otherwise, and his problems multiply.

At the end of the day, your body would likely have a great deal of decay as described above as well as insect activity. The latter could be everywhere but would be particularly pronounced in the exposed areas where the tissues were easier for the insects to get to. Still they find their way beneath leather bindings and clothing and coverings in order to get to their next meal.

You have a great deal to work with here in that the body can either be slightly or severely decayed and the insect activity can be great or small and anywhere in between. The old adage is that whatever happens, happens. This actually gives you great leeway in how you construct your plot.

 

Can Odor Reveal the Time Of Death?

One of the most important determinations that the medical examiner must make in any death investigation is the Time Of Death (TOD). This alone might help solve a homicide. Who had the motive, means, and opportunity? The time of death relates to the opportunity. If the death occurred while the primary suspect was in another state or had a solid alibi, then he moves down the suspect list. On the other hand, if the TOD was determined to be a time frame where he was in the neighborhood, then he remains a viable suspect.

The ME uses many techniques to help estimate the TOD. Check out this ARTICLE for a brief overview of these techniques. One of the methods he employs is the degree of decay that has occurred. He must take into account the environmental conditions near the corpse and then must make a best estimate as to how fast the decomposition process would have advanced under those conditions. This is always a best guess, as is the case with each of the techniques he employs.

When a corpse decays it undergoes a chemical decomposition and this process releases many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the surrounding air. These compounds are at least partially responsible for the odor of decay and they tend to be released in a predictable pattern as the decay process progresses. What if these VOCs could be sampled and used as a more scientific method for determining the Post Mortem Interval (PMI)? That is, the time since death.

Research is currently underway to assess this technique. Using the combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC/MS), researchers have found that these volatile chemicals can be trapped and analyzed. Hopefully this technique will prove to be useful in narrowing down the TOD. We’ll see.

 

Gas Chromatograph

 

 

 

Crime and Science Radio: Dealing With the Dead: A Life in the Morgue: In Conversation with Dr. Cyril Wecht

Join DP Lyle and Jan Burke as they welcome Dr. Cyril Wecht, internationally renowned forensics pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht as we discuss his life in criminal justice and the numerous famous cases he has been involved with over his stellar career.

BIO: Dr. Cyril Wecht holds degrees in both medicine and law, receiving his MD degree from the University of Pittsburgh and his law degree from the University of Maryland. He holds professorships at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University School of Law. He has published nearly 600 scientific articles, is on the editorial board of more that 20 medical-legal and forensic scientific publications, and had published several books on forensic science. His list of famous cases is a who’s who in medical-legal investigation.

 

LISTEN: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2014/03/07/crime-and-science-radio-with-special-guest-cyril-wecht-md

LINKS:

Dr. Wecht’s Website: http://www.cyrilwecht.com

Dr. Wecht’s books and videos: http://www.cyrilwecht.com/books.php

50 Years Later, Wecht Continues To Poke Holes in Report on JFK Assassination: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/5017529-74/wecht-commission-specter#axzz2tuBTchS1

Dr. Cyril Wecht Believes Killers of JFK, RFK, MLK Had Help: http://www.vindy.com/news/2013/may/01/renowned-pathologist-makes-a-case-for-co/

Dr. Cyril Wecht Lectures on the JFK Assassination: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-muQL-QPKeM

Dr. Cyril Wecht on JFK Assassination: Let’s Uncover the Truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtUL-BpZAu8

Crime Library: JonBenet: From Impressions To Book by Dr. Katherine Ramsland: http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/cyril_wecht/6.html

Dr. Cyril Wecht Discusses Forensic Challenges of Cold Cases: http://www.wtae.com/news/local/allegheny/Dr-Cyril-Wecht-discusses-forensic-challenges-of-cold-cases/19648550

Dr. Cyril Wecht: The Benefits of Forensic Credentialing: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/real-csi/dr-cyril-wecht-the-benefits-of-forensic-credentialing/

Cyril H. Wecht: What I Know: http://www.pittsburghquarterly.com/index.php/What-Do-I-Know/what-do-i-know-with-cyril-h-wecht.html

Dr. Cyril H. Wecht: Pittsburgh’s Polymath: http://www.popularpittsburgh.com/pittsburgh-info/pittsburgh-history/famous-pittsburghers/dr-cyril-wecht.aspx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bacteria and Time Of Death

 

 

One of the most important things the ME must determine in any death investigation is the time of death. This determination can support or destroy alibis and suspect and witness statements, and point the finger at certain individuals while directing it away from others.

