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SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-50 To appear in July 1997 Issue SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-50 OPUS 50 ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal This is my 50th article in the popular series "Science in Crime Detection", and since this is a "Golden Jubilee" article, I want to make it somewhat special. I have preferred to call this article simply "OPUS 50". Opus is actually a Latin word meaning "a work of art or literature". This word still survives in the expression magnum opus , which means "a work of great artistic merit". Sometimes a numeral is used after the term opus to refer to the number of the work by that particular author or composer. Thus the English romantic composer Sir Edward Elgar's (1857-1934), " Sevillana Opus 7" is one of his early compositions, while his "Cello Concerto Opus 85" is a late composition- his 85th to be exact. The term Opus has been used in interesting ways by writers. The great American science writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) named his 100th book simply Opus 100 , his 200th book, Opus 200 and his 300th book, Opus 300 . Not only this, while his usual books generally dealt with a specific science subject, his " Opus " books were simply a summarization of his earlier works. His Opus 100 was simply a summary of his first 99 books, his Opus 200 , a summarization of his second hundred books and so on. This is what I intend to do with this article. After Isaac Asimov, of whom I am a great fan, I have called this article Opus 50 (since it is my 50th piece) and it is going to be a summary of all my previous articles. It will also take the readers down the memory lane. During the years this series has appeared, all of you have given it unprecedented love and affection. I have received innumerable letters from fans praising the column. Some have written letters to give valuable suggestions and other have written to ask for advice on specific problems they were facing. I would take this opportunity to go down the memory lane and revive some of the fond memories associated with this fantastic crime magazine and this column. This will hopefully be interesting to readers who joined our exclusive "Detective Club" later. Way back in 1991, I was working on my first crime book (which later became popular as "1000 Crime Quiz") with Rupa and Co. In that company I came across an energetic young proof reader Jitendra Kumar Singh. Although he was a "mere" proof reader, he impressed me with his rare intelligence, and I made it a point to meet him whenever I visited that company. He taught me several nuances of proof reading too, in which incidentally I had become interested. Later he left that company. One fine day in the beginning of 1993, he visited me in my college, and enquired if I would be interested in writing a science column in a crime magazine which was going to be started soon. He said that he himself would be associated with that magazine in a significant way. The idea of writing a science column in a crime magazine had always fascinated me, as in that way I could take science to the common reader, especially science as used for crime detection. I gave my affirmation and he took me to the "Crime & Detective" office. The office at that time was situated somewhere in Daryaganj. We had to pass through several narrow lanes and bylanes to reach a narrow, cramped third floor office, and I must confess that at the first sight, I did not like the office at all (I must hasten to add that the office is now situated in a lush spacious office building in Mukherjee Nagar). But the moment I met the Editor Mr Satish Verma and talked to him, I knew that he meant business. To me, he seemed a man with a vision, with a mission so to say. He wanted to spread consciousness among the general public regarding matters of crime, crime detection, crime prevention, its legal aspects and so on. He showed me the dummy cover of the magazine, which they were intending to bring out sometime next month. After interacting with him for just 10-15 minutes, I had decided that I would work with him. I gave my assent and came back. My first column appeared in February 1993, just a few days after that meeting, and although more than 4 years have passed since then, I have been writing this column continuously without break. The first column was entitled "When did the murder take place?" which dealt with one of my real life cases in which I had to calculate the time of death of a victim. I had written the piece by hand (I did not have a computer then!), and had submitted it on the last day, just when the magazine was about to be finalized in the press. The piece appeared on a single page- the last page (no 90) of the magazine in very small typeface- obviously a hurried effort. Mr Satish Verma, the energetic editor of the magazine came to me some days later with the magazine and handed me the magazine. He explained that there was no space left in the magazine, but since he wanted to include this piece in the inaugural issue at any cost, he had somehow squeezed my article in. This was how the column started. I still remember that meeting vividly. I had expected the magazine to be quite shoddy, but it had come out extremely well. Considering that it was the first issue, it could be rated as an extremely good beginning. Later on when I visited Japan and USA and saw several leading crime magazines there, I realized what a good work Mr. Satish Verma and his team had been doing. The magazines were in no way better than the one we were bringing out already. Before leaving for USA, I had promised Mr. Verma to bring some copies of crime magazines from there so that we could improve upon our own magazine's quality, but seeing those magazines, I at once realized, I did not need to buy any of them. We already had an equally good (or perhaps better) magazine. I had expected a good response for this first article, but the response was much more than expected; it was simply overwhelming. I was unable to handle all the mail that was coming in. I personally replied to all letters which were accompanied by self-addressed stamped envelops, and have since been doing so with all such letters. Many letters are from youngsters who want to become detectives or take up a course in either forensic science or forensic medicine. There was such a massive spate of letters related to this request that I was forced to run a special box on "Career in Forensic Medicine" accompanying my 26th article entitled "Forgery of Cheques" which appeared in the July 1995 issue of the magazine. I bought a computer on 29 May 1994- a 386 Dx2; quite an impressive configuration in those times, and the first computer-prepared article was the 16th in the series entitled "Murder by electric shock" which appeared in August 1994 issue of the magazine. Since then all my pieces are prepared on computer. Of course, now I possess a 486 DX-2 machine, and hope to go for a Pentium pretty soon! I rode professional ladders as I continued writing the articles. When I first wrote the article in Feb 93, I was an associate professor of forensic medicine, and the byline carried that designation. On 1st June 1993, I became a full-fledged professor and the article appearing in July 1993 issue carried the byline as Professor for the first time! Very few people know that once in a while, besides writing my usual forensic column "Science in Crime Detection", I wrote other articles too. These too dealt with crime but in different ways, and that's why I have not counted them in my regular list of "Science in Crime Detection" articles. One of the most interesting such articles was written in September 1993 issue. It was called "A unique museum of crime and horror". It appeared with several gory pictures of the "London Dungeon", a unique museum of crime which I visited in London in 1990. I am told that this issue has become a collectors' issue now, and is being sold at a premium. Then I have done other series' too, which are not too well-known. Since I am taking a trip down the memory lane, I thought I should mention a little about them too. From September 1993, I started a new column "Be the Detective", under the pseudonym "Marygold Gupta" in which readers would be asked a crime quiz. This was based on one of my real cases. We ran this column for several months, and although I thought this column was evoking good response, Mr Verma thought otherwise, and the column came to an end next year. The last column under this series (the 7th in the series) appeared in May 1994 issue. This was entitled "Who killed the Old Lady?". From January 1994, I started yet another series "Great cases of Interpol" under the pseudonym "Tarun Aggrawal". The first story appeared on pages 86-89, and although it too evoked good response, it never really took off, and it also came to a premature close. The only other series I did for Crime & Detective was the one called "Famous Crime Stories". It ran for a total of 9 stories from April 93 issue ("The Bloody Evidence") till March 1994 ("The case of the Black Dahlia"). After this issue, this series stopped too. I have often toyed with the idea of doing a series on real life cases of great escapes. There are many real life stories of people who escaped from enemy camps, war prisons, and so on by making tunnels, swimming long oceans precariously on makeshift rafts etc. Cases such as these titillate popular imagination and fill us with wonder and awe. One of the most famous of such cases is of that of Henrie Charrière (commonly referred to as Papillon which is French for butterfly!), who escaped tens of prisons during his lifetime. He later wrote a bestseller "Papillon" based on his life. Many readers however have not had the good fortune of having read it, and I have often wondered how they would like to read such stories in a capsule like form. The readers may let me know. The other idea that I have often toyed with is do a series on the life and great cases of real life detectives from all over the world. Well coming back to the existing series; discerning readers would note that the series now appears with a unique emblem on the top. On the left appears a microscope and on the right side appears a description of the series. The very first article however appeared only with the blurb, which I had written hurriedly on Mr Verma's request. It is strange that this hurriedly written blurb proved to be so exact and we haven't changed a word since then. From the second article onwards, however the emblem of the microscope signifying forensic science was added on the left hand side. Once in a while the magazine could not appear for unavoidable reasons, and the readers did not pardon us for that. For instance, the May and December 1993 issues could not appear for some reasons, and I was flooded with a spate of letters as to why the magazine - and the column - did not appear. Then in 1994, we again missed two issues - June and December, and again there was a fresh spate of complaints. I almost felt like Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes who was flooded with similar complaints when for a time being he "killed" his loving detective. People became so violent that he had to "revive" Sherlock Holmes. I asked my readers to bear with us and hopefully they understood. From January 1995 however we have been consistently bringing out the magazine. We started a feedback column from the 19th article onwards, which appeared in November 1994 issue of the magazine. This article was entitled "Deaths in police custody", and the feedback was on an earlier article entitled "Murder by electric shock" which was the 16th article appearing in August 1994 issue of the magazine. During this gap of 3 months, we collected and went through all the letters (related to that article) that poured in from all parts of the world, and then published the answers and added information in the form of a capsule in a small box which was appended to the main article itself. We continued running this rather unusual supplementary column at a time lag of 3 months for almost a year- up to October 1995- but then discontinued it for reasons of space. During the four and a half years we have run articles on every possible aspect of crime- sex, debauchery, forgery, assault, killings, homicides, suicides, accidents and so on, and hopefully have made the public more conscious and aware towards matters of crime detection. I specifically left out poisons as I had initially intended to start a parallel column called "The poison sleuths" in which I would deal with one particular poison each time. But this remained an idea only and never materialized. I hope to start it sometime in the future. With the readers' support we want to scale new heights. Hopefully by the time I pen my 100th column, the magazine would have garnered a still greater readership. In March 1996, I left for a tour of Japan and USA for a period of 4 months on an invitation by the World Health Organization to share my experiences with my academic colleagues in those countries. Mr Verma was a trifle worried about the column, and I could understand his uneasiness as the column had grown so popular, and stopping it wouldn't have been the right thing. I worked overtime, left all my other engagements and handed him five articles before I left for Japan on 23rd March 1996. I moved to USA from Japan, and when I returned from USA on 25th July, I was extremely pleased to see my piece in all the issues which had appeared in my absence. So in a way I kept my date with the series even in my absence. Some readers have informed me that they are cutting my articles regularly and collecting them in a file. One reader contacted me in my college sometime back and showed me a "bound" version of all my articles. He had neatly cut, bound and even indexed my articles. I never imagined this could be done, but once I saw this, I realized what a useful collection he had made. Since he had indexed the articles too, he could immediately go back to any problem he wanted to solve for himself. In effect he had created a very interesting book which he could read anytime. Readers who want to do this can collect all the articles available and can start a similar filing system. In fact several lawyers, judges, police officers and members of general public have written that I should compile all my articles in the form of a book so that everyone could get the benefit of all the articles, even if he "joined the club" late. This is an interesting and useful suggestion, and hopefully sometime in the future such a book would appear. Of course till I am able to do that, the readers can compile my articles for themselves. One teenage girl wrote to me from Orissa, that youngsters in that area had made a "Science in Crime Detection" club, where they would meet regularly and discuss my columns, and the science involved in them! Undoubtedly I gathered an unprecedented fan following via this column. Each year on the New Year's Day, I get hundreds of greeting cards from fans all over the country (and some even from abroad). Some readers have written to say that the first article they read in the magazine is my column. It is nice to think that the column has become so popular. So much so for the history of this extremely popular column. I have enjoyed sharing a piece of my mind with you and hopefully this description would give you a bird's eye view of how we have worked during these 4 and a half years to bring the best of crime detection to you. How did I come to be a forensic pathologist? That is a question several readers have asked. Well there is no better opportunity than this one to spend some space on this, especially as I am already taking a trip down the memory lane. Believe it or not, I came to forensic medicine as an accident. I took up the study of medicine way back in 1973 with a view to becoming a traditional doctor (I wanted to become a surgeon in those times). But when I started studying the various subjects in the medical course, I discovered that forensic medicine held a special interest for me. I devoured all books on forensic medicine that I could find. Needless to say I topped the University in that subject. That was way back in 1976. Yet I had no particular inclination to take up forensic medicine as a career, especially as in those times, it was not seen with as much respect, as medicine or surgery were. In June 1979, I completed a 6 months stint in the specialty of ENT as a house surgeon in Safdarjang Hospital, and then joined medicine. In the department of medicine at the Safdarjang Hospital, there were three Units, which were quite unequal in the work load. Unit 1 headed by one Col Bannerjee was supposed to be the heaviest in work load, followed by unit 2 and unit 3 in that order. Every young doctor (including me) wanted to work in unit 3 (or at worst in unit 2) so that he could get enough time to study for a PG entrance examination of the Delhi University to be held the next year. By a quirk of fate I got the most heavily burdened department, and with this blew my hopes of getting time to study. However All India Institute of Medical Sciences also holds PG examinations, and I had already appeared in this entrance examination for the position of an M.D. in forensic medicine in the previous month. The results of this examination were announced sometime in August 1979, by which time I had got thoroughly disenchanted with medicine. I hated examining patients, especially in the dead of the night, when I was having good sound sleep. I never was ecstatic examining patients even otherwise. Thankfully enough I had passed the examination in flying colors and I got the acceptance letter from the Institute. