Forensics Letter (Round 4)

Hello Forensics students, To the seniors: I am so sorry this is how your high school career is ending; you have all worked so hard and deserve so much more! Whatever your plans are for the next chapter in your life I wish you all the best of luck and success! I have been very privileged to have gotten to teach you during your high school career and I will miss you all! To the juniors: I miss you all and I am sorry this is how the year is having to end and I hope so very much we will be back next year! I hope you have a great summer, but please remember to be responsible and take precautions to stay safe! I hope to see you next year! The final two weeks of doing school from home will occur from May 16th to June 3rd. We will be moving on to Chapter 11: Death: Meaning, Manner, Mechanism, Cause, and Time. Read through the chapter and then complete the Chapter 11 Review on the last two pages. This assignment is optional for seniors but it is required for juniors. You do NOT need to print anything out. Please put your name and answers to the test in a document or on a piece of paper. There are several options for turning in your work: 1. Use a google doc and share with me 2. Type answers into an email and send to me 3. Take pictures of your hand-written work and email to me o My email is [email protected] 4. If you are unable to submit things electronically that is okay! Instead, bring to the school and drop off in the drop off bin at the student or teacher entrance at the high school or use the work/lunch swap. Please feel free to email me with any questions or concerns that you may have. Miss You, Miss Fisher CHAPTER C H A P T E R 11 1 2 Death: Meaning, 3 Manner, Mechanism, 4 5 Cause, and Time 6 M Y S T E R I O U S D E AT H 7 AT THE FAIR The Washington County Fairgrounds in upstate 8 New York was the site of the 1999 annual county fair. Well water, the source of drinking water for the event, became contaminated by 9 runoff from a nearby cattle barn after a recent storm. The cattle and their manure carried a 10 type of the bacteria called Escherichia coli. E. coli is a natural, and necessary, inhabitant of 11 our digestive systems, but one strain carried by cattle produces a powerful toxin. The cattle that carry this strain of E. coli are unharmed, 12 but humans can become very sick and die from an infection. Two of the 127 confirmed cases 13 of E. coli poisoning from the fair died from the infection. As is often the case with E. coli poisoning, the deaths were from among the 14 youngest and eldest of the group infected, a 79-year-old man and a 3-year-old girl. Manner ©NIAID/CDC/Photo Researchers, Inc. 15 of death—accidental; cause of death—food poisoning/water contamination; mechanism of E. coli bacteria. death—kidney failure. 16 Escherichia coli is a leading cause of food- become ill from eating contaminated bean borne illness. Scientists estimate there are sprouts or fresh leafy vegetables, or through 17 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths in person-to-person contact in families and child the United States each year. In addition to care centers. Infection also can result from eating undercooked meat, people can become drinking raw milk or swimming in or drinking infected in a variety of ways. People have sewage-contaminated water. 308 Objectives By the end of this chapter you will be able to ✔ Discuss the def nition of death. ✔ Distinguish between four manners of death: natural, accidental, suicidal, and homicidal. ✔ Distinguish between cause, manner, and mechanisms of death. ✔ Explain how the development of rigor, algor, and livor mortis occurs following death. ✔ Use evidence of rigor, algor, and livor mortis to calculate the approximate time of death. ✔ Describe the stages of decomposition of a corpse. ✔ Use evidence from the autopsy’s report on stomach contents to estimate time of death. ✔ Explain how time of death can be estimated using insect evidence. ✔ Provide an example of the succession of different types of insects that are found on a body as it decomposes. ✔ Given insect evidence, livor, rigor, and algor mortis data, be able to estimate time of death. ✔ Describe how various environmental factors may inf uence the estimated time of death. larva (plural larvae) immature form Vocabulary of an ani mal t hat under goes algor mortis the cooling of the me t a mo r p h o s i s ( f o r body af t er deat h exampl e, a maggot ) autolysis the spontaneous break- livor mortis the pooling of the down of cel l s as t hey sel f - di gest bl ood i n t i ssues af t er deat h cause of death the immediate rea- resulting in a reddish color to son for a person’s death (such the skin as heart at t ack, ki dney fai l ure) manner of death one of four means death the cessation, or end, of by which someone di es ( i . e. , life nat ur al , acci dent al , sui ci dal , decomposition the process of or homici dal ) rotting and breaking down mechanism of death the specific forensic entomology the study of body f ai l ur e t hat l eads t o deat h insects as they pertain to pupa (plural pupae) the stage in an legal issues insect’s life cycle when the larva instar one of the three larval forms a capsule around itself and stages of insect development changes i nt o i t s adul t form rigor mortis the stiffening of the skeletal muscles after death CHAPTER INTRODUCTION In the 17th century, before the stethoscope was invented, anyone in a coma or with a weak heartbeat was presumed dead and was buried. The fear of 1 being buried alive led to the fad of placing a bell in the coffin. If someone was buried by mistake and awoke, he or she could ring the bell to get someone’s 2 attention. This is how the phrase “saved by the bell” might have originated. Today, people no longer fear being buried alive. It is, however, sometimes difficult to tell if a person is dead or not. The outward signs of death, 3 such as being cold to the touch and comatose, can be present even though a person is still alive. One definition of death is the cessation, or end, of 4 life. To be more precise, death is sometimes defined as the “irreversible cessation of circulation of blood.” In other words, the heart stops beating and cannot be restarted. Death might also be defined as the cessation of all 5 brain activity. Even this definition is not perfect. Experts cannot agree on a single definition for death. Is a person with a heartbeat alive even if there is 6 no brain activity? This is not an easy question to answer. It remains difficult to precisely pinpoint the moment that someone dies. For one thing, death is a process rather than an instant event. The moment 7 of death is usually considered the point of no return. According to physi- ologists, when the heart stops beating, the cells of the body begin to die 8 To avoid burying people because they no longer receive a fresh supply of oxygen. As oxygen levels before they were dead, drop, the basic processes of the body fail to occur. Nerves, muscles, organs, and the brain stop working. This is the first stage of death—stoppage. 9 “waiting mortuaries” were established in the When a cell dies, it breaks down. Once enough cells begin to break 17th century. Those down, life cannot be restarted. Cell breakdown is called autolysis (Figure 10 people thought to be 11-1). When the cell membrane dissolves, enzymes and other cell contents dead were placed on spill out and digest surrounding tissues. In cases of suspicious or unnatural deaths, a medical doctor called a 11 cots and observed until the body began to rot. forensic pathologist conducts an examination on the deceased. This exami- Only then was the per- nation is called an autopsy. The autopsy is conducted to determine the man- 12 son declared dead. ner, cause, and mechanism of death, described in the following sections. Figure 11-1. Autolysis occurs when cells break down. 13 14 Golgi complex 15 Primary lysosomes 16 17 Rupture of lysosome resulting in autolysis of cell 310 Death: Meaning, Manner, Mechanism, Cause, and Time THE MANNER OF DEATH There are four ways a person can die, referred to in official terms as the manner of death: natural death, accidental death, suicidal death, and homicidal death. A fifth manner of death, undetermined, perhaps should be added because it is occasionally the official cause recorded on a death certif- icate. Natural death is caused by interruption and failure of body functions resulting from age or disease. This is the most common manner of death. Accidental death is caused by unplanned events, such as a car accident or falling from a ladder. Suicide occurs when a person purposefully kills one- self, whether by hanging, drug overdose, gunshot, or some other method.

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