Coroner Stories

According to my wife, I use the phrase “one of the worst houses I’ve ever been in�? quite a lot. In retrospect, I seem to refer to a rather long list of houses I’ve had the misfortune to be exposed to. I suppose my use of the phrase is no different than when a person says, “It was one of the worst movies I’d ever seen�? when in truth there may very well be over a hundred titles on this list if the person was to write them all down.

My list of worst houses changes as newer candidates for consideration come along, but my number one selection has yet to be replaced after years of holding the top spot. I’ve referred to some of the filthier conditions in previous posts (“Human Litter Boxes�? comes to mind), but this particular house doesn’t owe it’s ranking to an overabundance of misplaced fecal matter. Of course by misplaced I mean as in “put in the wrong place�? not as in “Now what did I do with that turd?�?

When I first took the call, my decision to investigate the death was based on the woman’s lack of sufficient medical history to account for her death. It had nothing to do with the condition of the house. For the record, I had no idea that the house was in such bad shape.

In recent years, I’ve gotten the impression that some officers are reluctant to voluntarily offer details that might discourage a visit from the medical examiner. Unless an officer is questioned thoroughly, the basic details they provide can be as misleading as a personal ad. For example, a scenario where a man found dead in bed by family is seemingly simple at first. The reality of the scenario is ultimately revealed when I arrive to find that the man is morbidly obese, his body is decomposed, his bed is a waterbed, and his bedroom is upstairs.

This issue of accurate scene description can go the other way as well. I’ve gone to countless scenes where the officers were convinced that the person had been dead for weeks based on the looks or smell of the deceased, and they absolutely refuse to go back inside or send in a rookie to accompany me. Almost every time I’m relieved to find that my perception of reality is not nearly as revolting as theirs.

Back to the story. When I arrived at the house, one of the officers led me around to the back door. I didn’t think the back door was particularly unusual. If I had given it any thought, I would have simply assumed that the reporting party or the officers had forced entry at the back door.

As it turned out, the front door had been kicked in, but the officers were unable to push the door open because there was something blocking it. That same object appeared to be partially blocking the back door as well. The officers had managed to shove this door open just enough for the slimmest officer to squeeze through and find the woman in her bed. That same officer was leading me to the back door. He expressed relief that I was of a similar build and described the object that blocked both doors—a pile of garbage that was waist deep covering the entire floor of the house.

Of all the times for an officer to describe a scene accurately, this had to be that time. It was a gigantic pile of everything that was exactly waist high. It wasn’t garbage in the sense that it was trash—of which there was certainly a fair amount. It was garbage in the sense that it was just stuff that no reasonable person would have wanted. Boxes of knickknacks (didn’t realize that was one word), bags of clothing, broken toys, parts of appliances. It was as though the woman had collected the leftovers from every garage sale that she and anyone else had ever been to.

Fortunately, the officer had been wrong in one respect. There was a small footpath that ran a course from the back door to the bed where the woman was located. The external examination was unremarkable. The only thing I found that I scratched my head over was how a woman of such girth was able to squeeze her way in the way I just had. Then a greater mystery presented itself. How was I going to get her out?

It seemed that the easiest route was going to be the shortest one—the window at the foot of the bed. Despite being on the first floor, there was still a considerable drop from the window to the ground. I pictured all of the things that could go wrong as the one person the local funeral home sent out to transport the body and I lowered a full-grown woman out a window. These images covered every likely outcome from “successful maneuver�? to “body falls out of torn body bag as crowd of onlookers vomit in succession.�?

I was called back to reality when one of the officers present offered some assistance…

“Do you want me to call the fire department?�?

Actually, death pressed on while I took a short break from death, but “Death Takes a Holiday�? sounds much more interesting than “Douglas Takes a Holiday.�? Or at the very least, it sounds a lot less like a children’s book. The opportunity to get out of town presented itself on short notice, so I left suddenly. The lack of internet access caused me to break my streak of posting new material at least every seven days. I apologize to anyone who has gotten tired of “dropping by�? only to see the same old post.

So here’s a new one…

The subject of “traumatic injuries�? appears to be a crowd favorite whenever I give a presentation on death investigation. Images of gunshot wounds, blunt force trauma, and impact injuries coupled with methods for evaluating external trauma always makes for a captive audience. Still, I find that I enjoy discussing human decomposition more than trauma.