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity. Yet my friends dissuaded me from joining this weird branch. Next day, I went to the AIIMS, merely to give my refusal, but the clerk sitting at the counter convinced me that forensic medicine indeed was a good branch, and I should not let that opportunity go. He advised me to meet Dr. Jagdish Chandra, the Head of the department of Forensic medicine, an old doyen of the field to get further advise on the matter. I met Dr. Chandra immediately and after having just a 15 minute meeting with him, I was convinced that forensic medicine was for me. I had gone to AIIMS to give my refusal but on returning back to Safdarjang hospital I tendered my resignation, and thus came an end to my not-so-happy stint in medicine. I sometimes wonder, what would have happened if I had got Unit 3 in medicine, or if I had not met that friendly clerk in AIIMS. Perhaps then I would not have been a forensic medicine man today. I would be sitting in some clinic somewhere examining patients' tongues and pulses, but I am sure I wouldn't have been enjoying my life as much as I am today. I completed my MD in forensic medicine in June 1982, and then joined Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) in August 1982 as a Senior Resident. I did not like the working there however, and soon after my marriage on March 16, 1983, I left that department and joined AIIMS again where Dr. Chandra was too glad to take me once again. In fact it was Dr. Chandra who advised me to join his department when I went to give my marriage invitation card to him! On 1st June 1985, I joined MAMC once again as assistant professor. Why MAMC again, you may ask! Well, to be sure, I never wanted to join MAMC as I had begun liking the environment at the AIIMS, but my temporary term at the AIIMS was coming to an end, and I had to find a place somewhere else. AIIMS did not have a permanent position then and MAMC provided me a reasonably respectable post, which was supposed to be permanent. I joined the post and after 3 years, on 1st June 1988, became an Associate Professor. On 26th August 1989, I was granted the prestigious British Council Fellowship, under which I went to one of the best departments of forensic medicine in the world- the one at the Edinburgh Medical School, Scotland. There I met Professor Anthony Busuttil, who completely changed my views of forensic medicine, and for the first time in my life, I came to realize what forensic medicine was really all about. It was at this department that the true foundations of forensic medicine were laid down in my mind and soul. I still like to call Prof Busuttil as my true mentor. Anyone who needs to be a specialist in forensic medicine must spend a minimum of one year - preferably three years- with him. I spent one fruitful year at that department and then returned on September 20 next year, after having a whirlwind tour of Europe which took me as far and wide as France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium and the erstwhile USSR. After 5 years I got another prestigious scholarship, this one by the World Health Organization (WHO), and this time I went to Japan and USA, where I met several more doyens in the field of forensic medicine. I left for Japan on 23rd March 1996, made a round-the-world trip and came back via USA and UK on 25th July the same year. In Japan some of the best forensic specialists I met were Dr. Katsuji Nishi of the Shiga University, Dr. Akahiro Takatsu of the Tokyo University, Dr. Choei Wakasugi of the Osaka University and Dr. Tsuneo Suzuki of the Yamagata University. In the USA I met and worked with Dr. Charles J Stahl of the United States Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Dr. Heeresh Mirchandani, the Medical Examiner at Philadelphia and Dr John Smialek, the Medical Examiner at Baltimore. Needless to say my outlook and work ethic were changed a lot after meeting these remarkable people. So much so about how I came to the specialty of forensic medicine, and some of my fondest experiences in this specialty. Coming back to my writings now. I said earlier that during the last 4 years or so, I have written on virtually every aspect of crime. For classification purposes I have classified the articles in 16 neat categories. The categories are mentioned below along with the number of articles written against each Category Number of articles written 1.accidental deaths 1 2.asphyxia 3 3.death by exotic means 5 4.forensic procedures 1 5.forensic ballistics 2 6.forensic science 5 7.forensic osteology 1 8.forensic odontostomatology 1 9.identification 4 10.injuries 5 11.law and medicine 1 12.narcotic drugs 4 13.reconstruction of crime by special means 5 14.sex 4 15.special weapons 2 16.thanatology 5 Total 49 Explanations of a few terms would be in order as I have used certain technical terms here. The word asphyxia refers to all those deaths in which the death occurs due to stoppage of respiration. Forensic ballistics refers to the detection of crimes by studying guns, their ammunitions and the like. Forensic osteology refers to the detection of crime by studying bones, while forensic odontostomatology refers to the detection of crime by studying the teeth and other surrounding mouth structures such as lips, gums and saliva. Study of bite marks is also included in this term. The term thanatology comes from the Greek God of death Thanatos , and refers to the study of death in all its aspects. More specifically it deals with the calculation of the time of death. For those readers who would like to go in the detail regarding the earlier articles, the following table is intended to give a bird's eye view of all my earlier articles. S.No Category Number in the series Title Appearing in 1 accidental deaths 17 Death due to accident Sep 94 2 asphyxia 25 Death by strangulation Jun 95 27 Deaths from hanging Aug 95 28 Death by drowning Sep 95 3 Death by exotic means 16 Murder by electric shock Aug 94 22 Death by air injection Mar 95 30 An unusual case of death (lightning) Nov 95 40 Murder taken for railway injury Sep 96 45 Victims in a bomb explosion Feb 97 4 Forensic procedures 12 Examining the scene of crime Mar 94 5 Forensic ballistics 2 Who handled the gun Mar 93 43 Clever way to identify the killer gun Dec 96 6 Forensic science 15 Speech spectrograms catch criminals Jul 94 18 Use of infrared photography in forensic science Oct 94 23 Car headlights and forensic investigation Apr 95 26 Forgery of cheques Jul 95 32 Making will under a hypnotic trance Jan 96 7 Forensic osteology 11 What do the bones tell us? Feb 94 8 Forensic odontostomatology 5 What do the bite marks tell us? Jul 93 9 Identification 3 Did the communists kill the Czar? Apr 93 10 What do the fingernails tell us? Jan 94 13 How do we recognize a person from his skull? Apr 94 44 Identification of dead bodies in aircraft crash Jan 97 10 Injuries 14 Contusions-the vital evidence May 94 19 Deaths in police custody Nov 94 20 Defence wounds Jan 95 21 What do the abrasions tell us Feb 95 33 In-laws burnt her alive to death Feb 96 11 Law and medicine 47 Crime scientists categorize injuries to assist judiciary Apr 97 12 Narcotic drugs 34 Loving venom took her life (Death by cocaine) Mar 96 35 The hot shot that took his life (Death by heroin) Apr 96 36 "Smoke" that took them to the next world (Death by marijuana) May 96 49 Body packing with drugs cost him his life Jun 97 13 Reconstruction of crime by special means 29 Hole in the skull Oct 95 37 Mystery of a mummified hand Jun 96 38 Crimes always speak Jul 96 39 Foot prints of the killer traced Aug 96 46 Deceased's blood witnessed the killer Mar 97 14 Sex 4 Was she actually raped? Jun 93 9 Testing for homosexuality Nov 93 31 When sex perversions lead to accidental hanging Dec 95 42 Killed herself for carnal gratification Nov 96 15 Special weapons 41 Way to identify the assault weapon Oct 96 48 Injuries with a sjambok May 97 16 Thanato logy 1 When did the murder take place? Feb 93 6 The vital evidence Aug 93 7 When the body turns blue Sep 93 8 When the body turns into wax Oct 93 24 Clues from putrefaction May 95 So that's the summary of all my earlier articles. Those of you who have missed out on earlier articles may write to the editor of the magazine for back numbers. I am afraid some of them may not be available, but nevertheless you may try. New readers may be wondering what appeared in earlier articles. I would give the extracts from some of my earlier articles to give you a sampling of what was written earlier. Here are the very first lines from my very first article appearing in February 1993 issue... Many a time I have been called by the police to places where dead bodies are lying and I am asked to tell them when a particular person was done to death. This is a very important question for the police to know. Imagine a person found dead in a hotel room at 10.00 pm by a waiter. Visitors' register and statements of various hotel employees reveal that four people met that man on that day at 10 am, 1 pm, 3 pm, and 7 pm respectively. Obviously, the murder was committed by one of them. Many might imagine the last visitor to be the murderer, because, had an earlier visitor murdered the man, the next visitor would have informed the police. But this is not necessarily so. A man might knock at the door, get no answer and return. Also, a visitor with a criminal record may have been too afraid to inform about the murder, even if he had discovered the dead body. Thus, it becomes very important to tell exactly when the person died .... I then went on to describe how I solved such a murder case in which four visitors came at different times and one of them had killed the victim. Readers may want to have a sampling of my articles from each category. Reading these extracts can give interesting insights into various methods of crime detection, even by those readers who missed out these issues. Moreover these passages are complete in themselves so they make excellent candidates for independent reading. Okay so let us now get cracking. This is what I wrote in my 17th article on "Deaths due to accidents".... Category 1: Accidental Deaths Article 17: Death due to accidents September 1994 When a person is struck by a car, he generally receives injuries on his legs, because these are the lowermost part of one's body and are on the level of car's bumper. In fact in most cases of accidents by car, the pedestrian receives fractures of the legs, which go by the name ` Bumper fractures '. By measuring the height of these fractures from the heels, one can actually measure the height of the bumper of the car. Sometimes the car bumper may only cause abrasions and tears. Their position on the legs may tell the position of the victim while the accidents occurred. For instance if these abrasions and tears are on the front of legs, it is quite obvious that he was facing the vehicle. If these injuries are on the back of the legs, it denotes that the victim might be hit unawares while he was facing away from the vehicle . My second category is on asphyxia. Here is what I wrote in my 27th article on hanging appearing in August 95 issue. Category 2: Asphyxial Deaths Article 27: Deaths from hanging August 1995 A peculiar and somewhat misunderstood form of hanging is Judicial hanging. This is the form of hanging employed by the jail officials to impart the Capital sentence to a criminal. It is generally thought that the mechanism of judicial hanging is the same as seen in suicidal hanging. This is not so. In suicidal hanging, as we have seen, the death is either due to stoppage of heart or due to lack of oxygen. Neither of these two mechanisms operates in the case of Judicial hanging. In Judicial hanging, the noose is wound round the neck in such a way, that the knot is either at the angle of the jaw or beneath the chin. Then the victim is made to fall through a trap door. The drop is usually about 8 to 10 feet, but this may be less or more depending on the weight of the victim. A lesser weight would call for a longer drop and vice-versa. The long drop and the peculiar position of the noose, breaks the joints of the neck and in the process the spinal cord in the region of the neck is crushed. Thus the victim meets an instantaneous death. In cases of hanging a very peculiar thing that is seen is the ligature mark. This is a deep impression, made by the ligature material (such as the rope or the loin cloth with which the victim hangs himself) and is seen on the neck. This mark tells many important things to the forensic pathologist. Among other things, this mark tells the position of the victim at the time of fixing the noose. Another important feature of the ligature mark of hanging is that it is not found completely around the neck. There is a little gap in the ligature mark at the suspension point. This is in sharp contrast with the ligature mark of strangulation which is seen all round the neck. This is one of the several ways in which we can make out whether the death was due to hanging or strangulation . The articles on "Deaths by exotic means" evoked good response from the readers. One of the most exciting of these articles was "Murder by electric shock". Here is what I wrote in this article.... Category 3: Death by exotic means Article 16: Murder by electric shock August 1994 A young woman was found dead in her bath, slumped forwards in a kneeling position with one breast resting against a chrome tap. The left arm was trailing over the edge of the bath, in which was the usual level of water plus an electric fan heater immersed near the feet. The heater was connected by a long cable to a 240 volt socket in an adjacent bedroom. To all intents and purposes it appeared that the woman, while taking her bath had accidentally slipped in the bath and drowned. This is not a very unusual mode of death. Several people have accidentally died in this way. As regards the heater in the water, it was assumed that when the woman must be struggling to find her way out, her legs may have got entangled in the cable wire somehow and she must have