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International Journal of Legal Medicine
Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine 1/2019

Open Access 01-01-2019 | Original Article

Crime scene and body alterations caused by arthropods: implications in death investigation

Authors: A. Viero, M. Montisci, G. Pelletti, S. Vanin

Published in: International Journal of Legal Medicine | Issue 1/2019

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Abstract

The activity of arthropods on corpses has been largely investigated, since they can produce information to reconstruct the peri-mortem events. However, the feeding/movement activity of insects around the crime scene, among the clothes and on the body, can also cause some alterations that can lead to wrong reconstruction and misinterpretations. This article summarises all the post-mortem arthropods artefacts related to the scene (i.e. fly artefacts and floor stripes) and the body (i.e. skin and other soft tissue alterations, bone alterations and hair alterations) that can mislead the forensic pathologist, discussing macroscopic and microscopic findings derived from forensic casework and from experimental laboratory studies, in order to provide a useful instrument to avoid misinterpretations and evaluation errors. Finally, some procedural notes for the documentation and the interpretation of findings are proposed.
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Metadata
Title
Crime scene and body alterations caused by arthropods: implications in death investigation
Authors
A. Viero
M. Montisci
G. Pelletti
S. Vanin
Publication date
01-01-2019
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
International Journal of Legal Medicine / Issue 1/2019
Print ISSN: 0937-9827
Electronic ISSN: 1437-1596
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-018-1883-8

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