Homicide and concealment of the corpse. Autopsy case series and review of the literature
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Homicide and concealment of the corpse. Autopsy case series and review of the literature De Matteis Maria 1 & Giorgetti Arianna 2 & Viel Guido 1 & Giraudo Chiara 3 & Terranova Claudio 1 & Lupi Amalia 3 & Fais Paolo 2 & Puggioni Alessandra 1 & Cecchetto Giovanni 1 & Montisci Massimo 1 Received: 13 February 2020 / Accepted: 30 April 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Introduction The concealment of the body following a homicide undermines different moments of the forensic and medico-legal investigations. The aim of the present study is to provide an overview of the literature and the forensic casuistry of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Padova for analyzing and discussing diverse methodological approaches for the forensic pathologist dealing with covered-up homicides. Material and methods A literature review, updated until September 2019, was performed, and a literature pool of forensic cases was built. In-house cases were included by conducting a retrospective analysis of the forensic caseworks of Padova of the last 20 years. Data regarding epidemiology, methodology of assessment, methods of concealment, and answers to medico-legal issues were extracted for both data sets. Results and discussion Seventy-eight papers were included in the literature review (78.2% being case reports or case series, 17% retrospective studies, and 6% experimental studies or reviews). Literature and in-house data sets consisted of 145 and 13 cases, respectively. Death scene investigation, radiology, toxicology, and additional analyses were performed in 20–54% of literature and 62–77% of in-house cases. Cover-up by multiple methods prevailed. Death was caused by head trauma in about 40% of cases (both data sets), strangulation in 21% of literature, and 7% of in-house cases, and was undetermined in 17% of literature and 7% of in-house cases. Conclusions The methodology of ascertainment should be case-specific and based on a multidisciplinary and multimodal evaluation of all data, including those gained through novel radiological and/or analytical techniques. Keywords Body disposal . Post-mortem examination . Forensic radiology and toxicology . Omics sciences
Introduction De Matteis Maria and Giorgetti Arianna equally contributed to the study and should be considered as co-first authors Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02313-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Viel Guido [email protected] 1
Department of Legal and Occupational Medicine, Toxicology and Public Health, University of Padova, Via Falloppio 50, Padova, Italy
2
DIMEC, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
3
Institute of Radiology, Department of Medicine (DiMED), University-Hospital Padova, Via Giustiniani 2, Padova, Italy
In order to destroy crucial evidence of a murder and/or to delay or avoid the discovery of the corpse, perpetrators may hide or waste th
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