Rigor mortis, livor mortis, and algor mortis are relatively short-lived, but they are admittedly more helpful to an investigator when determining postmortem interval than the various stages of decomposition. Conversely, the process of decomposition is much longer, but by comparison is a very weak indicator of actual time of death because the stages are so easily influenced by the individual’s characteristics—primarily age, size, and health—and environmental variables.

A good example of environmental variables is to consider how a steak would be affected by its environment. A steak located outside will go bad much faster than a steak that is in an air conditioned kitchen. Insect activity is much more likely outside, and there is also exposure to circulation of air and sunlight while outdoors. A steak sitting on the kitchen counter will go bad much faster than a steak in the freezer. Even the steak in the freezer will go bad despite the attempt at preservation. Similarly, a body in a morgue cooler will still decompose, just at a much slower rate.

Decomposition is certainly one of the more repulsing aspects of death investigation but just as equally one of the more natural (when compared to homicides and auto fatalities). The stages of postmortem decomposition generally follow the same process. From the moment that a person dies, the body begins to break down chemically just as any other carbon-based substance does. Micro-organisms work on the inside of the body while insects—and sometimes animals—work on the outside of the body.

On average, external signs of decomposition begin to appear about 24 hours after death. The soft, moist tissue inside the body begins to break down faster than the more durable exterior surfaces of the skin. Consequently, escaping gases from inside the body often create a uniquely repulsive odor even before any external signs of decomposition are present. Moving the body to examine it or to remove it from a scene only increases the amount of the gas and smell. The best way to approximate the smell is to leave a sealed gallon of milk with a little milk in the bottom in direct sunlight. After two weeks have passed, remove the lid and insert nose.

As the smell becomes stronger, large areas of skin will begin to show signs of a blueish-green discoloration. This color usually starts to become visible around the abdominal region. This skin discoloration is usually accompanied by a “marbling�? of the skin that is deep purple in color. As blood vessels and superficial veins begin to break down, the blood diffuses into the soft tissue and looks similar to the vein pattern in a slab of marble.

After death, the digestive enzymes that were previously tasked with breaking down food particles become stagnant and begin to break down the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. The resulting gases from these chemical processes will eventually cause the body to bloat at about 36 hours after death. The abdomen becomes distended and areas of soft tissue around the genitalia and the eyelids will have a “swollen�? appearance. This swelling around the eyes is often mistaken as a sign of trauma by first responders.

A few days after death, signs of skin slippage will begin to appear. Outer layers of skin at the feet and hands will separate from underlying layers, which looks similar to a loose fitting rubber glove. Fingernails can easily be removed and areas of skin that appear to be intact may slide off when the body is handled for examination or movement. Sections of hair may also pull free if the follicles are adhered to another surface like carpet or bedding.

Despite the inaccuracy of decomposition when trying to determine time of death, I find it to be the most interesting of all the postmortem changes because the process is the most complex. The variables that are involved make it a challenge to interpret its significance. Whereas rigor, livor, and algor mortis have more solidified rules as to their application, the uniqueness of decomposition requires an investigator rely on their own past exposures to decomposed bodies to make an educated estimate at postmortem interval.

The following is an expanded version of Item 4 on my “Top 10 Unique Things I’ve Done�? list:

After one of the heavier rainstorms in recent history, a hunter found a body in a field in a remote part of the county. The body fit the description of an area man whose car was found stuck in the mud less than a mile away from where the body was found. Most of the roads in the area had dirt as a key ingredient which had been turned into mud over the course of the preceding week. A deputy had noticed the car the day before, but assumed that the driver had simply gotten out and went for help.

The lead investigator who reported the discovery informed me that they weren’t exactly sure what they had on their hands. A search of the car earlier in the day produced some drug paraphernalia and a small amount of white crystalline substance. There were no marks indicating that the body had been dragged into the field. Neither the area around the car nor the area around the body showed any signs of a struggle.

Even though the rain had finally moved out of the area, the roads were still in pretty bad shape. Fortunately, they had recovered just enough that I was able to slide my way from the main roads to where the patrol cars were located without too much difficulty. A deputy approached as I got out of my car, wrote my name on his scene log, and pointed me in the direction of a brand new Ford Explorer.