accidentally dragged the heater in the bath. Since Britain is a cold country many people keep heaters in their bathroom while taking bath, so the presence of a heater in the bathroom did not arouse much suspicion. The post mortem examination seemed merely a routine formality. However while we were conducting the post mortem examination I noted two curious marks on the body..... The first was on the left breast and the other was over the inside of her left arm near the axilla. These were the marks produced by electricity..... it was a case of homicide rather than that of accident! Subsequent investigations revealed that it was indeed a case of homicide and the husband was involved in that ghastly murder. So just two insignificant looking marks took the perpetrator of crime to the gallows. To understand about these marks let us understand about some of the basics of electricity first . I then went on to describe some basics of electricity which helped me prove that the marks were indeed produced by electricity. I had encountered this case in Great Britain during my tenure there in 1989-90, hence the reference to Britain in the above piece. Category 4: Forensic procedures Article 12: Examining the scene of Crime March 1994 Many times when a murder is reported in an outfield, the police officers prefer to take us to the scene where the dead body is lying. The idea is to give first hand information to the police regarding the murder. There are many vital pieces of evidence which can get lost once the body is moved. Consider the case of a man who has been shot down by a bullet and is lying on the field. Only a forensic pathologist can say by examining the dead body, as to which is the entrance wound and which one the exit wound. To a lay person, or a police officer, both the wounds of entrance and exit would appear the same. If forensic pathologist examines these wounds, he can reconstruct the line of fire, by joining these two points and say which direction the bullet came from. Once the body is moved, it would become impossible to reconstruct this 'line of fire' which can prove vital in later police investigations . I then went on to describe how we can reconstruct this line of fire by examining the body at the scene of crime itself. Category 5 is on forensic ballistics. To put it in plain and simple terms it is on guns. I haven't written much on it, (just two articles) although there is a great potential in this category. I hope to write more articles in this category in my subsequent pieces. Here is a sampling from my 43rd article in the series. Category 5: Forensic ballistics (Guns and Firearms) Article 43: Clever way to identify the killer gun Dec 96 Hand guns are basically of two types- revolvers and pistols. Revolvers generally have a rotating chamber at the back. This chamber has 5-7 empty places (generally 6) in which cartridges can be placed. A cartridge, as we all know, is an assembly of bullet and gunpowder, encased in a metallic case. When the trigger is pulled, the firing pin hammers the base of the cartridge. This ignites the gunpowder within the cartridge, releasing a large amount of gas. The gas pushes the bullet forward violently, which shoots out of the barrel of the gun and does all the damage. The empty cartridge case is left behind. Its two most important occupants, the bullet and the gunpowder are no more present- the gun powder has burnt, and the bullet has left the barrel. The problem is to take the empty cartridge case out of the gun, so that next cartridge case may be loaded, and next bullet fired. In a revolver, this problem is taken care of by revolving the rear chamber a little bit, so that the next bullet comes in line. In a similar fashion all 6 bullets can be fired and then the operator can take out the empty cartridge case from each of the chambers later on. In a pistol, there is a mechanism by which each cartridge is ejected the moment it releases its bullet. The spent cartridge falls at the scene of crime itself. In a revolver this does not happen, as we have already seen. The cartridges remain in the chambers, and they are taken out later in a more relaxed atmosphere. The important fact that emerges out from this is worth noting. If someone uses a revolver, no empty cartridge cases would be found at the scene of crime; if on the other hand a pistol is used, empty cartridge cases would be found at the scene of crime . I then went on to describe how by finding the empty cartridge on the ground we can tell the make of the pistol. This article is a very interesting one, and generated a tremendous response among readers who wanted to know about guns. Many people take forensic medicine to be equivalent to forensic science, and think I am a forensic scientist. Well, I am not. I am mainly a forensic pathologist, and deal with cases in which human body figures in some way. Forensic science is a much broader discipline. It relates to cases in which crime scientists take the help of any branch of science (and not just medicine) to solve crime. Physics, chemistry, biology, botany... literally any branch of science can help in the detection of crime. Forensic pathologists like me use just pathology (study of changes in organs in trauma and disease) for the detection of crime. Forensic medicine is a wider branch than forensic pathology but narrower than forensic science. A forensic medicine man would use other branches of medicine too for the detection of crime. For instance he would use X-rays to find out the exact age of a person, if he was cheating his age for some reason (for instance if he were a person of only 17 years of age and had come to cast his vote). Although I am basically a forensic pathologist, I do take up many cases of forensic medicine and some of forensic science too. Here is what I did for my 26 article on forgery of cheques. Category 6: Forensic Science Article 26: Forgery of cheques July 1995 Documents are often made fraudulent by the erasure of important information on a document and the subsequent addition of new data or information. The documents which are frequently changed in this manner (for some or the other gain) are share deeds, inheritance wills, contracts, university degrees, letters offering jobs, passports, birth and marriage certificates, ration cards and of course cheques. It is not infrequent for a terrorist to steal a valid passport, erase the important personal information on it, add one's own particulars in it, and then use that forged passport to run away to other countries. Similarly wills may be changed to dupe someone of his rightful share. Erasures can be made in one of three ways. One way is the so-called chemical erasure . In this type of erasure, some chemical such as oxalic acid is used to remove the writing from the document. In fact, one can easily get "ink-removers" from the market, which contain some kind of chemical or bleaching agent to remove the stains. The second way is abrasive erasure . Erasure by common household rubber comes under this class. You must have noticed that ink stains can not be removed by rubber. Thus commonly ink stains are removed by chemical erasure. But even ink stains may be removed by abrasive method. For this one must buy a special rubber, which has sand grains in it. This rubber is commonly kept by the typists to remove typewritten matter. The sand grains rub the paper fibers very harshly and remove them from the paper, the ink stains coming out along with them. Even if you do not have this kind of rubber with you, you could still remove an ink stain by taking a blade, scalpel or a sharp knife and scratching the paper with the sharp tip. This is also a form of abrasive erasure. Abrasion types of erasures are the easiest to detect because abrasive method disturbs the fibers of the paper. As you must be knowing, paper is made from wood pulp, and is thus composed of fibers. These fibers may not be visible on naked eye examination, but they are very clearly seen on microscopic examination. If some written matter has been erased from the surface of the paper by abrasive means, the delicate arrangement of the fibers will be disturbed. This disturbed arrangement could very easily be seen through the microscope. In addition, the coating of the paper will also be disturbed. The third type of erasure are the lift off ribbon erasures. These are special kinds of erasures. This method is applied in modern electronic typewriters. This type can remove any type of written material from the paper. Basically it consists of applying a strip of adhesive tape over the written line, and then jerking the strip off the surface of the paper. The fibers of the paper along with anything written over them will adhere to the adhesive tape, and come off along with it. This method can be easily demonstrated at home. Take any written material, which you can not remove by any means. An old book or magazine will be ideal. It is almost impossible to erase the printed word by either chemical or abrasive means. Now take the normal adhesive tape, stick a small strip over a written line and then take it off the surface of the paper with a little jerk. You will find that the written line will be erased instantaneously. This type of erasures can usually be detected with the aid of oblique lighting to see the indentations. The most difficult erasure to detect is the carefully conducted chemical erasure of writing ink .... I then went on to describe the type of erasure that had been done on the cheque and how cleverly I detected it. I wrote only one article in the next category- forensic osteology. There is again great potential for writing more articles in this interesting branch and I hope to write more articles in my subsequent pieces. Here is what I wrote in my 11th article. Category 7: Forensic Osteology Article 11: What do the bones tell us? February 1994 How do we find out sex of the victim from the bones? Many times I have been asked this question by the police officers and public. In this case, I am going to provide you with my well kept secrets. Many sexual differences are found in the skull. Look at fig.1, carefully, which shows two skulls‑ one of a male and the other a female one. The upper one is male skull, while the lower one is a female. there are several ways in which we can say that a given skull is male or a female. One is to look at the bone just beneath the eyebrows. This is technically known as SUPRA ORBITAL RIDGE . It is much more prominent in a male skull than in a female skull (shown in the figure by arrows). Further when you see the angulation between the forehead and the nose, you find that in a male skull, this angulation is very prominent. The bone behind the ear is known as MASTOID PROCESS . This is larger, round and blunt in a male skull and smaller, smoother and pointed in a female skull. This point is also shown in the figure by arrows. There are several other differences in the skulls, but these three are very prominent in the given diagram and I generally infer the sex from these 3 points . Of course we can not reproduce the diagram here for lack of space. But the readers should get some idea of the powers of forensic osteology anyway. Forensic odontostomatology is also a very interesting branch of crime detection. Here is what I wrote in my 5th article. Category 8: Forensic Odontostomatology Article 5: What do the bite marks tell us? July 1993 We can identify the criminal from his bite marks from the fact that each individual has teeth of different size and shape. One must have noticed that some people have short teeth, some have wide spaced teeth, some have buck teeth, some have crooked teeth and so on. Many times the differences in size and shapes of teeth are very obvious to even a layman. But in many other cases, a layman is apt to think that there is not much difference in the teeth of any two individuals. However, if a scientist closely examines the teeth of such individuals he can easily spot many differences. It has been seen that the structure of the teeth of an individual is as unique as his fingerprints. Since the teeth of all individuals are unique, the bite marks produced by them are also different. It has been estimated that the odds against two persons with full set of 32 teeth producing identical bite marks are 2.5 billion to 1. This means that in India, with a population of 0.8 billion, no two persons will have identical bite marks and in the whole world with a population of about 6 billion, only 2 or 3 people will have identical bite marks. This is a very reasonable conclusion and courts will not hesitate to prosecute a criminal on the evidence of bite marks . Category 9 deals with identification, a very vital part of our work. Here is what I wrote in my 10th article on identification by fingernails. Category 9: Identification Article 10: What do the fingernails tell us? January 1994 ...When we examined Talwar's hands all his nails had been recently clipped. Chauhan (the investigating police inspector) insisted that Talwar had become aware of his broken nails and to hide this fact he had clipped all his nails. Anyway, I managed to take a small sliver of nail from each of Talwar's fingers. In 2 hours, I was able to tell Chauhan with cent per cent certainty that Talwar was not the culprit. How did I do this feat? Well! before I go ahead, look at your nails very carefully. You will find long striations over them, some of them are thick and some are thin. These striations are there in a fixed pattern in each individual. Every individual could be recognized positively by his unique pattern of nail striations. I tried to match the striations of the broken nails, I had found on the floor with the striations of nail silvers, I had clipped from Talwar's hands. I tried hard to match them but couldn't match them at all . This was an extremely interesting case which I could solve by noting the peculiar striations on fingernails. I have tried to give the gist of the article in the above extract. Interested readers can acquire the original back issue from the editor and go through the entire case. Examination of injuries form an interesting part of our work. Here is what I wrote in my 14th article. Category 10: Injuries Article 14: Contusions-The vital evidence May 1994 Finally I turned over the body and looked for injuries more closely. There were several contusions on the back. these are also known as bruises. In common parlance, in Hindi, we know these as "Neel". These are commonly caused by blunt force application. I had looked at these contusions before starting the post‑mortem, but at that time I thought that they were produced by fall from stairs. Contusions can indeed be produced by a fall from the stairs. However, when I looked at them closely, I found them to have some pattern. These contusions are known as patterned contusions and are quite helpful in the forensic work. They tell us the shape of the object which was used to hit the deceased. If the hitting object was a lathi or an iron rod, the contusions would be linear in shape. If a hockey stick was used to beat the deceased, the contusions would take the shape of hockey stick and so on . Only 1 article was written in the category law and medicine. This was it. Category 11: Law and Medicine Article 47: Crime scientists categorize injuries to assist judiciary April 1997 In 1991, the International Committee of the Red Cross, has come up with a useful wound classification which helps the physicians in assessing the severity of firearm wounds. This classification can also be profitably used by pathologists in describing the injuries. The classification takes into account six features: entry wound (E), exit wound (X), cavity (C), fracture (F), involvement of vital structure (V), and presence of metallic body in the wound (M). Although this classification system has primarily been devised for clinicians for helping them to assess the severity of the firearm wounds, it is the