A man calls the police and reports that his wife passed away while he was out for three hours running errands. His wife has been terminally ill and under hospice care. The police arrive to find the wife sitting in a recycling chair in front of the television. As they conduct their investigation in the home, the police discover several things that do not match the husband’s description of what happened.
First of all, they determine that the wife could not have passed away while he was out running errands. There are three indicators that this statement is false. The first is her body temperature. At death, a human body will lose about one and a half degrees Fahrenheit every hour until it reaches the ambient temperature . The wife’s body temperature was eighty degrees Fahrenheit, which matched the ambient temperature of the room. This indicates that she had been dead for approximately twelve hours. The second indicator was the rigor mortis in her arms and legs. Rigor mortis usually starts to set in during the first twelve to twenty-four hours after death (Estimating time of death, n.d.). The third indicator that things were not as the husband said was the lividity on his wife’s body. Lividity forms as the blood collects in lower body parts after it stops circulating. The process starts within one or two hours of death but takes six to twelve hours to be complete (Estimating time of death, n.d.).
Secondly, they determined that she could not have died in the recliner while he was out running errands based on the lividity on the body. The lividity, also known as most mortem hypostasis, on his wife’s body was on her thighs, stomach, chest, and the left side of her face, indicating that she had spent some time after her death face down, since the lividity is caused by blood sinking in the body due to gravity. This means that she could not have died sitting in the recycling chair.
Finally, there are two other indicators that the husband’s story is not true. She had tardieu spots on the tops of her feet. These spots usually occur as the result of strangulation or asphyxiation . The second indicator was the evidence of a cadaveric spasm in her right hand. A cadaveric spasm usually occurs only with traumatic deaths . This would indicate that she did not die peacefully of natural causes as the husband claims.
These factors all add up to provide a clear picture for the police that everything is not as the husband claims.
Works Cited
Emery, K. (2013, October 1). New Morbid Terminology: Cadaveric Spasm. Retrieved from Bones Don't Lie: https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/new-morbid-terminology-cadaveric-spasm/
Estimating time of death. Year 9 Forensics. (n.d.). Retrieved from Can you solve the crime?:
https: //year9forensics.wordpress.com/what-you-need-to-learn/estimating-time-of-death/
Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary. (2012). Tardieu ecchymoses. Retrieved from http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Tardieu+spots
