Friday was busy. An autopsy was performed on a cat. The police requested that an autopsy be performed because a woman was claiming that her boyfriend purposely killed the cat by snapping its neck The cat was exhumed and sent to the ME. Well, the cat did have a broken neck, so this matches the woman's story. This guy is looking at a felony and 2 years in prison for cruelty to animals. Now, I must say that most people at the ME office were more disturbed and saddened by the death of the cat as compared to any human. The most basic reason could be that we see humans everyday, so we have become "desensitized" to human deaths. However, it could be that animals like that are defenseless and rely on and trust humans to protect and take care of them. Oh well, I guess it is a little food for thought.

We also had a woman that was found dead in her home with her throat slashed. The husband came home and found his wife in a pool of blood. For us, homicide investigations are long and tedious. The crime labs and forensic investigators have to do all sorts of things with the body before the autopsy is performed.

We also had a guy that drowned in his pool. He didn't hit his head or anything, so he just fell in and didn't know how to swim. The moral here: learn to swim.

We also had a guy that got into a fight with his sister and punched through a pane of glass. He then twisted his arm the right way so that the broken glass severed his radial artery. He tried to drive himself to the ER, but bled to death instead. My guess is that he wasn't the brightest light in the pack. I guess it is a good idea to avoid punching through glass.

On a side note: I will be gone for a week. I am reading a book about forensic ecology and etymology, so I may have something to say about that when I get back. I will leave something to think about while I am gone: What is so interesting about death? Is it the science? Is it like a "forbidden fruit" that you want to know about, but are too afraid to touch? Is it because it is such a taboo subject in our society? Why is it such a taboo subject? Are we afraid of it or are we afraid to offend someone who has lost a loved one?
Also: What makes forensics so interesting? Is it a new twist on all those classic mystery stories (Sherlock Holmes)? Is it because of all the new scientific advancements?

Leave comments or email me.

A man fell down an elevator shaft. As you may suspect, blunt force trauma was the cause of death. However a little chest compression was thrown in with the cause of death probably due to being wedged. This was apparent because not only was his lung lacerated, but there was some nice petechial hemorrhaging on the underside of the eyelids and on the inside of the lips.

Yet another drug overdose today. The decedent was positive for both cocaine and heroin there was a strong smell of alcohol upon opening the body. There is not too much to see in drug overdose cases. There might be a few noticeable things with the lividity or something like that, but ultimately in an OD case, an analysis must be done by the toxicology lab. You may be able to see some track marks in a heroin user, but that is not always the case. Heroin users have become a bit more sophisticated and have found ways to reduce the track marks. Plus there is always the smoking option. This case did have some nice track marks though.

Today we had a couple of drug overdoses and a car accident. Heroin seems to be gaining popularity again, but then again, who knows? It could just be a bias because all drug ODs are brought to the ME. I guess that would be up to a sociologist to try and find out the current drug trends.

Yesterday was a good day for studying some pathology. Basically, they were nice, straightfoward, natural death cases. One was a man with coronary disease. The other case was a woman who had a "berry aneurysm." The basic description of this is that a blood vessel in the brain became extremely dilated and ultimately burst, causing major subarachnoid hemorrhaging. Click here for a closeup picture of an example of a berry aneurysm (the pic does contain blood). You can also do a quick Google search for berry aneurysm to find out more information.

I think I will start providing links within the text here that may provide more information on some of the biological and medical stuff I talk about. I do have have a whole bunch of links about things that I have talked about previously, so if you are curious, ask.

Interesting day. There was a man who committed suicide by hanging himself in the woods. He was there long enough to allow flies to lay eggs in his eyes, nostrils, and around his penis. Other than that, it was a pretty typical hanging case. I'm pretty sure I described the mechanism of a hanging in a previous post.

Speaking of fly eggs, we had a homicide today where the decedent had been stabbed somewhere around 100 times. Someone must have been very angry at this fella. He was found last night in a bush and probably had been lying there for about a day. He was teaming with small, immature maggots. His neck, face, and a large number of the wounds were covered in maggots. At first glance, it looked like it was only sand from the scene, but upon closer inspection, the sand was very much alive and moving. There were thousands upon thousands of maggots. Now, since this was a homicide, the external examination is very tedious and long. Basically every stab wound had to be documented and photographed. There seemed to be two different types of stab wounds, which suggested that two weapons were used and maybe there were two killers. That is for the homicide detectives to find out.