The ME uses various techniques to make his “best guess” as to the victim’s time of death. Things like body temperature, rigor mortis, lividity, stomach contents, and a few other determinations. Unfortunately, most of these are only marginally accurate.

Here is an article I wrote on this subject: http://www.dplylemd.com/DPLyleMD/Art-Timely_death.html

Any tool that can help make this assessment more accurate would be welcome.

Researchers at Sam Houston State University’s Department of Biological Sciences are looking into just such a tool. Bacteria. Just as insects visit a corpse in a more or less predictable pattern, it seems that bacteria do also.

We’ll see how this pans out but it’s very interesting.

 

 

Q and A: How Would the Time of Death Be Determined in a Corpse Found in Snow?

Q: In my story, the body of a young woman is found by cross-country skiers in high-mountain country. (Average temps in December: 20 degrees/low to 40 degrees/high;  elevation about 9000 ft.) If the person had been dressed in heavy clothes, and the body had been there about 24 hours, would it be completely frozen? Partially? Would there be any way to determine when death had occurred?

MT, Albuquerque, NM

A: The corpse would be at least partially and could be completely frozen–perhaps with some of the deeper internal organs only partially frozen. It depends on the clothing, exposure, moisture, wind, etc. Also the old rule that whatever happens, happens comes into play here. So the freezing could be either complete or partial.

Under these conditions, rigor and lividity would be delayed to an unpredictable degree so these would be very crude indicators and not very useful in determining the time of death (TOD). Body temperature might be more useful—emphasis on might—but this would not be very accurate either. If the core body temp had reached the ambient temperature, this determination is of no use, since once the corpse reaches the ambient temperature it will remain stable at that temperature, making body temperature useless. For example, if the corpse reached the ambient temp after 18 hours then 24 hours would look like 36 or 48 as far as body temp is concerned.

But if the corpse hasn’t reached ambient temperature, core body temp can be used to estimate the TOD. Not very accurately but at least in the ballpark. Under “normal” circumstances, a body loses heat at about 1.5 degrees per hour, but this depends on many variables. Your scenario is definitely not “normal,” so temp would be lost more rapidly. Could be 2 or 3 or 4 degrees per hour if there is wind or cold rain for example. Let’s say the ME found the core temp was 40 with an ambient temp of 30. This means the body is still cooling since it has not yet reached ambient temperature. Let’s also say that in his experience he believes (educated guess at best) the body would lose about 3 degrees per hour under the circumstances he sees at the scene. If so, subtracting the measured corpse temperature (40 degrees) from the normal body temperature (98) and dividing by the rate of loss (3 degrees/hour) would yield the estimated TOD.

The math: 98-40 = 58; 58/3 = 19 hours.

Based on these calculations, your ME might conclude that the death occurred approximately 19 hours earlier, give or take a couple of hours.

Of course the major flaw here is that the actual rate of temperature loss might vary from his estimate so, despite the math, his assessment remains a best guess. He would likely suggest a broad range—maybe saying the TOD was between 16 and 24 hours earlier. That’s really the best he could do.

So your corpse could be partially or completely frozen and the time of death could be difficult to determine. Except for one more trick: stomach contents.

Let’s say the corpse is frozen so that temp, rigor, and lividity are of no help yet it was known that the victim had eaten a certain food at a certain time prior to his disappearance. It takes the stomach 2-3 or so hours to empty after a meal so if the ME found the undigested meal in the victim’s stomach and knew the time of this final meal from witnesses, he could then more accurately place the time of death as within 2-3 hours after that meal. Let’s say he had lunch around noon, went skiing, and was then found dead 24 hours later. If the ME found that last meal still in his stomach he might suggest that the TOD was between 1 and 4 p.m. the day before. This might be your best bet for narrowing down the TOD.

