Police Report:

     The first section of the case study is the police report. It will have information regarding critical dates and times, witness statements, and other information that doesn’t have to do with the actual conditions of the decedent. The times are almost always given in military time, so you should not only be familiar with military time but also write your “Time of Death” in that format. The times in the police report will give you a general idea of the date and time of death without even knowing anything about the decedent/body.

     In this specific case, since the decedent was found unconscious at 0734 hours and declared dead at 0739 on June 26, 2016, we know that the time of death has to be before this. The police report discusses the remarks of Fred Mars regarding the decedent, particularly that he was still alive between 2300 and 2400 hours on June 25, 2016, as he and the decedent had gotten into a physical fight. This allows us to make a general assumption that he died between the hours of 2300 on the 25th, and 0700 on the 26th (of course this is too broad and should be minimized after reviewing the rest of the report).

     During the interview with Fred, he also noted that the decedent was allegedly using cocaine and heroin, which we can confirm with the blood drug contents. It is important to use both pieces of evidence when drawing your conclusions.

Medical Examiner's Report:

     The very first section of the ME report lists the general details of the decedent, such as height, weight, and time that the autopsy was performed. While most of the information in this section isn’t usually critical, the listed time is important to keep in mind, since the information found from the autopsy IS NOT from the time he was found, but from the time listed. This will come in handy when utilizing the rules of rigor, algor, and livor mortis since you will want to do the math from this time, not the time the victim was found.

External Examination:

     The next subsection of the ME report is the external examination, which includes everything about the victim visible from the outside. Some of this may be represented in the visual crime scene, but specific lacerations or coloration or other details of the body, most likely won’t be, meaning it is important to read this section thoroughly.

     For this case, the most important things to note include the state of rigor mortis, the level of livor mortis, and the liver temperature. This alone will allow you to narrow down your time of death to be pretty specific. While one of these would be enough to create a time of death, doing the math for each of them will make your supporting evidence stand out more. Since we go over determining the time of death from each of these in the forensics fundamentals tab, we won’t break it down here but rather show you how you can use it as good evidence.*It is important to note that rigor, livor, and algor mortis are incredibly variable based on environment (temperature, humidity, location, and more, so if any of these could play a factor, don’t forget to include that when writing your evidence on the answer sheet).

          -“Rigor mortis is well developed in the limbs and jaw,” implies that death occurred at least 6 hours ago.

          -“Livor mortis is present, not fixed, and distributed over the posterior surface of the body as well as the palms of the hands,” implies that death likely occurred no later than 8 hours ago. This statement also reveals that the decedent was lying on his back (posterior) with his palms down when he died - although  this isn’t important to the case.

          -“The liver temperature is 93℉” which allows us to calculate - using the Glastier equation - that the time of death was approximately 3.6 hours ago.

     Clearly, only the rigor and livor mortis match up and align with the timing in the police report, proving why it is important to not rely on just one method. Particularly with Algor mortis and the Glastier equation, in our experience, they rarely give you the internal temperature, since it makes it too simple. The Glastier equation also utilizes rectal temperature, which is likely why it didn’t make sense with liver temperature. While this doesn't support an accurate time of death, you can still include it in your evidence, explaining that the environment could have affected it but it won’t be accurate.

     Ultimately you would use all of the information you compiled to explain that the cause of death was 6-8 hours prior to autopsy, or between 0200 - 0400. While he was knocked unconscious before then, the actual death was most likely between these times on the morning of the 26th.

     The rest of this section contains descriptions of the lacerations, contusions, deformities, and other traumas on the external surfaces of the body. In this example, the only important things to note are the handful of lacerations and contusions on the body, which we can assume were most likely caused by the physical altercation between the decedent and Fred. Since they don’t appear to be too severe, it isn’t likely that these were the actual cause of death, but could have contributed, with possible internal bleeding or blood loss.

     The clothing described in this section doesn’t necessarily add any useful information for this case.

Internal Examination:

     The first part of this section is a detailed description of various internal body parts commonly examined during initial autopsy and whether they appear to be damaged. For this decedent, the only thing to note is the fractured ribs, again, most likely from the fight which occurred before his death.

     While the description of the traumatic injuries to the upper extremities is incredibly detailed, as long as there is nothing that appears abnormally large, deep, or infected, there is likely nothing more that this will add to your opinion/evidence (at least in this example case).

     The descriptions of all of the dissected body parts/systems vary between cases, but in this case, it lists the visual appearance of all parts, as well as the weights of certain organs. In some reports, you will find descriptions of every single system and organ. In the past 4 years, we have never found abnormalities within the weights of any organ, but it is something you may want to consider memorizing just in case.

Toxicology Data:

     We have found that the blood test results and other toxicology reports are usually quite important in many cases. It is important to know what drugs fall into what category of drug (stimulant, hallucinogen, depressant, narcotic, etc.), the amount of a drug that is toxic and deadly to an individual (make sure to understand the difference between the amount consumed and blood level amount), as well as what drugs don’t mix well. In this case, there is the presence of benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, cocaine, propoxyphene, and oxycodone. That list in itself is very telling since multiple of those drugs (and their drug classes) are major causes of overdoses and death. For example, opioids (which includes oxycodone), don’t mix well with pretty much anything, but especially benzodiazepines which results in over 30% of overdoses.

     In reviewing the actual quantitative drug data, we see 3 forms of opioids in relatively large amounts - morphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. Not even considering the fact that these are mixed with other drugs, combining different types of prescription opioids can dramatically increase the risk of overdose and death. From this, we can assume that the immediate cause of death was an opioid overdose.

The Answer Sheet:

     For the time of death, write your estimated time range (in military time), and date. Make it as specific as possible without getting too small. That’s it! For this case, we would most likely write 0200 - 0400 June 26, 2016.

     For immediate cause of death, write the exact disease, injury, complication, or event that occurred to cause death. This is different from the mechanism of death. For the example case, you would most likely write opioid overdose.

     For the mode of death, you have 4 options to write: homicide, suicide, accidental, natural or undetermined. Homicide includes any form or method of murder by another individual our source, suicide includes anything done on purpose by the decedent themselves, accidental includes anything that wasn’t intentional, and natural includes natural death, usually due to old age. You probably won’t need to and really shouldn’t write undetermined under any circumstances. For this case, we will assume that the mode of death is accidental, since it doesn’t appear he was intentionally overdosing, and the victim’s fight wasn’t the cause of death, so it couldn’t be a homicide. Especially in today's drug war, it is possible that he wasn’t even fully aware of what he was taking.

     For other contributing conditions, you can emphasize that it was not only an overdose but a mixture of multiple forms of opioids, as well as benzodiazepines and cocaine, which is often deadly. While you could also add that the victim’s physical altercation knocked him out and could have contributed to blood loss or internal bleeding, it may have just killed him faster, as opposed to actually causing the death. In this section, you can include any internal injuries that were significant enough or any other factors you feel contributed to death.

     For the evidence section, it is important to be detailed and thorough, including as much evidence and information as possible. Make sure you explain your time of death, mode of death, and immediate cause of death. Any of the information explained above from the police report or ME report could be used to support your answers.