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The paper informs about exhumations of Polish prisoners of war captured in 1939. The exhumations were carried out near Kharkov, Tver, and Smolensk in summer-autumn, 1991. Investigation of an International Soviet-Polish Commission confirmed the inquest version about contribution of People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR to execution of Polish prisoners of war.
Analysis of 24 autopsy cases ordered by insurances and performed at the Institute of Legal Medicine, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz (FRG), in the years from 1985 to 1991 revealed that even if there was a long period of time between accident and death (average: 20.3 years; maximum: 55 years) and in cases of exhumation necropsy was a useful tool in checking the relative's claim to insurance premium. Nevertheless post mortem examination should be performed as soon as possible to ensure evident pathomorphological findings and to avoid unjustified waiting periods with economical problems (e. g. case report: 78 years old widow couldn't pay electricity and call charge; she had a right to a pension due to an accident of her husband 55 years before, proved by exhumation 2 1/2 months after death.
Acute poisonings with inorganic lead compounds are exceptionally rare. In all cases of diagnosis, there are two possible sources of error: failing to recognise lead poisoning when it is present, and mistaking other diseases for lead poisoning. If exposure history is carefully taken and proper laboratory techniques are employed, the diagnosis of lead poisoning should not be difficult. In the described case of the death of a 41-year-old-man, no enzymatic disturbances characteristic of congenital erythropoietic porphyria were ascertained, and furthermore, a considerable concentration of lead was found in antemortem material, 5 months before death (blood: 1584 microg/l, urine: 531 microg/24 h). Postmortem tissue lead content in the biological material, exhumed 6 months after death, were as follows: liver, 47.6 microg/g; kidney, 4.75 microg/g; bone, 103 microg/g of sacral vertebra, 20.4 microg/g of femoral bone, 112 microg/g of pelvis; hair, 30.2 microg/g of scalp hair, 33.7 microg/g of pubic hair; nails, 13.6 microg/g. The results indicated a case of acute lead poisoning (with lead(II) oxide, as it later turned out), which manifested as acute intermittent porphyria.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis was isolated from the lung tissue of an 86-year-old unembalmed woman who was exhumed for an autopsy 8 days after her death. Autopsy prosectors should consider performing microbiological culture in all cases with a history or gross pathological findings suggestive of an infection even if the postmortem interval is extended. In addition, prosectors should still adhere to biosafety precautions for airborne pathogens, because a long postmortem interval does not necessarily provide assurance that these organisms are not viable.
After 20 months of interment in a deep grave, the decomposed body of the 81-year old testator of a will was exhumed to sustain the burden of proof that he lacked testamentary capacity when the will was rewritten two days prior to his death. The brain was mushy and pulverized with complete disappearance of the brainstem, cerebellum and subcortical ganglia. Small foci of relatively intact dorsal frontal neocortex were identified. Sections from these foci were stained with hematoxylin and eosin, bielchowsky silver stain and immunostains for beta amyloid peptide (betaA4), tau and alpha-synuclein. Despite severe autolysis and decomposition, the bielchowsky stain and the betaA4 immunostains showed preserved frequent neuritic amyloid plaques with very few residual neurofibrillary tangles. Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy was present. At the present time this case represents the first documented and reported case of direct tissue diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease pathology in a decomposed brain following long term burial in a deep grave.
A 57-year-old woman showed somnolence, extreme stiffness of the neck and atypical CSF findings which led to her death within a few days. During legacy controversy the possibility of poisoning was considered. The post mortem, pathological and toxological examinations of the exhumed corpse permitted the diagnosis of reticulum cell sarcoma 16 months after death. Such a diagnosis 16 months after death has, to our knowledge, not previously been reported.
In a corpse exhumed after 21 months evidence of E 605 could still be found in the stomach and in the intestinal contents after isolation by steam distillation, extraction with either followed by identification with palladium chloride reagent, as well as by thin layer chromatographicenzymatic detection. A ccording to investigation and analysis, the dose of E 605 administered in the present murder case should have but slightly exceeded the lethal dose.
A cobble beach (-6 diameter to -8 diameter) located on the South Wales coastline, UK, was studied over a three-month winter period to assess litter input levels. After total beach litter clearance, six surveys were conducted at consecutive spring tides which involved marking of previously unrecorded litter. The beach was soon inundated with debris, predominantly plastic beverage containers. Some marked litter was found to disappear from the beach surface, re-emerging weeks later which suggests that the potential for litter burial has been underestimated in litter research. Higher wave energies between surveys coincided with higher levels of previously unseen litter. These new inputs consisted of sea borne and exhumed litter. Items larger than the surrounding cobbles were found to work their way back to the surface of the beach after burial, smaller items remained buried. Pits dug into the cobble ridge confirmed the burial of mainly small items.
