Question

You are the Coroner. Identify and explain the MANNER of death in the following scenarios (adapted from Saferstein, 2018, Chapter). Why are you making that determination? In some cases, what more would you need to know about the scene or history?

A. Death due to a motor vehicle accident in which a person lost control of their vehicle in bad weather

B. Death due to a motor vehicle accident in which a person was killed when their car was stopped at a stop sign and they were struck by another vehicle which was street racing.

C. Death due to a contact head wound to the back of the head

D. Death due to carbon monoxide poisoning of an entire family asleep in their beds in different rooms in the house

E. Death due to carbon monoxide poisoning where the body is found in a car parked in a garage

F. Death of a person using fentanyl

G. Death of an elderly person from pneumonia after a fall.

H. Death of an elderly person from pneumonia after being mugged and thrown to the ground

I. Skeletonized remains found in the forest three years after being last seen alive

Answer 1

A] In this case, the moving car must have had a head-on collission with another vehicle OR must have struck onto a stationary thing , like a tree, a pole, a wall or another vehicle parked by the roadside.

Whatever the case, the person must have fallen forward after the impact, hitting his head on the front windshield or maybe the steering wheel. The force of the impact could have even forced the steering wheel against his body, fracturing his ribs. The broken rib bones could have ruptured his lungs, leading to spot death.

If the head had hit hard against the wind shield, heavy bleeding or a fatal injury to the brain might have been the reason of death.

B] If a stationary vehicle is hit from behind, the force of the impact will make the passengers to be thrown in the forward direction. The person could have been trapped under the now dismantled car seats. The forward fall can result in the head hitting some hard object like the wind shield or the dashboard of the car. Multiple fractures, internal bleeding due to damage to organs or brain injury can be the reason for the person's death.

C] Any injury to the back of the head can be fatal , especially injury to the brain stem . The medulla oblongata, which is in continuity with the spinal cord, got injured leading to spot death of the person.

D] Hemoglobin present on the red blood cells bind to the O2 and carry it to every tissue as oxyhemoglobin. In return, they collect CO2 as carboxyhemoglobin and bring it to the lungs to be exhaled out. Carbon mono-oxide[CO] is produced when carbon is not oxidised completely. If the amount of CO increases and a person inhales this gas, it binds to the hemoglobin and is impossible to separate. As a result of this, the quantity of hemoglobin binding to O2 molecules is reduced and the cells do not get enough oxygen resulting in asphyxation and eventually death.

In this case, the most probable reason seems that some defect must have arisen in the house's central heating system due to which the amount of CO in the house must have risen to dangerously high levels leading to the death of all the family members. All inlets for fresh air must have been closed.

E] The person got locked inside the car . There could be several reasons for this , like , after parking the car, the person fainted. Since, all the window glasses were raised, there was no way air could enter in. When the air inside the car was depleted of oxygen, the person started inhaling CO formed due to incomplete oxydation of CO2. This resulted in CO poisoning and eventual death of the person.

Another reason could be that the person was locked in his car by some attacker lurking in the area with an intention of looting.

Another reason could be that that after parking the car, the person was unable to open the car's doors and windows due to some mechanical defect in the system and got self locked.

F] Fentanyl is an opioid which is a pain depressant. It slows down the messages travelling between the brain and the body . It is known to cause respiratory slow down , among several other harmful side effects. If the person has taken an overdose of fentanyl, it can result in death.

G] Elderly people are more prone to attacks of pneumonia. In such people it can be caused not only by viral infections , but also by trauma. The fall must have traumatised the person, leading to wheezing and other associated problems . The lungs , unable to absorb enough oxygen, resulted in the death of the person.

H] Mugging must have caused obstruction to the airways. One consequence of this is that fats begin to accumulate within the air spaces. Technically , this is called lipoid pneumonia. The person's death occured because of obstruction to his airways leading to the reduction in airspaces of the lungs due to accumulation of fats.

I] The skeletonised remains will have to be taken to a forensic lab to perform several investigative tests to confirm the possible reasons of death. DNA tests will have to be done to confirm if the skeleton is that of the missing person or not.

There could be various reasons for the death and it will be difficult to come to any conclusion because , except the bones, all other tissues of the body are lost.