author's belief that this scoring system can also be used by pathologists in classifying injuries. In fact I am using this system in my autopsy cases now and the courts are too willing to accept this classification system. Well, you might ask what is the use of this scoring system in an article on crime detection. The answer is that the scoring system helps in not only classifying the injuries in a systematic way, but by mathematically expressing the severity of the wounds, one can impress the court with the figures. Numerical figures can easily be compared and assessed even by a layman. If I told you that two people received injuries with bullet wounds- one had two bullet wounds on the right arm and the other had one wound on the neck, you may not be able to assess which one was more dangerous. But if I told you that one wound was of Grade 2 severity and the other was of Grade 3 severity you would have no problem in assessing that the Grade 3 wound was more dangerous. See the point! This is the way the author believes the courts can be impressed. Once the courts are able to comprehend the severity of the injuries, they can give out punishments accordingly. Well, I have simply started this procedure. It is one of the latest things that I have started, and in this piece I would mainly dwell on how this classification works in classifying injuries . And then I went on to describe how this system works. This piece evoked terrific response not only from general public but even from the specialists. On May 2, 1995 my book "Narcotic Drugs" was published by the National Book Trust . It contained many of my interesting cases related to narcotic drugs. In general it contained interesting information related to narcotic drugs such as cocaine, opium, LSD and so on. The book turned out to be extremely popular among general public, and the Trust had it translated in Hindi on popular demand. The Hindi translation known as "Maadak Aushadiyan " appeared on July 25 1996. Anyway, with the publication of my book on narcotic drugs, I became all the more interested in cases of narcotic deaths and began taking active interest in them. Naturally I wanted to tell the general public about these cases. This resulted in a series of articles on narcotic deaths beginning March 96. Even the last article in the current series - the one which appeared just last month- deals with a case of narcotic death. Well this is what I had to say in my piece appearing in March 1996. Category 12: Narcotic Drugs Article 34: Loving venom took her life March 1996 The youth of today is in the grips of narcotic drugs. Many narcotic drugs are in use, main among them being heroin, LSD, amphetamines, barbiturates, cocaine and several others. Heroin is the narcotic drug of choice today, but now many users are shifting to cocaine, especially in America. Its use in India is also increasing. The use of cocaine has permeated into the powerful and socially prominent circles. It is used by the youth of rich families. Of all the drugs cocaine is considered the largest producer of illicit income in the United States today. Cocaine is a white, crystalline powder derived from the leaves of coca plant (known botanically as Erythroxylon coca). The coca plant is native to South America, particularly the countries of Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, and must not be confused with the similar‑sounding coca plant from which chocolate is made. The scientific name of the plant is derived from the Greek word erythros meaning `red', and xylon meaning `wood'. The name is based on the flesh‑red colour of the inner layers of the bark. The wood itself is tinged with red or yellow. Although the coca plant is natural to South America, it has been successfully cultivated in Java, West Indies, Australia and India . It's not that cocaine use has become popular in modern times only. It has been in use for a long time. Recent archaeological findings in Ecuador indicate that the use of cocaine dates back to at least 5,000 years. Small bags of coca leaves have been found in the graves of the Incas, mysterious South American people, who lived in the Cuzco Valley of the Andes mountains on the west coast of South America. This area roughly constitutes the modern‑day Peru. Cocaine which is used these days is usually available in adulterated form only. During its "journey" from the clandestine lab where it is prepared to the addict, it is adulterated a number of times, a practice often known as cutting . Every dealer who gets hold of the cocaine powder mixes some adulterant powder in it. The cutting or diluting agents can be any soluble powder that is not disruptive to the body such as baking soda, powdered sugar, powdered milk, starch, etc. Since pure cocaine is also a white crystalline powder, these agents can not easily be detected and serve as good dilutants. Other agents which are usually employed to cut cocaine are lactose, dextrose, Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate), quinine or powdered vitamins. A dangerous narcotic, methamphetamine, known as speed , is also sometimes used. Cocaine use is a very expensive habit and because of the expense, cocaine habit is often referred to as the king's habit . Cocaine has traditionally been popular with pimps, prostitutes, musicians, jet‑setters and the wealthy. It can be taken by the addict in a number of ways, but the most commonly employed method is by inhalation (known as snorting or horning). In snorting cocaine, the immediate euphoric effect (known as the rush) takes place within about thirty minutes. The usual time period for euphoric effects are generally in the same range when cocaine is injected directly into a vein. When cocaine is taken by mouth, the effects begin after five minutes and the rush is not as great as when cocaine is injected or snorted. That is why oral intake of cocaine, or cocaine eating , as it is often known, is not a preferred method among the addicts. There is a little compensation however. The euphoric effect after an oral intake lasts about fifteen to thirty minutes longer. The rush is most intense when cocaine is injected. Snorting produces a slightly lesser effect, yet the effect is not so minor as to make injection a preferred method. In snorting cocaine, the user brings the powdered cocaine up to one nostril, holding the other nostril closed and sniff the cocaine into the nose. The user may use any nostril but usually holds the other nostril closed for better suction. The immediate effect of snorting cocaine is a burning or freezing of the nostril area, depending on the purity of the cocaine and the substance the cocaine has been adulterated with . If it has been "cut" with procaine, there will be more of a freezing. The user may snort anywhere from one‑tenth of a gramme to half of a gramme at one time. Sometimes little particles of cocaine can get lodged in hair of the nose, and if they remain there for any length of time, they tend to irritate the membrane and cause sores and bleeding. Because of this irritation, chronic cocaine addicts usually have a perforated nasal septum . Reconstruction of crime by special means always holds kind of special interest for the general public. Sometimes we can reconstruct the crime events in a special way as if by magic. Here is how I solved one such case. This was my 29th article in the series. This was a case in which one Mewa Lal had been killed. His skull had been shattered to pieces, and everyone including the police thought that he had been killed by a lathi . But special methods of reconstruction of crime led me to conclude that Mewa Lal had been killed by a bullet! And this conclusion helped nab the right killer. Here is a juicy piece for all of you to enjoy. Category 13: Reconstruction of crime by special means Article 29: Hole in the skull October 1995 The skull had been shattered to such small pieces that it was impossible to piece them together by any conceivable means. Finally I decided to "sew" the pieces together with the help of wires. I drilled holes in the broken skull pieces, passed metal wire through the holes and then stitched them together. I had to encounter a bigger surprise, when I reconstructed the skull in this manner. Staring before me was one neat round hole in the skull! Look carefully at the reconstructed skull in Fig 2. The black arrow depicts the outlines of a neat round hole. The full circumference of the hole is not visible because I couldn't fit one piece with the wire (the piece was too small for that). However I fitted that piece at the gap with my bare hands, and the neat round hole was complete in its entirety before me. I placed the skin back on the reconstructed skull, and the bullet hole gaped before me so clear, no one could have missed it. This turned the whole police story topsy turvy. It was as if I had gone back in time and was witnessing the murder with my own eyes. Mewa Lal had not been killed by Lathi at all. He had been killed by a gun! This was a startling new fact for the police, brought about only by the autopsy. This changed the police story completely. Chandran was a poor man. It was impossible for him to keep a gun. So in one stroke, Chandran was out of police's clutches. However from the external appearance of the dead body of Mewa Lal, it surely appeared that he had been battered by a Lathi. A less thorough autopsy would have failed to bring out this new fact. Now that we knew that Mewa Lal had been killed by a gun, we knew there had to be a bullet also. We had to recover the bullet also. Since the bullet was not recovered from the body, it had to be at the scene of murder. Since we already knew that Mewa Lal had been killed in his own house, we decided to search his house for the bullet. After a thorough search, we found it buried in a wooden door. The bullet had apparently pierced Mewa Lal's head and had lodged in the door opposite to where Mewa Lal was standing . Sex has always captured the popular imagination. Forensic pathologists have to deal a lot with cases related to sexual assaults. One of my earliest articles related to a sexual assault case, in which I attempted to give detailed female genital anatomy. Here is what I had to say in that article. Category 14: Sex Article 4: Was she actually raped? June 1993 Sexual crimes are on the increase these days. Many times we are asked to examine girls and young women- both alive and dead- who have been sexually molested. The questions which the police wants to ask us are many. One of the questions which is invariably asked is whether the woman has been raped or not. It might seem surprising to many here, why the police wants to ask this question. After all, if a woman is asserting that she has been raped then she must have been. Unfortunately this is not true in all cases. Many times women falsely accuse innocent men of having raped them. In such cases it becomes very important for medical personnel to thoroughly examine the victims and tell the police whether she has been raped or not. To determine the answer to this question, the doctor relies very heavily on examination of female genitalia and it would be pertinent to have a quick review of the structures present there. Fig 1 shows the genitalia of a female who has recently had a sexual intercourse. On the top one can see the pubic hair and at the bottom is anus. In between are structures which are collectively known as vulva. Two main openings can be seen. The upper one is urethra through which urine come out. The lower one is the vaginal opening. Intercourse takes place through this opening. Menstrual blood comes out of this opening too. Both these openings are covered by two very thick fleshy lips called labium majus. Clitoris, a very sensitive, pea sized organ lies at the top, between the folds of the labium majus. The vaginal opening is covered in the virgins by a thin delicate membrane- the hymen. It is very thin and delicate and ruptures on sexual intercourse. The first thing that we do is to look whether the hymen is intact or not. If the hymen is intact, the presumption is that the female is telling a lie and trying to implicate the person falsely. In the diagram 1, the hymen is showing a tear at 5 O' clock position. By referring to figure 2, you can know why this tear is called to be at 5 O' clock position . Category 15 is on special weapons. I have dealt with just 2 such articles. In my 41st article, which I solved in a very clever way, I had this to say. Category 15: Special weapons Article 41: Way to identify the assault weapon October 96 The moment I examined the weapon, I knew I had the killer in my hand. I had preserved the skull of Vindhya Kumari, which showed deep cuts due to the weapon (figure 2 A). As one can see clearly, these cuts show a definite pattern. The cutting edge of the khukhri also showed some pattern (the pattern of raggedness), and if I could match the two patterns, I could be sure that the khukhri found at Sawan Kumar's house had indeed been used to kill Vindhya Kumari. The ragged pattern of the khukhri had produced the peculiar pattern on Vindhya Kumari's skull, and my job now was to match the two patterns. I cut a Lifebuoy soap with the khukhri. In the process, it left its distinctive marks of raggedness over the soap (figure 2 B). Now under the microscope, I painstakingly matched the two patterns, i.e. the one found on Vindhya Kumari's skull and that produced on the soap. To my utter satisfaction, the pattern matched perfectly. This meant only one thing; that the khukhri had indeed been used to kill Vindhya Kumari. The chances of two entirely different weapons, producing exactly the same cut marks, were so remote that the possibility of another weapon being used in the murder could virtually be ruled out. The police now began interrogating Sawan Kumar more assiduously. Initially he resisted, but when faced with hard scientific facts, he broke down and admitted his guilt . This brings us to the last category- that on thanatology. My very first article was an article on thanatology, and I have already given a piece of that earlier. Without further ado, I would go on and give a sampling from my 24th article. Category 16: Thanatology Article 24: Clues from Putrefaction August 1995 Another putrefactive change is the appearance of gases. When bacteria feed on body tissues, they release foul smelling gases. These gases collect beneath the tissues, and bloat the features of the dead person. The tongue may begin to protrude. The features may become so distorted that even close relatives find it hard to identify the dead body (reproduce fig. 2.8 on page 60 here). After about 36 hours, flies lay eggs around the natural orifices of the body such as nose, mouth, eyes, ears, anus and vagina. These places provide a safe nidus for the young ones of insects and they choose these places quite instinctively. In the next 24 hours, maggots come out of these eggs. These maggots look very much like miniature earthworms. Each maggot is of the size of a rice grain, and is seen wriggling leisurely. Thousands of such worms may be found wriggling all over the body. This is not a very pleasant sight, and most persons will begin to retch at such a sight. Only a forensic pathologist is well trained to stand such a ghastly sight. These maggots become pupa in the next 4-5 days, and in another 4-5 days, the pupa becomes the adult fly and flies away from the dead body. Thus we can roughly calculate the time of death from the appearance of these maggots. The following table will make the things a little bit clearer. 1. If we find eggs on the body the death could have been 36 hours before. 2. If we find maggots on the body, we add 24 hours (because maggots appear 24 hours after the eggs have been laid). Thus the time since death becomes 36+24=60 hours. This is about 2 days. In actual practice, we can never be so sure, so we take the time of death in such cases to be between 2 to 3 days. 3.If we find pupa (which looks like a grain of wheat), the death should have been about 6 days back. This is because maggots appear about 2 days after death, and become pupa in another 4 days. 4. If we find only the empty pupa shells, it means that pupa became the adult fly which escaped from the shell. This means that the death must have occurred about 10 days before. Three more changes help us determine the time since death. In about 3 days after death, the nails become loose. In 4 days teeth become loose in their sockets and in 5 days the brain matter becomes totally liquified. Normally the brain matter is much like a jelly. In about 12 to 14 days, so much gases collect within the body, that the body cavities like abdomen burst open. This is called colliquative putrefaction . This then is a sampling of my earlier articles (and a little bit of my biography!). It has taken a lot of time and effort to go through all of my earlier articles and select the juiciest and choicest samplings from there. I have done really hard work on it. I would consider my work well rewarded if the readers enjoy this piece as I intended it to be. Keep giving me new ideas and I would keep incorporating them in my future articles. Long live "Crime and Detective"... Long live "Science in Crime Detection". Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. Professor of Forensic Medicine Maulana Azad Medical College New Delhi‑110002

