For August 1999 issue

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION

OPUS 75: DOWN WITH TORTURE

‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal

As this piece goes to press, we are faced with the most grim news that 6 of our brave soldiers have been tortured for as many as 26 days before being finally killed in a most brutal fashion. The autopsy report has confirmed that there were the following injuries:-

The left eye had been penetrated with objects;

there was a compound fracture (a type of fracture in which the broken ends of bones come out of the skin) of the skull with loss of brain tissue;

multiple gunshot wounds;

severe compound fracture of other bones

blunt injuries with penetrating objects

injuries on the back of the trunk

death after being shot in the mouth

Many persons have asked me how it is possible to say whether these injuries were caused during life, and not after death. Not that it matters too much, once the person has died. But it could be a little comforting to the relatives if the autopsy could prove that the injuries were caused after death and not during life. Well, the method to differentiate the antemortem injuries (injuries caused during life) from the post-mortem injuries (injuries caused after death) is to look for reparative changes of the body. The logic is this: if the injuries were caused during life, the body would immediately try to repair that injury; but if the injuries were caused after death, the body wouldn’t do anything, because the person is already dead. These reparative changes can be visualized by the microscope. So the doctor takes a little piece of flesh from the injured portion, puts it under the microscope, and looks for reparative changes. If they are present, he would conclude that the injuries were caused during life, if not he would conclude that the injuries were caused after death. I am giving here four photographs for the benefit of the readers (Editor: Please reproduce figures 001.jpg till 004.jpg). These all show injuries produced after death. So these are post-mortem injuries.

In the first you can see a deep gash over the neck, and it appears to the layman, as if this person was done to death by someone by cutting his neck. But this is not the case. This is a postmortem injury caused to a driver who suffered a heart attack while driving a vehicle. The cut was produced by the accident which occurred later. The absence of bleeding in the wound, indicated to the doctor that the wound was caused after death.

The next three injuries are produced by animals after death. The injuries are caused respectively by ants, roaches and rats. By the criteria, which I have already explained, one could differentiate between antemortem and postmortem injuries.

This is  my 75th instalment of “Science in Crime Detection”. The readers’ response has been terrific during all these years. We have been getting fan mails regarding this columns from the time the first article appeared in February 1993 (Editor please reproduce figures 005.jpg till 007.jpg here). The adjacent figures show some of the fan mail that have been received at the office of Crime & Detective, regarding this column. The credit goes to the whole team at Crime & Detective headed by its energetic and charismatic leader Mr. Satish Verma. It was he who first conceived the series, which was given shape by me.

I take this opportunity to go down memory lane to share some of my best articles with you in this instalment. This will also satisfy the demands of those of our readers who joined in late and want to know what exactly happened in the earlier issues. I get several letters from readers who joined late in our quest for the use of science in crime detection; they want to know what exactly went on in my earlier articles.

Earlier, I wrote Opus 50, which appeared in July 1997 issue of Crime & Detective. It was to commemorate our 50th article in the series. In that article too, I went down memory lane and discussed some of my best articles. In this issue, I shall mainly concentrate on the 25 articles that appeared since.

The following table summarizes all my 75 articles in various categories. There have been a total of 20 categories. The number in the series indicates the number of the article. Thus in the first category, “accidental deaths”, the article entitled “Death due to accident” was my 17th article, and it appeared in Sep 1994 issue of Crime and Detective. In this way, all my articles have been classified.

“Science in Crime Detection” articles classified by Category

When my Opus 50 appeared in July 1997 issue of Crime & Detective, I had only written articles in 16 categories. I have added 4 categories since. The additional categories are: Bibliographical, Explosives, Mysteries and Poisoning. For the readers who joined late, let me give a sampling of some of my articles in various categories. It will give some of the flavor of the various articles that have been done so far.

Category 5: Explosives

Article 69: HOW IS EXPLOSIVE SABOTAGE DETECTED? (February 1999)

One of the techniques utilized is SONAR. It is an acronym meaning Sound Naviagation And Ranging. It pretty much works on the echo principle. We all know that sound gets reflected from surfaces, resulting in echoes, but what is interesting is that the reflected sound carries much of the information about the surface from where it gets reflected. If one sends sound waves to the bottom of the sea, and analyses the reflected sounds coming back, one can make a fairly good idea of what is lying there. Thus any aeroplane debris collected at the bottom may be quickly and painlessly visualized.

One of the variants of sonar system used for such visualizations is Towed side scan sonars. These sonars have two sound emitting devices (technically known as transducers), one installed on each side of a towed body commonly referred to as a “fish”. Sound is sent down from each device and the resulting echoes recorded. A composite image is formed from both the echoes. This image can show all the debris lying at the bottom of the sea.

Category 14: Mysteries

Article 70: SUICIDE WITH A FIREARM (March 99)

No doubt determination of the fact whether a given wound was suicidal or homicidal is very important. If it was a homicidal wound the police has to find a culprit. On the other hand if it was a suicidal wound the police does not have to look for a culprit. So the whole investigation of a case of death depends on the fact whether the given case was of suicide or homicide.

Common sense tells us that if a person shows two firearm wounds on his body then they can not be suicidal. Are you wondering why? Well, again apply common sense. If the person fired at himself, how in the world can he fire on himself again. Won’t he be dead? On the other hand if the person was killed by someone else, he can go on firing even on a dying or even on an already dead body. So literally you can find tens of gunshot wounds in a case of homicide, while in a case of suicide you would find just one wound. Well, in most cases, this is true, but this is not to say that multiple suicidal firearms wounds are not found.

Category 16: Poisoning

Article 53: POISONING WITH THALLIUM (October 1997)

Had it not been for some counterbalancing features, thallium would have been a very popular homicidal poison. An ideal homicidal poison must not be readily detectable by analysis, but thallium salts can be readily detected. Furthermore, an ideal homicidal poison must disappear from the body after doing its job. Of course a substance can not magically disappear from the body, but what it effectively means is that the poison must at least be destroyed by putrefaction (this does happen with most vegetable poisons), so that with the onset of time, it becomes impossible to detect that poison. Thallium however remains in the body even after putrefaction. It is also not a product of putrefaction.

I must now tell you a little bit about how the victim feels when he has been given a thallium salt. Thallium salts irritate the stomach and intestines (it is a gastro-intestinal irritant so to say) and that's why symptoms like abdominal colic, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea occur first. Vomiting and diarrhoea may contain blood. There may be sores in the mouth, a symptom known in the medical parlance as stomatitis. The interesting difference from those of other irritant poisons is that the symptoms start very late- after about 24 to 48 hours of ingestion. In fact it is one of the idiosyncrasies of this poison which makes it a good homicidal poison.

This then is the sampling of some of my articles appearing in the last few years. I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have writing them.

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Captions to the photographs:

001.jpg: Driver who suffered a fatal heart attack at the steering wheel of his automobile. Note the absence of bleeding (hemorrhage) in the injuries of the ear and chin.

002.jpg: Abrasions produced by ants after death. The girl was dumped face down in a wooded area after being raped and strangled. The injuries of the face were first mistaken for fingernail marks. The fine linear scratches are due to twigs and undergrowth.

003.jpg: Post-mortem artifact. Skin lesions of arm caused by roaches. These are easily confused with antemortem abrasions if the roaches are not observed when the body is discovered. Note the similarity with the postmortem injuries produced by ants. The latter are somewhat smaller and more discreet.

004.jpg: Post-mortem gnawing of flesh by rats.

(Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. is a Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. His E-mail is dr_anil@hotmail.com, and his website is http://members.tripod.com/~Prof_Anil_Aggrawal/index.html)