 

Crime & Science Radio: The Body Tells the Tale: DP Lyle and Jan Burke Interview Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson

The Body Tells the Tale: DP Lyle and Jan Burke Interview Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson

Join DP Lyle and Jan Burke as they explore the world of death, corpses, and decay with Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. Dr. Bass is the founder of the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility, the so called Body Farm. Jon Jefferson is a journalist, writer, and documentary film maker. Together they write fiction as Jefferson Bass. This will be a lively, or is it deadly, interview.

LISTEN: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2013/11/20/crime-and-science-radio–jon-jefferson-and-bill-bass

LINKS:

The Body Farm-Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm

Tour The Body Farm: http://www.jeffersonbass.com/videos.html

Video Tour of The Body Farm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSDCiOW81mk

WBIR Interview: http://www.wbir.com/news/article/139066/190/Your-Stories-Dr-Bill

JeffersonBass Website: http://www.jeffersonbass.com/index.php

Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales: http://www.amazon.com/Deaths-Acre-Inside-Legendary-Forensic/dp/0425198324

Metro Pulse: The Cult of Forensics Expert Dr. Bill Bass: http://www.metropulse.com/news/2009/feb/25/cult-forensics-expert-dr-bill-bass/

Peter Breslow’s 2004 NPR Profile of The Body Farm: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1906569

Taphonomy-Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taphonomy

 

Bloodstain Camera Finds Blood Quickly and Efficiently

Detecting blood at a crime scene is often essential for determining if a crime did indeed occur and how the act unfolded—crime scene reconstruction. At the scene, a meticulous search for blood can be tedious, time-consuming, and eat up many man-hours.

 

Techs search for bloodstains

 

Shed blood is not always obvious. The stains are not always patent (visible) but rather latent (invisible). The standard in such situations has been to employ Luminol, which can find even very small latent bloodstains. But Luminol takes time and requires darkness—not always obtainable, particularly in outdoor, daytime crime scenes.

 

Luminol helps expose latent bloody shoeprints

 

A new technology developed by Dr. Meez Islam and colleagues at Teeside University promises to not only be able to detect latent blood spatters quickly but also age the blood very accurately. With month-old stains the device, which uses hyperspectral imaging, can narrow its deposition down to a day and with fresh blood down to an hour. This should greatly help with Time of Death determination—-or at least the time when the blood was shed.

 

Fresh blood spatter

 

Blood exits the body bright red but with time and oxidation becomes rusty brown and does so along a predictable timeline. Accurate determination of the bloodstain’s color with hyperspectral imaging reveals its approximate age.

Very cool. And potentially very useful.

 

Q and A: Can My Villain “Force Feed” Pills To a Dead Woman?

Q: My hero, an investigative journalist, is looking into the death of a woman at an acid house/rave party in the early 1990’s. The novel is set in the present day and so the hero has no access to the body, just autopsy reports, coroners reports, the transcript of the inquest, etc. The woman was a light user of Ecstasy but the autopsy discovered that she had 70 ecstasy pills in her stomach. The scenario I want to create is that the hero discovers that while the woman took some of the pills willingly, she was then force fed others, and then after she died she was force fed yet more. In order for this scenario to work I’m wondering the following:

1) For how long after death does stomach acid continue to operate?

2) For how long after death would the digestive system continue to break down the ecstasy and would the ecstasy continue to be absorbed into the bloodstream?

3) Is it likely/possible that a sizeable amount of pills would remain undigested in her stomach, bearing in mind that the body was not found for a number of hours?

4) What injuries/signs on the body would there be of someone force feeding her the pills?

5) Is it possible to force feed somebody pills after death, how would they get the corpse to “swallow” and what injuries might be caused to the body as a result?

James, St Albans, UK.

 

 

 

A: At death, all metabolic processes cease immediately since there is no longer blood flow to keep these processes going or even to keep the tissues and cells responsible for these activities alive. This includes the digestive processes. Sure there could still be a small amount of acid effect but this would only be from the acid in the stomach at the time of death and this would be quickly neutralized by the materials the acid was combining with. The bottom line is that all digestive processes cease immediately on death, more or less freezing the stomach contents in time. This is also true for the level of most toxins in the blood and urine, which offers the medical examiner a tool for determining the cause and time of death.