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-40 PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 1996 SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION RAILWAY INJURIES ‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal The dead body of 37 year old Kalu was found on the railway track early on the morning of 23rd December 1993. Two villagers who were going to the nearby woods for their early morning ablutions, found his dead body on the track and immediately informed the police. The body was badly mutilated. The head had severed completely from the trunk. It appeared that he had committed suicide. Investigations into the life style of Kalu revealed that he was lately having poor relations with his wife Dayawati. He used to have frequent tiffs with her. He suspected that Dayawati was infidel. She did have a paramour - a person called Rakesh. On the morning of 22nd both Kalu and Dayawati had a violent argument over some matter, after which Kalu left the house in anger. Nobody heard of him after that. From the story and the way Kalu was found dead, it appeared to be a clear cut case of suicide. It was perhaps natural for an ordinary man to commit suicide under such circumstances. However when I was called to the scene of crime, I could say quite easily that it was a case of murder. A relatively insignificant looking point led me to that. When a person is alive, his heart is beating. If he is hurt during life, there should be massive effusion of blood. If the injury is as great as decapitation, normally one would expect a huge outpouring of blood. Decapitation involves severing of carotid arteries . These are very large arteries present on the side of the neck, and carry blood to the brain. These arteries are directly connected to the aorta, a huge artery arising straight from the heart. Thus in a way the carotid arteries have almost a direct and immediate connection with the heart. This should produce very massive bleeding around the severed head, if the heart was beating at the time of decapitation. However if the heart was not beating at the time of decapitation ( Such a situation might arise, if someone kept an already dead body on the railway track), the effusion of blood would be negligible. When I was told the story of Kalu in my laboratory, I conjured up images of a dead body, around which the ground would be soaked with blood for several yards. However when I reached the scene of death, I found that very little blood had flown from the decapitated head and the headless trunk. It took me no time to conclude that Kalu was already dead when his head got decapitated. In other words someone had already killed him and kept his dead body on the railway track to hoodwink the police. This is not an unusual method to conceal murder. Criminals frequently kill a person and keep the dead body on the railway track. Railway injuries are usually not investigated very thoroughly, and rarely if ever are brought to a court of law. There is one simple reason for this. There is no way a railway driver could drive negligently. Railway track is his exclusive domain, and he is free to drive on it as he likes. In fact pedestrians and other people are expected to keep away from an approaching train. So if a person is accidentally killed by a train, rarely is a driver hauled up in court. This is not the situation in ordinary road side accidents, where drivers are often found negligent. Even if they are not negligent actually, a suit is invariably brought against them for negligent driving. Road is a domain for all - be it a motorcyclist, a car driver, a pedestrian or a Rickshaw wallah - and everyone must use it in such a way that other users' rights are not infringed upon. Experienced criminals apparently know of this fact, and thus they find it very lucrative to throw a dead body on a railway track. While examining such cases we have to keep in mind several facts related to railway deaths. Railway deaths are usually suicidal or accidental. Rarely if ever are they homicidal. It must be clarified here that homicidal railway deaths are quite different from the situation where an already dead body is thrown on a railway track. A true homicidal railway death would be where a person is pushed in front of an approaching train. When an already dead body is thrown on the railway track, it only means concealment of murder as a railway accident. A simple decapitation (please reproduce fig.119 on page 100 from the book "Post-Mortem Procedures" by Gresham and Turner here) is commonly an indication of suicide and is rarely accidental. It is because only a person with a suicidal intention would lie on the railway line in such a way that his neck comes pat upon the railway track, so as to have a cleanly severed head. But as was in the case of Kalu, it might mean concealment of homicide too. Much depends on the proper interpretation of the scene of death. In an accidental railway death, where a person gets hit by a train while crossing the line, or while alighting from a moving train, amputation of limbs or trunk is the more often consequence. On electrified lines, electric burns and charring may be found, the extent of which will depend upon the duration of contact with the live rail, and may include bone. Accidental injuries can occur in a number of situations. Two of them have already been mentioned. Accidental injuries can also occur, while leaning out of the window, traveling on the footboards or during collisions. While walking on the rails, the injuries are usually gross and consist of primary impact injuries caused by contact with parts of the front of the engine and secondary injuries due to being thrown and possibly run over. Primary impact injuries are those injuries which a pedestrian sustains by first coming in contact with the offending vehicle. When the vehicle throws him on the ground, he receives further injuries which are known as secondary injuries. While crossing, the primary impact will be on the side and will usually involve the head and shoulders. If a person - usually a child - was leaning out of window, the injuries are almost exclusively on the head, the injured person being found either in the carriage or on the side of the line. If the person was found on the line, there might be apprehensions as to how he died. Massive skull fractures usually tell us that he must be leaning out of the window. If a person has fallen from a train, the injuries are usually in the nature of multiple abrasions with impact injuries due to striking objects. Such victims lose a lot of blood. Consequently shock is usually a prominent feature. In collisions, the victim will frequently show characteristic fractures of the legs similar to those found in motor car accidents. In addition, transmitted force may cause compression fractures of the spine. Secondary injuries usually occur due to falling parcels or luggage. Examination of the scene of death is often the key to solving cases of railway deaths, as was in Kalu's case. Had I not examined the scene of death, and just conducted a post-mortem examination of the body of Kalu in my dissection room, it is doubtful if ever I would have been able to find out about the facts with such relative ease. Examination of the dead body also reveals clinching points. Presence of the marks of throttling or stab injuries definitely point to homicide. The nature of railway injuries, whether antemortem or postmortem solves much of the problem. The chemical examination of the viscera also helps. When I examined the viscera for common poisons, I found a lot of arsenic trioxide in his stomach. This is a common poison known in vernacular as Sankhya . The whole story gradually emerged in my mind and I told it to the police. It was a great satisfaction to know that barring minor details, most of it was correct. What had really happened was this. After Kalu left on the morning of 22nd December, Dayawati contacted Rakesh. They had got sick of the daily tiffs. They wanted to get rid of Kalu not only because of the frequent tiffs Dayawati was having but also because they now wanted to marry. Kalu was a great hurdle in their plans. Both of them hatched out a plan. When Kalu returned in the evening, Dayawati gave him dinner heavily laced with Sankhya which she had procured from Rakesh. Within an hour Kalu expired. The problem was now to dispose of the dead body. They waited till 11 pm. They were aware that a local train passed from the railway line just outside the village at about 00.30 am everyday. Both of them somehow transported the body of Kalu and laid it on the railway track in such a manner that his neck was on one of the rails. They knew that the train would severe the head of Kalu, and everybody would think that he had committed suicide. Thanks to forensic science, their plan could not materialize and both of them landed up in jail for life. (Dr. Anil Aggrawal) S-299 Greater Kailash-1 New Delhi-110048 INDIA Ph: 91-11-6465460 FAX:91-11-5759476

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Forensic Toxicology FOR DECEMBER 2000 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY YELLOW JASMINE -Dr. Anil Aggrawal “Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a young girl today. What happened to him? Please tell me.” “Good morning Tarun. The name of this young girl is Rajni, and she is only three and a half years old. In the morning she was playing happily in front of her garden. After sometime, she staggered back in her house. She was showing some strange symptoms such as headache, vertigo, marked weakness and prostration. She had a staggering gait. She repeatedly lost balance and was repeatedly bumping into walls. Her head was down on her chest, and she seemed unable to lift it. Her jaw was slack and her eyes were droopy. Her mother asked if she had eaten anything, to which she replied in the negative, probably out of fear. However her older brother who was playing with her said that some strange person had given her some yellow flowers mixed with honey to eat. On hearing this, her mother took her immediately to the hospital. The doctors found that her pupils were dilated and she had blurred vision. She had shallow and labored respirations, drooping of the head and jaw, and feeble cardiac action. They immediately started an IV drip, but the child’s condition soon worsened and she died after about 4 hours of bringing into the hospital. Since her brother had reported seeing some person giving her some strange yellow flowers, this became a police case, and the police has handed over her body to me. My job of course is to tell them how she died.” “Oh, that is indeed terrible doctor. How did she actually die? And what do you think she consumed?” “Tarun, from the symptoms and from what her brother told us, I can only think of one poison – a flower commonly known as yellow jasmine. I have opened the stomach of Rajni, and have indeed found some yellow petals of this flower. So the death by this flower is almost confirmed.” “Do you mean, that flowers can also be poisonous? I think we are once again on the trail of one of your great poison stories. Please tell me more about yellow jasmine.” “Tarun, Yellow Jasmine or jessamine is botanically named as Gelsemium sempervirens. It belongs to the family Loganiaceae. It is the same family to which some other poisonous plants such as Nux Vomica and Ignatia belong. It grows in several parts of India and the piedmont and coastal areas of the southeastern U.S. It is an early flowering climbing vine. Glossy rich green leaves are about 2-4 inches long by 1/2 inches wide and grow in opposite pairs along wirey stems. The vine will grow 10-20 feet up tree trunks and along fences or other support. The flowers are yellow, funnel shaped, with five spreading, rounded lobes and have a strong odor. They are sometimes known as trumpet flowers because of its shape. The roots and rhizome of yellow jessamine were historically used to treat migraine, headaches and types of neuralgia. Honey made from nectar may be toxic. Yellow Jessamine begins blooming in early March. This plant gets its generic name from the Latinized form of gelsemina, the Italian name for the true jasmine. It is the State Flower of South Carolina, and that is why it is known as Carolina Jessamine in the US. In other countries its names differ. In Germany it is called Gelber Jasmin and in France Jasmin sauvage. It is also known as Sariyasemin.” “What poisons does it contain doctor?” “All parts of the plant are toxic, but the highest concentration of toxic chemicals is in the roots and in the flower with its nectar. Gelsemium sempervirens contains many toxic chemicals known as alkaloids, of which the main are gelsemine, gelseminine and gelsemoidin. Some other important toxic principles are Gelsedine, Gelsemidine, Gelsevirine and Gelsemicine, all of which are CNS depressants.” “How does these poisons kill doctor?” “Tarun, you must be knowing that for a nerve impulse to pass successfully from nerve to nerve, or from nerve to muscle, a chemical known as acetylcholine is released at the nerve junctions known as synapses. For producing its actions, acetylcholine binds with certain receptors on the muscle known as acetylcholine receptors. Gelsemine and gelseminine bind to these acetylcholine receptors and thus block the actions of acetylcholine. The result is muscle weakness and paralysis. This action is technically known as anticholinergic action . In fact because of this action, yellow jasmine has been used in many diseases.” “Oh, that is interesting. In which diseases has it been used doctor?” “Tarun, it's medicinal effect on fevers was recorded by a Mississippi farmer who cured himself of bilious fever with an accidental overdose of the root. Because of its weakening action on muscles, gelsemium has been used in asthma, painful menstruation, spasms and stomach ache, besides a variety of other conditions. I may tell you that most of these conditions result because of abnormal muscle spasms. For instance asthma occurs because of abnormal spasm of the muscles of the bronchi, because of which they constrict and make the passage of air difficult. This makes the respiration very difficult for the patient. Its use in these conditions thus appears logical at least pharmacologically. But I must stress that its use is not recommended in modern medicine, although perhaps this flower is still used in other systems of medicine. In Germany, human therapeutic use of the rhizome is not permitted, because it is not believed that