Preservation of ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) minerals formed at depths of 90-125 km require unusual conditions. Our subduction model involves underflow of a salient (250 +/- 150 km wide, 90-125 km long) of continental crust embedded in cold, largely oceanic crust-capped lithosphere; loss of leading portions of the high-density oceanic lithosphere by slab break-off, as increasing volumes of microcontinental material enter the subduction zone; buoyancy-driven return toward midcrustal levels of a thin (2-15 km thick), low-density slice; finally, uplift, backfolding, normal faulting, and exposure of the UHP terrane. Sustained over approximately 20 million years, rapid ( approximately 5 mm/year) exhumation of the thin-aspect ratio UHP sialic sheet caught between cooler hanging-wall plate and refrigerating, downgoing lithosphere allows withdrawal of heat along both its upper and lower surfaces. The intracratonal position of most UHP complexes reflects consumption of an intervening ocean basin and introduction of a sialic promontory into the subduction zone. UHP metamorphic terranes consist chiefly of transformed, yet relatively low-density continental crust compared with displaced mantle material-otherwise such complexes could not return to shallow depths. Relatively rare metabasaltic, metagabbroic, and metacherty lithologies retain traces of phases characteristic of UHP conditions because they are massive, virtually impervious to fluids, and nearly anhydrous. In contrast, H2O-rich quartzofeldspathic, gneissose/schistose, more permeable metasedimentary and metagranitic units have backreacted thoroughly, so coesite and other UHP silicates are exceedingly rare. Because of the initial presence of biogenic carbon, and its especially sluggish transformation rate, UHP paragneisses contain the most abundantly preserved crustal diamonds.
The aetiological aspects of exhumed remains from two burial sites were examined using 1839 and 1879 as years of comparison. We tried to discover whether the sample of recovered remains was representative of those buried. The state of the remains varied according to the type of soil and coffin material in which they were buried. At the earlier date most deaths were caused by infectious lesions rather than degenerative ones and 76% of those who died were below employable age-whereas in 1879 the commonest causes of death were tuberculosis ("phthisis") and bronchitis, and 42% died before they could be employed. The registration of deaths were recorded more accurately at the later date, and it was easier to build up a picture of the age, sex, and occupation of the people who died.
The Boston Strangler was one of the United States' most notorious serial killers, raping and strangling with decorative ligatures thirteen woman in Boston during the early 1960s. Albert DeSalvo, never a suspect in the slayings, confessed in prison (where he was later murdered) to being the Boston Strangler, and the investigation largely ended. Mary Sullivan was the last victim of the Boston Strangler, found sexually assaulted and strangled in her Boston apartment in 1964. Recently, a team of forensic scientists undertook the exhumation and subsequent scientific analysis of Mary Sullivan's remains, in hope of finding consistencies or inconsistencies between DeSalvo's confessed description of the murder and any evidence left behind. Included in these analyses was extensive DNA testing of all UV fluorescent material associated with the body. The large majority of results were negative, however, fluorescent material located on the underwear and entwined in her pubic hair generated two human mitochondrial DNA sequences. Neither of these matched the victim nor members of the forensic team who worked on the evidence. Most importantly, neither DNA sequence could have originated from Albert DeSalvo.
A body was exhumed from the ground after 27 years. Samples of femur bone, tooth, and a fingernail were collected and successfully subjected to DNA extraction, quantitation, amplification, and subsequently typed for DQA1, polymarker, and nine STR loci. All three types of samples were typed for D3S1358, vWA, FGA, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S17, D7S820, and amelogenin using ABI Prism 377 DNA sequencer.
Seven years after the homicide, the court ordered exhumation and expertise of the cranium. The well-known physician and surgeon Yovo Ilichkovitsh, who took part in many campaigns during the 19th Century and treated successfully complicated wounds and fractures, was appointed to examine the skull. He concluded that the bullet had entered the cranium from the back. The finding was based on the fact that bullet-hole was smaller than that at the exit. The event took place in Montenegro before 1850, being the first reported forensic expertise in this region.
There are many potential purposes served by the investigation of human remains: criminal fact-finding, archaeological exploration, forensic research, and others. This paper focuses on the identification of remains from mass graves to find missing persons. The primary goal of such efforts is to honor the memory of the dead by bringing closure to living family members, thus supporting the human rights of both the living and the deceased. Cultures, customs, political, and interpersonal specifics will vary, but that singular goal should remain the central guiding principle. This article presents ethical and practical issues resulting from efforts to locate, exhume, and identify the remains of mass fatalities.
After presenting five individual cases, the authors confirm the possibility of a diagnosis of sudden cardiac death where myocardial and/or coronary arteries lesions were present, by performing an exhumed body's autopsy even after a considerable amount of time after death. With regard to this procedure, performed only by experienced consultants specializing, a particularly accurate verification is necessary.
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Forensic identification of human remains is composed of anthropological study of race, sex, age, etc. By using these traditional methods, inconclusive or nonidentified cases could be subjected to DNA analysis. However, in spite of advances in human identification techniques, especially by PCR-amplified DNA, some limitations that affect the ability of obtaining DNA from human remains still persist. Light microscope sections of postmortem compact bones from human remains are presented here for the purpose of increasing a forensic examiner's prediction of successful nuclear DNA typing. Femoral compact bones were obtained from 7 human remains found on the ground, in different degrees of decomposition, and were cleaned by boiling to remove soft tissues, 8 collections of bones having undergone natural decomposition, not boiled (as no soft tissue was adhered), and 5 cadavers 12 to 16 hours postmortem. The histologic sections were stained by hematoxylin and eosin, the loci CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01, F13A01, FESFPS, vWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, and amelogenin were amplified by PCR, and the polyacrylamide gel was stained with silver. The results presented here clarify questions concerning the viability of DNA for identification analysis, and they also may help to establish better strategies for optimization of DNA extraction and analysis in compact bones of human remains.