The driver introduced himself as the person I had spoken to on the phone. He then informed me that the body was located a few hundred yards into the field. There was a dirt trail leading in, but it was in worse shape than the roads were, so we’d have to walk the rest of the way. He had no new information to pass on about how the man ended up in the field, but the predominant theory was that he was attempting a shortcut across the field. As long as I would be able to rule out any trauma, the theory would hold for the time being.

Fortunately for everyone involved, I wasn’t able to find any signs of trauma to the body. It was dark and growing colder, and I got the impression that everyone was ready to go home long before I arrived. We bagged the body and dragged it back out along the muddy trail which seemed ten times longer than it had going in. When we finally reached where the vehicles were parked, we learned that the ambulance service that volunteered to transport the body was stuck in the mud just off of the main road. Rather than wait for the ambulance to be rescued, I proposed putting the body on the hood of my car and driving it to where the ambulance was located.

At first, the lead investigator seemed reluctant to go along with my suggestion. I did what I could to ease his mind by pointing out that it was dark and there were no civilians or camera crews around. I finished by politely suggesting the only other option was to put the mud covered body bag into the back of his new Explorer. Within seconds, I had a body on the hood of my car.

The following is an expanded version of Item 5 on my “Top 10 Unique Things I’ve Done�? list:

One evening I was called to a residence where a man apparently shot his wife and child before turning the gun on himself. Witnesses at the house next door were in the garage when the wife returned home. The wife entered the house and within a few moments witnesses reportedly heard shouting followed by two loud noises. A neighbor called 911 after approaching the front door of the house and seeing the husband and wife lying on the floor of the foyer. When police arrived at the scene, they found a 12 gauge shotgun positioned under the man. They also found the body of a 3 year-old face down on a child’s sleeping bag in the floor of the living room with an obvious head wound.

As is usually the case, my role at the scene was to examine the bodies and make sure that my observations were consistent with what investigating officers believed had occurred. Initially investigators believed that all three people were killed by the same gun, so it was my duty to make sure that there were no fatal wounds other than the obvious close contact shotgun wounds. If I had found a semiautomatic or revolver wound with no such weapon in the house, then the officers would have had to rethink the scope of their investigation.

In this particular instance, the investigators were especially interested in any details I could provide that would indicate whether or not the child had been shot before the mother returned home.

If I were a television character, I would have had some sort of infrared camera with the ability to provide accurate body temperatures. Using it, I would have been able to determine that the child’s body temperature had cooled to 95 degrees while the mother’s was still at 98 degrees. I would have used those readings to state conclusively that the man shot the child two hours before he shot the mother. In reality, the location of the child and the mother made their body temperatures virtually irrelevant. The child was located on a carpeted, inner part of the house that was several degrees warmer than the tiled foyer where the mother was located. A child’s smaller body mass also means that the rate of cooling differs from a full grown adult.

After the scene was properly documented, I collected as many skull fragments as I could locate. I was able to offer a few observations, but nothing to help establish sequence. The majority of the fragments were spread over a 360-degree area leading me to believe that the father was standing over the child aiming straight down. The devastation to the cranial vault was so severe that even after some reassembly I could only assume the shotgun was fired at close range based on there being no pellet damage to the neck or back area. I found a few pellets among the tissue that was still present at the head area of the child. Most of the pellets were later recovered from the sleeping bag and carpet under the bag.

Ultimately, investigators relied on eyewitness accounts to help piece together the sequence of events. Based on the two loud sounds that the neighbors heard, they concluded the first shot would have likely occurred before the mother got home. Presumably the house would have still been closed before the mother arrived and the child was shot at a more central location in the house, so the shot would have been more muffled if it was heard at all.

As much as I would have liked to provide physical evidence as to which had been shot first, anything I could have offered would have been a gross misrepresentation of my abilities. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose it didn’t really matter who was shot first. In hindsight it mattered because ultimately a report detailing the most likely sequence of events would be generated. It would certainly matter to family members who would have an interest in what happened.

Looking back, I suspect that the investigators were primarily concerned about whether the mother had watched her child die or vice versa because they were trying to make sense of the whole event—as though understanding exactly what happened was a tangible alternative to understanding why it happened.