efficacy has been adequately documented and serious risks are known. In some Australian states, the use of G. sempervirens is restricted and subject to poison control. The therapeutic dose in humans and the toxic dose are very close.” “Doctor, can we recognize its poisoning by symptoms?” “Oh, yes. The symptoms are mostly the same which Rajni showed. Since initial symptoms appear within a short period, it is reasonable to expect that the absorption occurs in the stomach. Toxic symptoms begin in from 10-20 minutes and are mostly what Rajni displayed. Marked tetanic convulsions are said to occur late in the clinical course, which is an enigmatic feature, because they can not be explained by the anticholinergic actions of its active principles. These symptoms were not seen in Rajni’s case too. These symptoms are more prominent in the reports from nineteenth century literature, and may be dependent on the concentration of alkaloids other than gelsemine which are present in the roots and lacking in the blossom. Since Caroline jessamine is in the same family of plants as the strychnine bearing Strychnos nux vomica, it is possible that one of its alkaloids may have a strychnine-like action. I may tell you that strychnine causes tetanic convulsions.” “Doctor which parts of the plant are toxic?” “All parts of Gelsemium sempervirens are toxic, including the flower and nectar. Accidental poisoning is rare because of the plant bitterness, but it may be mixed with honey and given with homicidal intentions as has been given to Rajni. Death occurs from respiratory paralysis.” “How many flowers must one eat for a fatal outcome?” “It is not known for certain. However in one case, ingestion of five blossoms in a young child caused severe poisoning. I would say about ten flowers are fatal. It appears that the death should occur within 12 hours.” “Is there any effective treatment for this poisoning doctor?” “Oh yes. Generally in a poisoning case the doctors prefer to give vomit inducing drugs or emetics so the poisoned patient can vomit out the poison. But in this case, emetics don’t seem to work. Consequently doctors put a thick tube through the mouth, and suck out all the poison. Activated charcoal is recommended, because it can adsorb the poison. The most logical antidote appears to be physostigmine . It inhibits a natural enzyme in the body known as cholinesterase. Its natural function is to destroy acetylcholine after it has done its function. By a complicated pharmacological action, it helps in the improvement of symptoms.” “Doctor you said that marked tetanic convulsions have been reported more often from the nineteenth century literature. Why is this so?” “It is because in that era, the tincture of gelsemium was produced by soaking rhizomes and roots in whiskey. The rhizomes and roots are probably richer in some toxic chemical which produced convulsions. Scientists are not sure about it, but they think it should be so. This practice led to one report of poisoning in barge sailors transporting the kegged product up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to market. I may tell you that all parts of the plant are toxic, so much so, that even honey made from the nectar is poisonous.” “Doctor I think I now know enough about yellow jasmine. Now tell me how would you catch the killer?” “Tarun, we made some detailed enquiries from the parents of Rajni. We came to know that one person Ramlal, held some grudge against Rajni’s father Kewal, because of office rivalries. He had studied botany in college, and obviously was conversant with poisonous flowers. We visited his house and located several yellow jasmine plants growing in his back yard. Rajni’s brother has identified him too. There seems no doubt that the court would prosecute him” “That is amazing doctor. Without your clever deduction it would have been impossible to say how Rajni died and Ramlal may have gone scot-free. What are you going to tell me next time?” “Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison – Mandrake.” **************** (To protect the identity of the individuals, their names, as well as the various dates of occurrence have been changed) **************** (Dr Anil Aggrawal is working as a professor of Forensic Medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi-110002. His E-mail is dr_anil@hotmail.com , and his website is HYPERLINK http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/electrical/314/iafm.html http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/electrical/314/iafm.html . His address for correspondence is S-299 Greater Kailash-1, New Delhi-110048: Phone: 6465460

Forensic Toxicology FOR FEBRUARY 2001 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY STROPHANTHUS -Dr. Anil Aggrawal “Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a young man today. What happened to him? Please tell me.” “Good morning Tarun. The name of this young man is Radhakant, and he died in the hospital today morning. Yesterday evening he was sitting in his room reading a book, when suddenly he felt a stinging pain in his neck. Quite instinctively he groped his neck, and found a little needle like thing sticking out of the back of his neck. He tried to take it out, but could take out only a part. The rest broke inside his neck. When he examined it, he found it to be a dart, much similar to the one with which children play. He thought that some child had played a prank with him, and gave it no further notice.” “Was he sitting with his neck to the window?” “Yes, that’s right. That’s how he was sitting. I must tell you that he lives on the ground floor flat, and the window of his room opens out on the road, when all kinds of person pass about. He actually glanced out of his window immediately after the incident, but could not see anybody around. There were two or three people walking about quite nonchalantly, and he did not think any of them had played that mischief. So he went back to his chair and continued with his book. After some time, he felt some heaviness in his chest. His breathing became labored, and what was most conspicuous to him was that his heart started pounding on his chest very heavily. He also had diarrhea, fatigue and marked muscular weakness. He telephoned his doctor, who advised him to come to his clinic right away. In the clinic, the doctors tried to diagnose the disease, but couldn’t. Today morning he expired. The police has seized his body and has handed it over to me. Radhakant was only 23 years old, and he had no reason to die at such a young age. Obviously there is something black at the bottom, and it is my duty to tell the police how he has died.” “So what do you make of this death doctor?” “Tarun. I have studied his symptoms very carefully. I also took into account the fact that he had been shot by a dart. When I conducted the autopsy, the first thing I did was to dissect his neck, and can you imagine what I found?” “What doctor?” “Tarun, I found this conical tip, which as you can very well see is almost two cm long and is hollow from the inside. It can hold almost 10 cc of fluid in it. Most of the fluid that was inside it has already diffused into Radhakant’s neck muscles, and presumably caused his death, but some fluid is still remaining inside. I tested it chemically and I found that it was strophanthin .” “Strophanthin! Never heard of this as a poison. Doctor, why don’t we start from the beginning? I can follow your story much better that way.” “Sure. Strophanthin is a glucoside that comes from plants of genus Strophanthus.....” Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but what exactly is a glucoside?” “Let us first see what a glycoside is. You can visualize a glycoside molecule rather like two children holding hands together, with each child representing an independent molecule. If you visualize them as a boy and a girl, it is still better, as the two molecules are rather different in properties. One is a sugar molecule, such as glucose, fructose, galactose or mannose. The other is generally a non-sugar molecule. It is commonly referred to as an aglycone or a genin . When the two are chemically combined, they give rise to a new molecule known as glycoside. On hydrolysis the two portions of the molecule may be made to separate into the respective sugar and a non-sugar portions. It is rather like separating the hands of the boy and the girl. Glycosides are mostly naturally occurring and include vegetable pigments, tannins and even drugs such as digitalis. Glycosides are generally named according to the non-sugar portion which they yield on hydrolysis. For instance, a glycoside which has a stimulating effect on the heart is known as the cardiac glycoside and a glycoside which yields hydrocyanic acid on hydrolysis is known as a cyanogenetic glycoside . Similarly there are other kinds of glycosides such as Sterol glycosides and so on. When the sugar portion of the glycoside is glucose, it is better known as a glucoside . Since strophanthin releases a glucose molecule on hydrolysis, we call it a glucoside.” “Good. So you were telling me about the genus Strophanthus.” “Yes. Most common plants of this genus from which strophanthin comes are Strophanthus Kombé and Strophanthus hispidus . Strophanthus is a genus of ornamental and drug plants in the dogbane family ( Apocynaceae ), with more than 40 species of woody vines, shrubs, or small trees that are native to tropical Africa and Southeast Asia. The flower petals of some species are drawn out into long threads. The bark and seeds of some vinelike species contain strophanthin about which I told you just now. This poisonous substance has been used as an arrow poison by some aboriginal tribes. Strophanthus has a digitalis like action on the heart (Please see “ Death by Digitalis ” August 1999, Pp 22-24), and so in low doses can be used as a medicine too. Europeans got acquainted with the plant after botanist Sir John Kirke brushed his teeth one fateful morning. He was particularly interested in the poisonous weapons of the tribes and collected arrows in a bag, where he kept his personal belongings too such as his toothbrush. Presumably some of the strophanthin from the arrows got rubbed off onto his brush. When he brushed his teeth with that poisoned toothbrush that particular morning, he felt a strong heartbeat and concluded it had been because of the arrows! He brought these plants to Europe and was described as a new species by Oliver, of Kew, under the name of S. Kombé. In 1885, Sir Thomas Fraser of Edinburgh University extracted strophanthin from the seeds of this plant, and introduced it into medicine in 1890. He discovered its digitalis like action while studying African arrow poisons. The pharmacological actions are identical with those of digitalis, but more rapid and more transient: when a rapid stimulation of the heart is demanded, strophanthin may be injected intravenously and is to be preferred to digitalis, especially as there is less danger of a cumulative effect. Believed to have greater diuretic power, (i.e. one which can cause loss of water through increased urine formation), it is esteemed of greater value in cases complicated with dropsies. Dropsy, as you must be knowing is a condition in which excessive water accumulates in the body. Although widely used for treating heart problems earlier, now strophanthin has mostly been replaced by more sophisticated medicines.” “Doctor you said that Strophanthus belongs to Apocynaceae or the dogbane family. Can you tell something more about this family please?” “Sure. Dogbane family of is a family of flowering plants which belongs to the order Gentianales. It includes more than 150 genera and about 1,000 species of trees, shrubs, woody vines, and herbs, distributed primarily in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Members of the family have milky, often poisonous juice; smooth-margined leaves; and flowers in clusters (rarely solitary). The fruit may be berrylike or fleshy but usually is a dry pod that splits open at maturity, releasing many winged or tufted seeds. Garden ornamentals belonging to the family include periwinkle ( Vinca ), White Oleander ( Nerium odorum ), yellow oleander (Cerbera thevetia), frangipani (Plumeria), Natal plum (Carissa), and crepe jasmine (Tabernaemontana coronaria). Several of these plants are poisonous and of these, I have already talked to you about yellow oleander (please see “ Poisoning by yellow kaner ” September 1999 , Pp 44-46). Arrow poisons are obtained from many plants in the dogbane family.” “Doctor, please tell me something about the Strophanthus plant.” “Tarun, the name Strophanthus is derived from the Greek strophe (twisted or turned) and anthos (a flower), thus expressing the chief peculiarity of its appearance, the limb of the corolla being divided into five, long, tail-like segments. It appears as if the flower is twisted and hence the name. Curiously the Greek root strophe occurs in several of our commonly used English words, without us realizing it. It appears in words like “apostrophe” and “catastrophe”. The word apostrophe has a prefix “apo” meaning “away”. Thus apostrophe literally means “turning away”. You would surely know that it represents a mark where a letter or sound has been omitted or “turned away”. Catastrophe has a prefix “cata” meaning “down”. Thus it literally means “turning down”. The word refers to a disastrous event, which surely can be called a turning down event. In medical parlance too, the Greek root strophe makes its appearance at several places. It is seen in terms like cardianastrophe or cardio-anastrophe , both terms referring to a right-sided heart. It is a heart which has actually “turned away” from its natural position. Enstrophe refers to inversion (or turning away) of any part of the body. Phallanastrophe is an upward twisting of the penis, and strophocephalus refers to a child whose head is distorted or “twisted”.” “Oh, that is certainly interesting. Are there many varieties of the Strophanthus plant?” “Tarun, there are twenty-eight recognized species of this genus. These are found in Africa and Asia, extending to China, the East Indies and the Philippines. S. Kombé grows solely in East Africa. Its seeds are also known as Green Strophanthus. Another species is Strophanthus hispidus. Its seeds are known as Brown Strophanthus. Other species are S. glabra, S. Emini, S. courmontii, S. gratus (found in Sierra Leone), and S. Nicholsoni. The seeds are of all strophanthus species are lance-ovoid, flattened and obtusely-edged; from 7 to 20 mm. in length, about 4 mm. in breadth, and about 2 mm. in thickness; externally of a light fawn colour with a distinct greenish tinge, silky lustrous form, a dense coating of flat-lying hairs (S. Kombé) or light to dark brown, nearly smooth, and sparingly hairy (S. hispidus), bearing on one side a ridge running from about the centre to the summit. The taste of these seeds is very bitter. The strophanthins from different species were found to vary somewhat in chemical composition, and they are classified as follows: Strophanthin-K when obtained from S. Kombé, Strophanthin-G (also known as Ouabain) when obtained from S. gratus, Strophanthin-E when obtained from S. Emini, Strophanthin-H when obtained from S. hispidus. Some of these poisons closely resemble those of the genus Acocanthera, which are used for a similar purpose. Ouabaio tree belongs to the genus Acocanthera. Somalis of East Africa prepare their arrow poison from this tree. In 1888 Arnaud isolated ouabain from the roots and bark of the Ouabaio tree. Ouabain, which is identical with g-strophanthin, is unique among the cardiotonic glycosides in the ease with which it can be crystallized. This property led to its being adopted as the standard against which the activity of all other such substances could be measured. African native tribes have put these plants to use widely through the centuries. They obtained a thick liquid