2024-04-02 17:50:00
Bones of little Emile were discovered last weekend in the Haut-Vernet region, in France, where the 2 and a half year old child had disappeared 8 months earlier. More recently, the body of Cathy Dubois, 47, was found in the Scheldt in Tournai. The restaurateur had disappeared 2 days earlier. Her autopsy revealed that she was the victim of “severe violence which led to her death.”
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“The autopsy revealed serious violence”: Cathy Dubois, found lifeless in the Scheldt, was the victim of murder
What happened? Investigations are underway to try to determine this, thanks to forensic scientists. And all these cases push us to wonder: how do specialists manage to make the dead “talk” to find out what happened to them? The most important thing is to intervene very quickly, because the body will quickly rot. It will then become difficult to detect elements that might be essential to the investigation, such as injuries or marks of strangulation.
“One of the great enemies of forensic doctors is the putrefaction of the body, because the traces disappear and they will never come back. When the soft tissues are no longer there, it becomes difficult to establish whether the person has been hit, if she was strangled… The injuries, the strangulations, and even the stab wounds will disappear”explains Philippe Boxho, forensic doctor and president of the Liège School of Criminology. “Having the body as quickly as possible is therefore a fundamental necessity for the most effective forensic examination possible.”he adds.
The medical examiner only intervenes when the death is considered suspicious or violent. “If we do not know what the person died of, we can suspect the intervention of a third party. Or the death is not natural, it results from an external agent. It might also be suicide or an accident.”explains Philippe Boxho.
Answering two crucial questions
The very first act of the forensic pathologist is to take the temperature of the corpse. “She will be able to determine the moment of death. This is the first thing we do, because any manipulation of the body can change its temperature.” Then, the pathologist will carry out an external examination. Observation is then crucial: “We are interested in surface lesions on the body. We must answer two questions: when did the person die? And what did they die of?”
Establish the cause of death, this is possible thanks to an examination of the body and an autopsy. If it is poisoning, tests of the blood, urine, liver, kidneys or stomach contents will be necessary.
Determine When the person is dead, we can do it if there are still human remains and the coroner intervenes within the first 24 hours. “After 24 hours, it gets really complicated. We better have flies”underlines our speaker.
The presence of insects is necessary
The presence of flies and other insects can indeed be decisive in the investigation. This is the work of the entomologist, who will mainly look for larvae of scavenging Diptera, a scientific term for fly maggots. “We are going to go near the corpse, see if there are still insects, fly maggots. Once recovered, we can put the maggots in the laboratory for development”explains Rudy Caparros, entomologist at the University of Liège.
Depending on the species, it is possible to know how long the insect takes to develop and reach a particular stage in its evolution. The first flies lay eggs within hours of death. In order, it goes from egg to larva to pupa to adult insect. It is thus possible to determine the time it takes for the insect to move from one state to another.
But temperature also plays a role in this: the hotter it is, the faster it goes. The colder it is, the slower the transformations take place. “With this, we can see how long the insect has been developing on a corpse, and therefore potentially say when the death occurred. We can go back several weeks, or even several months sometimes, depending on the insects. “indicates the entomologist.
Insects also make it possible to identify potential products administered to the victim or the possible use of drugs thanks to toxicological analyses.
The bone stage is more complicated
The entomologist will also check the soil around the corpse, because following a certain stage of decomposition, there are almost no larvae or maggots left. “We are nearing the end, because when there is no more flesh, the insects go away”, notes Rudy Caparros. In the case of the disappearance of little Emile, the insects found around the child’s bones can be particularly interesting to study. “To find insects which come from another place or another geographical area and which might potentially explain the movement of the body by another person”he said.
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“They are mainly looking for insects that come from another place”: entomologists are working on the death of little Émile
At the bone stage, decomposition is well advanced, it becomes really complicated to still detect elements. There are almost no insects left since the flesh disappears. And if we want to hope to discover something, “there must be damage to the bones, that is to say there must be a death of a traumatic nature”insists Philippe Boxho, forensic doctor.
However, the bones do not allow us to determine the time of death. “This is a major impossibility. They reveal nothing regarding the date of death, but they allow us to say the age, sex, ethnicity… They can also establish the causes of death if there is has bone lesions (…) The more bones we have, the more likely we are to find a cause of death, or at least to be able to explain what might have happened.”continues the specialist.
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What will we be able to determine regarding the death of little Emile thanks to his bones? The explanations of the forensic doctor Philippe Boxho
And in the case of submerged bodies, as is the case for 47-year-old restorer Cathy Dubois, the analysis work will be even different. Insects cannot be found on a corpse recovered from the water, so establishing the time of death is more complicated. “We can only trust the experience we have with submerged bodies (…) Putrefaction is not faster, but it gives different results”concludes Philippe Boxho.
forensic medicine autopsy forensic pathologist entomology
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