At death, the stomach would no longer move or churn or secrete acids and digestive enzymes so the ecstasy would remain intact as it was at the time of death. Yes there could conceivably be residual whole pills and in fact this is not uncommon in overdoses of all kinds. Some dissolve and are absorbed prior to death and others do not and these remnants can then be tested to determine what they are. All the stomach contents would remain intact until the decay process destroyed them, so if the body was found in a reasonable period of time, the stomach contents could be analyzed for their chemical characteristics, which would include the presence of any drugs or alcohol.

It is very difficult to force-feed a living person pills and so doing could lead to trauma around the mouth and face as the pills were shoved into the victim’s mouth and his mouth and nose held close until he swallowed. Or there could be no trauma and in which case there would be no way of knowing this. But evidence of trauma might suggest a force-feeding. It would be a best guess but an experienced medical examiner can usually make this determination. Since all processes and movement by the deceased stop at death, swallowing cannot occur and force-feeding a corpse is impossible. The pills would simply collect in the mouth and throat.

In your victim there could easily be undigested pills and toxicological testing of these, and of course blood and urine, would reveal what chemicals were in the victim’s stomach and system. Since your body is found several hours later there would be essentially no decay and therefore everything in the bloodstream and in the stomach would remain intact more or less as it was at the time of death. With facial trauma the ME might consider that the OD was forced, and in the absence of such evidence might simply think it was an intentional or accidental OD.

Also this ARTICLE on my website might help.

 

Q and A: Can My ME Determine If a Child Died From Exposure As Opposed To Being Locked in a Heated Vehicle?

Q: In my story, a police officer is on the scene where the body of a 3 year old child was found among the rocks and weeds of a dried up riverbed in Southern California. It is early summer. Can the CSI techs or the ME determine if the child died from being locked up in a heated car rather than from exposure to the elements where the body was found?

Jack Dietz, Production Coordinator, Las Vegas, NV

A: The simple answer is that this is not very likely however there might be a way. Much depends on the condition of the body. If it is severely decayed or has become skeletal, the ME would have little to work with and there would be no way to determine exactly where the death occurred. In either case the death would be from that catchall term “exposure.” What that means is that the victim died from lack of water or food, with water of course being the most important. Exposure deaths are almost always due to severe dehydration.

However, if the child is found within a day or two of death, the body would be more or less intact and the ME might be able to estimate where the death had occurred, given the two choices you outlined. One difference would be insect activity. If the child died in the trunk as opposed to being exposed outdoors there would be less insect activity for the amount of time since death than would be expected from an exposed corpse. If the ME determined that the child had been dead for 2 or 3 days yet there was essentially no insect activity, it would mean that she had been in a protected environment, such as an enclosed car or car trunk, for those 2 or 3 days and only exposed for maybe a few hours. On the other hand, if he found insect activity that matched his estimate of the time since death, this would favor her being in an exposed environment for those 2 to 3 days. It’s not that flies can’t get into car trunks, it’s just that most trunks are so well sealed, fly access would be very limited, if at all.

On a similar note, predatory animals would not be able to attack the body while it was in the car but if exposed predator feeding on an exposed body is fairly common. Coyotes are everywhere. Predator activity would suggest a longer period of environmental exposure.

 

One circumstance that might be interesting for you would be if the child died in either the trunk or on the floorboard of the car. As she died from hyperthermia and dehydration, she would increasingly gasp for breath toward the end of her life and could inhale carpet fibers from the trunk lining or floor carpets. This would not happen if death occurred while exposed outside. This would of course require that the body be in fairly good condition. I think as long as you have the body found within a few days, the decay process would not have progressed far enough for the lungs to be destroyed and the medical examiner might see these fibers during his microscopic examination of lung tissue. Once he found these fibers, he would know that the victim had inhaled them and therefore was alive while in the car. So finding the fibers would at least allow the medical examiner to guess that she had been in the car near or shortly before her death.

 

Another interesting thing about this scenario is that the ME could then analyze these fibers physically, optically, and chemically and determine the manufacturer of the carpet and this in turn could lead to the car manufacturer and even the make and model year–or at least a narrow range of years since car manufacturers change their products quite frequently. This would greatly help your police officer develop suspects.