from its seeds, containing the poison. They dipped the end of the arrows in it, so they were able to kill an animal with these poisoned arrows. In Gaboon the poison is called inée, onayé, or onage.” “Do these plants contain other toxic products too?” “Besides Strophanthin, these plants also contain an alkaloid Inoeine, and fixed oil. Sulphuric acid, diluted with one-fifth of its volume of water, colours the endosperm, and sometimes the cotyledons, dark green which shows the presence of Strophanthin. Strophanthinum is a mixture of glucosides prepared from S. Kombé. It is a whitish, crystalline powder freely soluble in water and giving a green coloration with sulphuric acid. Warmed with dilute acids it is readily hydrolized into Strophanthidin and a sugar. In Germany the seeds of S. hispidus are preferred for making medicine because of their guaranteed purity. This plant when growing alone is in the form of a bush, but is usually found as a woody climber inhabiting the forests between the coasts and the centre of the African continent. It then reaches to the tops of the highest trees, coiling on the ground and hanging in festoons from tree to tree. The stem is several inches in diameter. The flowers are cream coloured, yellow at the base, purple-spotted above. The British, French and Swiss officially favour S. Kombé , while the United States Pharmacopoeia recognizes both. The seeds of all species of the genus possess hairs that have a characteristic, thickened base, somewhat like those of nux vomica seeds.” “Doctor, you told that the tribes prepare arrow poison from these plants. How do they do that?” “In preparing the arrow poison, the seeds, deprived of their hairs, are pounded to a pulp. This is not an easy job, because they can be powdered only with great difficulty. To make the task easy,t hey are sometimes bruised in an iron mortar with powdered glass. You would probably remember that almost the same is done with ratti seeds (Please see “ Poisoning by Ratti seeds ”, September 1997, Pp 43-45). After they are reduced to pulp, the adhesive sap of another plant is added, and the mixture smeared for 6 inches along the point of the arrow. Game wounded by such an arrow is said to be rarely able to move 100 yards, while the flesh can be eaten without bad effect.” “Doctor, are you sure Radhakant died because of Strophanthin poisoning?” “Absolutely! I have found concentrated strophanthin in the conical tip that has been recovered from his neck. The dart was most probably fired from a blowgun. Thus we are actually looking for a person, who is adept at blowing darts from a blowgun, and who probably knows about poisonous plants too much. I told these findings to the police, and they swung in action. Among Radhakant’s friends was one named Kamlesh, who was a dart champion during his college days. He has done his honors in Botany. On the face of it, it appeared that he was our man. On detailed enquiry it turned out that both of them were in love with a common girl Sudha. Thus Kamlesh had good motive to eliminate Radhakant. The police have raided his house and have recovered several types of blowguns from his house. On his backyard he had grown several Strophanthus plants. The police had no difficulty recognizing them, as I had given them the exact description. The police even recovered some darts which had strophanthin on their tip. It seems almost certain that it was Kamlesh, who killed Radhakant by this extraordinary method.” “That is amazing doctor. Without your clever deduction it would have been impossible to say how Radhakant died and Kamlesh may have gone scot-free. What are you going to tell me next time?” “Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison – Aspirin.” **************** (To protect the identity of the individuals, their names, as well as the various dates of occurrence have been changed) **************** (Dr Anil Aggrawal is working as a professor of Forensic Medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi-110002. His E-mail is dr_anil@hotmail.com , and his website is http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/simak/76/default.html . His address for correspondence is S-299 Greater Kailash-1, New Delhi-110048: Phone: 6465460

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-24 CLUES FROM PUTREFACTION I had a tremendous response for my article on abrasions, published in the Feb,1995 issue of Crime & Detective. However I keep receiving stray requests from interested readers to publish stories of their interest in our forthcoming issues. One of the most interesting letters I received this month is from Ashok Rawat of Sector-J, Rail Nagar, Lucknow, who has sent me an interesting clipping from the Times of India of Feb.13, 1995. I will narrate the story briefly for the benefit of our readers. One Ms Meera Juneja, a 47 year old single woman was living alone in Sector 11, Noida. She was the daughter of a former UN official. In December 1994, she reportedly told her parents that she was going to Kanpur to take her LLB examinations. Her father visited her Noida house on January 8,1995, but the door was locked and a milk packet was lying outside the door. Perhaps her father thought that she had left for Kanpur, so he returned. However when he visited Kanpur in February and checked up with his relatives, he found that she had not reached Kanpur. This worried him and he lodged a complaint with the police on February 6,1995. The police went to her house on February 10 and broke open the door. Inside, they found a highly decomposed body of Ms Juneja. The post mortem report said that she had been dead for more than one month. This eased the investigations of the police very much. Mr. Rawat now wants to know how the doctor could say that she had been dead for more than a month. This is an interesting topic and it reminded me of an interesting case I was involved in about 3 years back. I thought that in this instalment I must share that experience with my readers. After reading this true story, much of the mystery surrounding Ms Juneja's death will also become clear. But before I dwell on this story, I must thank my readers for sending me such interesting stories and clippings. And thanks Rawat very much, for sending this interesting clipping. Please keep sending me such clippings for the benefit of all our readers. On 29 July, 1992, the dead body of 67 year old Bankelal was found in a secluded spot outside the city. It was quite decomposed and putrefied. He was a millionaire but did not have any child. He used to live in his palatial house along with his 64 year old wife Ramadevi. She was healthy and not suffering from any disease. On 15th July, Bankelal left his city for Madras to finalize an important business deal. He had to return to his house on 28 July. He did not leave any forwarding address, as it was not of any use. Going away from his house was normal for him and his wife had become used to it. Some interesting events occurred after he left the house. On 22nd July, his wife Ramadevi suffered a massive heart attack and expired. So when Bankelal did not return on 28th there was no one to worry about him. His body was accidentally found the next day by some passers-by. When the police brought the body to me for post-mortem, the first and foremost thing they wanted to know from me was the time of his death. This is normally necessary in all cases of murder, but in this particular case this question assumed a highly significant role. I will explain that in a moment. But before I say anything I would like to add that this case is highly similar to the case of Ms. Juneja referred to earlier. In both cases the time of death was calculated using the putrefactive changes found in the dead body. Ramadevi had a greedy brother Bihari, who lived alone. He had had a tiff with his wife long back, and was now living separately from her. Bankelal also had two brothers. They were married and were living a decent life with their respective families. Since Bankelal had no child, and he had died intestate (without a will), the property which amounted to millions of Rupees should have gone to Banke's brothers. But Ramadevi's brother Bihari contacted the best lawyers and came up with an interesting legal point. If a person dies intestate, the first right of inheritance is of his wife and children. If the wife is already dead, and their are no children,(as was the case with Banke), then the right passes on to the next legal heirs which are the brothers and sisters of the deceased. In Banke's case, his wife Ramadevi was alive till 22nd July. Now if Banke had died before 22nd July, the property automatically passes to Ramadevi, even if she is unaware of his death. Banke's brothers are automatically cut off from his property. Now if Ramadevi dies, the property passes the her legal heirs, which is only Bihari. But the situation changes dramatically if Banke had died after 22nd. On 22nd Ramadevi died. Now suppose Banke died on 25th. What is the legal situation. On 25th the only living heirs of Banke are his two brothers. And thus the property should pass on to them. In this situation, Bihari does not get anything. Bihari's lawyers told him that he could cash in on this confusion. So Bihari gave an application in the court saying that the property be passed to him, because Banke had died before 22nd July. Of course there was no reason to assume that he had died before 22nd, but Bihari said it because this situation suited him. The police now wanted to know from me if I could solve this case. In this case I took the help of putrefactive changes which I found on Banke's body. Let me tell you briefly what putrefactive changes are. When a person dies, his body can no longer defend itself against the bacteria - both inside and outside his body. Our environment is full of millions of bacteria although we can not see them. If they could have their way, they would invade our body immediately. But the defence mechanisms of our body keep them at bay. After death they attack the body both from outside and within and cause it to deteriorate. By their actions on the body tissues they form a gas called hydrogen sulphide. When eggs get rotten, same gas is liberated. The peculiar smell of rotten eggs is due the hydrogen sulphide only. This gas interacts with the haemoglobin present within the red blood cells, and forms a greenish coloured compound sulphmethaemoglobin. This compound is greenish black in colour. Because of this the body assumes a greenish colour. The first part of body to become green is the right lower side of abdomen. This colour appears 12 to 24 hours after death. Thus if we see the greenish discolouration of the right lower side of the abdomen in a dead body, we can say that the person must have been dead for at least 12-24 hours. In the next 24 hours i.e. after 36 to 48 hours after death, the whole body turns greenish-black. Around the same time another peculiar change appears in the dead body. It is called marbling. In this change several parts of the body such as legs, arms, shoulders and chest show long tortuous greenish coloured streaks (reproduce fig 2.7 on page 60 here). These streaks are nothing but veins, which are stained by the sulpmethaemoglobin produced within the body. After death, the red blood cells break down, and haemoglobin from them is released. This haemoglobin combines with hydrogen sulphide gas and forms sulphmethaemoglobin as already explained. This compound then stains the vessels of the skin, in much the same way ink stains your hands. Thus the veins, which are normally invisible become visible as green streaks. Marbling begins in about 24 hours and is well pronounced in 36-48 hours. When I see pronounced marbling in a dead body, I can say that the person must have been dead for almost 36 to 48 hours! Another putrefactive change is the appearance of gases. When bacteria feed on body tissues, they release foul smelling gases. These gases collect beneath the tissues, and bloat the features of the dead person. The tongue may begin to protrude. The features may become so distorted that even close relatives find it hard to identify the dead body (reproduce fig. 2.8 on page 60 here). After about 36 hours, flies lay eggs around the natural orifices of the body such as nose, mouth, eyes, ears, anus and vagina. These places provide a safe nidus for the young ones of insects and they choose these places quite instinctively. In the next 24 hours, maggots come out of these eggs. These maggots look very much like miniature earthworms. Each maggot is of the size of a rice grain, and is seen wriggling leisurely. Thousands of such worms may be found wriggling all over the body. This is not a very pleasant sight, and most persons will begin to retch at such a sight. Only a forensic pathologist is well trained to stand such a ghastly sight. These maggots become pupa in the next 4-5 days, and in another 4-5 days, the pupa becomes the adult fly and flies away from the dead body. Thus we can roughly calculate the time of death from the appearance of these maggots. The following table will make the things a little bit clearer. 1. If we find eggs on the body the death could have been 36 hours before. 2. If we find maggots on the body, we add 24 hours (because maggots appear 24 hours after the eggs have been laid). Thus the time since death becomes 36+24=60 hours. This is about 22 d ays. In actual practice, we can never be so sure, so we take the time of death in such cases to be between 2 to 3 days. 3.If we find pupa (which looks like a grain of wheat), the death should have been about 6 days back. This is because maggots appear about 2 days after death, and become pupa in another 4 days. 4. If we find only the empty pupa shells, it means that pupa became the adult fly which escaped from the shell. This means that the death must have occurred about 10 days before. Three more changes help us determine the time since death. In about 3 days after death, the nails become loose. In 4 days teeth become loose in their sockets and in 5 days the brain matter becomes totally liquefied. Normally the brain matter is much like a jelly. In about 12 to 14 days, so much gases collect within the body, that the body cavities like abdomen burst open. This is called colliquative putrefaction. If the body has been thrown in river or sea where there are predators, they will feed upon the body. After sometime much of the body tissues disappear from the body. It is rather tricky to opine on the time of death in such cases but nevertheless, with experience, we can give a rough estimate of the time since death. In the photograph shown here, the person had been thrown in the sea for about 3 months (reproduce fig. 2.9 on page 61 here). As one can see, most of the body tissues have been devoured by the marine predators. Coming to our case. There was no colliquative putrefaction, so I could say with certainty that at least Banke had not been dead for 12 or more days. Since I did the post mortem on 30th July, I subtracted 12 days from that. This meant that Banke must have died after 18th July. Further, I found that many maggots were crawling around the anus of Bankelal. Thus clearly he had died more than 2 days before. Thus by noting just these two changes, I could say that Banke must have died between 18 and 28 July. There was no pupa on the body. Had I found a pupa on the body, I would have concluded that Banke had died about 6-7 days previously i.e. around 23-24 July. Thus clearly Banke had died after 23 July and Bihari's claim was wrong. Actually to refute Bihari's claim, only this much examination was necessary. But I could do better than that. Banke's teeth were loose, but his brain matter had not liquefied. Thus I could say that Banke had died 4-5 days before or between 25th and 26 July. This was a victory of Forensic medicine. The doctors in Ms Meera Juneja's case found out the time of death using these types of techniques only.

