Identification of Human Beings Flashcards
Briefly describe the process of identifying a body
Are they human?
What sex?
Determine age
Determine stature
Use of comparative methods - passenger manifest
Medical information - identifying scars or tattoos
Personal identification - fingerprints, DNA, dental records
What is the purpose of identification of bodies?
- Identification of a single unknown body when the cause of death is unknown or suspicious
- Human Rights
- Civil Law e.g. administration of estates
- Social function - “closure” for families
- Assessment of injuries e.g. in transportation accidents, may assist authorities in reconstructing incident and can distinguish between people who may have caused an incident or been an innocent bystander
How can you determine if a body is human?
Visual inspection
Anatomists
Anthropologists
DNA and bone testing
How can you determine sex?
Visual inspection can be misleading
Where body is decomposed or burned, sexual characteristics may be obscured - examination for prostate gland/testes (male) or uterus/ovaries (female)
Skeletonisation - pelvis and skull most useful due to sexual dimorphism.
How can you determine the age of the body?
- Foetus and neonate: bone development assessment using ossification centres - x-rays are very useful: 24 GW and term are of most frequent interest
- Childhood and adolescence: assessment of epiphyses, clavicle epiphyses is the last to fuse (sometimes up to 25yo).
- Adult: increasingly difficult to do with accuracy. Osteoaryhritic changes and changes in vertebrae are useful.
- Ageing by examining the teeth: most valuable indicator from infancy to adulthood
What can lead to the innacurate determination of the individuals height and stature?
- Difficult to do with precision, even with an intact body, as people grow with different rates and certain growth disorders can distort estimations.
- People may not have had their height measured accurately in life anyway
- Nutritional status may have influenced height as well
Which bones are of most use in the calculation of height?
Individual bones of the lower limb are most useful for calculation of height
Why might medical histories aid identification?
- History of gallstones, arthritis, deformities
- Surgical procedures: surgical implants or prostheses, pacemakers (serial numbers), old fractures, removal of all or part of one or more organs
- Tattoos: design, site etc. Names can be very useful. Can even be useful in decomposition or carbonisation
What is used for personal identification?
Fingerprints
Dental records
DNA
Why are dental records useful?
Usually up to date, though quality can vary
Teeth are durable and fire resistant
Missing teeth and dentures are useful identifiers
Where can you obtain fingerprints of an individual?
Police records
Found from personal artefacts
What does identification by DNA rely on?
Depends on availability of controls, e.g. toothbrush, razor, hairbrush, material removed at surgery, Guthrie card (skin prick test for neonates for PKU, CF etc.).
Are they on DNA record