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE FEBRUARY 1997 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS ARSENIC - THE KING OF POISONS -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing with this dead body? He seems to have a terrible rash all over his body. Would you explain me what he died of?" "Good morning Tarun. This man is Radheyshyam who is a 56 year old man. His first wife died about 5 years back, and soon after he married again. He was complaining of loose motions and vomiting off an on for the last two years. The doctors suspected he was suffering from gastroenteritis, which as you know is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines. But what they could not find out was the cause of this inflammation. Consequently he was being given only the symptomatic treatment. Finally he succumbed yesterday to his illness." "Then why is he here? Why haven't his relatives taken him for cremation. You are a forensic pathologist, and if I understand it correctly, you only look after cases with legal implications. What possible legal implication could be involved in this case." "Y ou are right Tarun. I deal only with legal cases. But yesterday, the brother of this person, Harishyam has alleged that his brother's relations with his new wife Shanti were not good. He suspects some foul play in his death. Many times he saw her mixing some whitish powder in his food. When he enquired, she would say it was some medicine she had brought from the local doctor for his illness. Immediately after his brother's death he reported the matter to the police. In response to his complaint, the police has registered a case against Shanti, and has submitted the body to me for post-mortem. Now my job is to find out if he really died of gastroenteritis." "Doctor, it seems very confusing. Just now you said that he did die of gastroenteritis. His symptoms were that of gastroenteritis, and he was getting treatment for it. Then what else could he die of?" "On the face of it, it does appear that he died of gastroenteritis, but there could be foul play as well. You yourself remarked over the rash he has all over the body. Well, in gastroenteritis one does not get rash over the body." "Then he might be having some concomitant skin disease, isn't it?" "Could be. But a more likely explanation could be arsenic poisoning, especially as Harishyam repeatedly saw Shanti mixing some white powder in his brother's food." "You mean Shanti was giving him arsenic, because of which he developed gastro-enteritis like symptoms and also the rash?" "Yes, that's what I mean Tarun. But I must tell you that pure metallic arsenic is seldom poisonous. It is its white colored salt Arsenious oxide, known in the vernacular as Sankhya or Somalkhar which is poisonous. It is this salt which is often loosely referred to as arsenic. When a chemist talks of arsenic, it is the pure arsenic, but when a toxicologist or a pathologist like me talks of arsenic, he is probably referring to arsenious oxide. We sometimes refer to it as white arsenic also, because of its white color" "Arsenic certainly seems an interesting poison. Please tell me more about it doctor." "Tarun, arsenic is a metallic poison known since ancient times. An eighth century Arab alchemist Geber produced arsenious oxide, from realgar, a naturally occurring red colored ore of arsenic found in lead and iron mining, and thus made available to the humanity one of the most cruel, deadly and widely administered poisons. In Imperial Rome a form of arsenic was used as a poison to such an extent, that kings, queens, and other important court officials regularly employed official food-tasters! It has been a favorite with the poisoners because it fulfills many of the criteria of an ideal homicidal poison..." "I beg your pardon? Do you mean to say that there are things like ideal homicidal poisons? What in the world does this term mean? How can anything as sinister as poison be ideal?" "Tarun, there not only are ideal homicidal poisons, but ideal suicidal poisons too. You see, there are several poisons in this world, but not all can be used homicidally or for suicide. Only certain poisons are ideally suited for these purposes. Poisons which suit well for these purposes are known as ideal poisons." "It is still not very clear to me. Would you please explain with some examples?" "Sure. Let us talk about homicidal poisons first. A bitter poison, like strychnine, can obviously not be given with homicidal intent. The victim would immediately spit it out. Thus a homicidal poison must be tasteless. Similarly a poison which is colored can not be given. Copper sulphate is poisonous, but it is blue colored. If a killer mixes it in water or milk, it will render these liquids blue, and the victim would not drink it. Thus a homicidal poison should be colorless too. There are several other criteria which have to be fulfilled as well before a poison qualifies as an ideal homicidal poison. It should be easily available, fatal in only a small quantity and symptoms of both acute and chronic poisoning must mimic natural diseases..." "Why should this be so?" "Because then the public at large would think that the person died of that natural disease whose symptoms the poisoning mimics, and the killer would go scot free. Arsenic qualifies well in all the above criteria. Symptoms due to its poisoning mimic natural diseases. While acute arsenic poisoning resembles gastro-enteritis, chronic arsenic poisoning presents a combined picture of stomach upsets, peripheral neuritis and dermatitis..." "Sorry to interrupt you doctor. You have introduced some new terms which I don't understand. What in the world is meant by acute and chronic arsenic poisoning?" "Tarun when a large dose of a poison is given in one go, killing the victim within minutes, it is called acute poisoning. On the other hand when small doses of a poison are given over a long period of time, typically over years, it is called chronic poisoning. If a wife wants to kill her husband, it would be very easy for her to mix sublethal doses of a poison in his food over a long period of time. By sublethal dose, I mean a quantity of poison which is not enough to kill the victim in one dose. The hapless husband would die in the end after a few years. In this case he would be said to have died of chronic poisoning." "oh, I see. So you were telling me about the criteria of an ideal homicidal poison." "Yes, I was telling you that the effects of arsenic poisoning resemble natural diseases. Its effects are cumulative, so the poisoner does not have to rely on one large, fatal dose; he can give it little and often, thereby weakening his victim by stages before delivering the fatal dose. An ideal homicidal poison should be undetectable in the dead body. About one and a half century back, arsenic fulfilled this criteria as well, but no more now. Before 1836, it was impossible to detect it in the body organs. All these facts made it the poisoner's ideal choice. So commonly and successfully was it used for homicidal poisoning that once it was variously referred to as king of poisons or poison of poisons. Since many people used it to do away with rich old uncles and aunts, it became known in France as poudre de succession, or "inheritance powder". The history of crime is replete with cases of homicidal poisonings by arsenic. Arsenic was ostensibly bought for killing rats, but it was often used for homicidal purposes. Women purchased it to kill rats; the rat in most cases used to be the husband!" "Funny joke! What about ideal suicidal poisons?" "A person who is going to commit suicide with poison, probably wouldn't worry about its color or even taste. He wouldn't be bothered with taking large doses too. He would be more concerned about the pain the poison is likely to produce. He needs a poison which produces minimum discomfort, and produces death or at least sleep within minutes, so his agony is lessened. Sulfuric acid is a deadly poison, but it would kill rather slowly; in about 12-24 hours. Moreover it is a strong corrosive producing severe burning pain in the mouth and throat. A potential suicide may be interested in death, but he probably wants a quieter death. So Sulfuric acid is not an ideal suicidal poison. Barbiturates or sleeping pills on the other hand are ideal suicidal poisons, because they would put a person rapidly to sleep, and then to death. There are no unpleasant symptoms." "Oh I see. While talking about arsenic you mentioned the year 1836. What happened in that year?" "In that year a successful test for arsenic was developed for the first time. It was called the Marsh test and it ultimately brought about its downfall as an extremely successful homicidal poison. One quality of arsenic makes it a very poor candidate as a homicidal poison; it can be detected in the dead body, virtually years after the body has been buried. Thus the poisoner leaves a permanent record of his deed in the dead body... "But how can anyone detect the poison in the body, once it has been buried?" "There are laws in all countries which allow the law enforcement agencies to unearth or exhume the body, if strong suspicion develops against some person later on. There have been cases where the bodies have been exhumed as late as 3-4 years after death, and arsenic has been detected in their bones. An ideal homicidal poison should immediately disintegrate after doing its job. Before 1836, this peculiar property of arsenic did not cause any problems to the poisoners because there was no test for arsenic in the first place. With the development of Marsh test, this property assumed paramount importance and it rapidly fell into disfavor." "So before the development of Marsh test, all the cases of poisoning must be going undetected?" "Yes! Many celebrated cases are on record when the suspected poisoner went Scot Free merely because of the inability of the chemists of those times to detect it in a dead body. In fact tests weren't available for any poison. The only reliable test was to feed the remains of the poison to an animal and see if it died. So desperate was public that Henry Fielding (1707-1754), a celebrated English novelist clamored in despair for some way to make poison visible so that one could hang the poisoner. That was in the year 1740. This was in connection with a case in which a widow was accused by neighbors of having poisoned her husband. But no poison was found in the widow's house, nor could it be proved that she had ever purchased poison. The only thing left, therefore, was to show that the corpse had poison in it. When Fielding appealed to the doctors, they answered that there was no way to do this. The widow had to be acquitted" "And then came the Marsh test"? "Marsh test came much later. Many interesting things happened before that. One of the most celebrated cases of arsenic poisoning occurred in 1752, when a 31-year old spinster Mary Blandy murdered her father with arsenic. Her court appearance was the first trial for murder by poison at which medical evidence was called in regard to the cause of death. Dr. Anthony Addington did not possess the knowledge to analyze the victim's organs for poison, nor was he able to use chemical tests to prove that the powder Mary used was arsenic. Nevertheless, on the basis of simple comparison he convinced the court that the powder was arsenic, and Mary Blandy was convicted and sentenced to death." "How were those comparisons made?" "Mary Blandy mixed white arsenic in gruel and gave it to her father. She wanted to kill him, because he was not agreeing for her marriage with someone she loved. Two days after eating the gruel, Mr. Blandy fell seriously ill. Some of the gruel left over was eaten by the charwoman and she was violently sick too. A maid also ate some of it, and she also fell sick. Because of this peculiar chain of events, they became suspicious and examined the pan used to prepare the gruel and saw a white sediment at the bottom. They locked up the pan and next day handed it over to the doctor." "And he compared that sediment with a known sample of arsenious oxide, and found them to be similar?" "Exactly. In today's parlance they would be called physical tests. He believed the sediment on the pan to be white arsenic because it had a milky whiteness, it was gritty and almost insipid. When put in cold water, part of it swam on the surface, but the greater part sank to the bottom and remained there undissolved. Arsenious oxide behaves in exactly the same way. When thrown on red-hot iron it did not burn, but sublimated, i.e. it rose in thick white fumes. These fumes had the stench of garlic. To be sure he did perform some simple chemical tests but they were also comparative in nature. This means that he conducted some chemical tests both on the sediment and on a known sample of arsenious oxide, and both gave similar looking reactions. The court accepted these tests- the first time any court accepted a scientific evidence in a case of arsenic poisoning- and sentenced Mary Blandy to death." "That certainly is interesting! I mean science ultimately catching up with the poisoners." "Twenty-three years after Mary was hanged, in 1775, a Swedish chemist made an important discovery. Karl Wilhelm Scheele found that he could change arsenious oxide to arsenious acid by treating it with nitric acid. Arsenious acid in turn when treated with zinc produced arsine, a highly poisonous gas. This epoch making work had the germs from which a reasonably good test for arsenic could be developed. This work was actively pursued by scientists in Germany, but the break-through was provided by an English chemist James Marsh. In 1836, he published a method for converting arsenic in body tissues and fluids into arsine gas, which was quite similar to that of Scheele. But the interesting thing was that Marsh was able to convert arsine back to metallic arsenic which could be shown to the court. It is much easier for a non-technical person like a judge to convict a criminal when he can actually be shown the poison which killed the victim." "How did Marsh convert arsine to metallic arsenic?" "As the gas escaped, the gas was ignited, and Marsh held a cold porcelain bowl against the flame. The metallic arsenic precipitated on the porcelain in the form of a black deposit. The process was unbelievably sensitive, making it possible to detect as little as a fiftieth of a milligram of arsenic! The Marsh test revolutionized the investigation of poisoning, and it was quickly taken up by crime scientists." "After the development of the Marsh test it must have become a lot easier for crime scientists to prove the presence of arsenic in a dead body?" "Yes surely. In 1840, the Marsh test was used in the celebrated Lafarge poisoning case. In January of that year Charles Lafarge, a minor French industrialist, died of suspected poisoning at his home in Le Glandier. Arsenious acid was found in his stomach, and it became known that his wife, Marie, had bought arsenic as rat-poison. She was arrested and sent for trial. The application of new scientific methods proved futile at first. When the Marsh Test was applied to corroborate earlier findings of arsenic by traditional methods, the results proved negative. The defence was elated, but the elation was short-lived, as the experts declared that the test worked better on organs other than the stomach. Exhumation of Lafarge's body was carried out for the purpose of retrieving these other organs for testing. Famous French toxicologist Dr. Mathieu Orfila was summoned by the court. He applied the Marsh test correctly and found arsenic in Lafarge's body. This case stirred up so much controversy in France, that the entire country was divided into Pro-Marie and anti-Marie factions. The case ended up in Marie being delivered the sentence of life imprisonment. Marie served 10 years of sentence. She was released by Napoleon III in 1850, and she died the following year still declaring her innocence! "Every killer does assert he is innocent. So arsenic has really been responsible for many killings. Good that the scientists ultimately came up with a good test for arsenic. Tell me doctor, what are your conclusions regarding this man Radheshyam?" "When his body was brought to me, I immediately suspected chronic arsenic poisoning..." "Really? What made you think so?" "The fact that his relations were not good with his wife, and that he was complaining of loose motions and vomiting for the last two years. The doctors were not able to find out a cause for his gastroenteritis. This is a classic picture of chronic arsenic poisoning, when the wife is stealthily mixing it in her husband's food. To top it all, she was often seen mixing some white powder in his food. But what clinched the diagnosis was the examination of his dead body. I am now positive he died of chronic arsenic poisoning." "How did you arrive at this conclusion?" "One of the landmark symptoms of chronic arsenic poisoning are the skin changes. The most important skin changes are, first, pigmentation and second hyperkeratosis, which is nothing but a technical term for thickening of the skin. If arsenic is given continuously for some years, even skin cancer may develop. You yourself remarked on the rash this person has all over his body. This rash is nothing but pigmentation. As you can see, this is finely mottled, brown rash, presenting a picture as if colored rain drops splashed his body. In fact this rash is often called "raindrop rash". This rash resembles measles rash in many ways. You can also see that his palms and soles are thickened. This is the hyperkeratotic change, another classical sign of chronic arsenic poisoning. In fact, even if I hadn't been told anything, just this change would have brought arsenic poisoning to my mind. You can also see that he has an irregular thickening of nails which is another good sign of chronic arsenic poisoning. The final clinching fact was the chemical test. when I applied Marsh test to his internal organs like liver, spleen and kidneys, arsenic was found to be present in abnormally high amounts. It is certain that he died of chronic arsenic poisoning. Let us phone the police and tell them about it." "Yes, certainly we should. Thank you doctor for giving me such interesting information on arsenic. What are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time I shall tell you about Spanish Fly, which as you shall see has acquired a very notorious reputation. "

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-25 DEATH BY STRANGULATION I had a tremendous response for my article " Death by air injection" published in the March,1995 issue of Crime & Detective. Many readers have complained that their clippings, stories and ideas which they have sent to me with great hope have not found their way in my subsequent pieces. I would request all such readers to be patient with me. I am receiving such a heavy mail, that it is not possible for me to include all the letters. Nevertheless I shall try to include as many letters as possible. Needless to say, more useful contributions find their place earlier. One of the best responses that I got for my above named article was from Dr. Ritu Gupta from Nizamuddin, New Delhi. She has sent me a photocopy of page 153 from a book called "Murder What Dunit?" The book is written by JHH Gaute & Robin Odell. It describes a remarkable case in which a doctor killed his patient by air injection. It was a mercy killing. In December 1949, one Dr. Hermann Sander attended one of the patients, Mrs. Abbie Borroto, who was dying of cancer in a New Hampshire hospital. In the presence of a nurse he took a hypodermic syringe and injected 40 cc of air into a vein in the woman's arm. A death certificate was made out giving cancer of large intestine as the cause of death, and the body was duly buried. Some days after the funeral Dr. Sander completed the dead woman's medical record by making a detailed entry of her final treatment, including the injection of air. This virtual confession to mercy killing was spotted by a hospital records clerk who reported it. In due course the newspapers learned of the story, and a great controversy blew up, with the doctor being applauded for an act of mercy killing. Dr. Sander, having refused to reconsider the statement made on his patient's record, was brought to trial in what became known world-wide as `The Mercy Killing Trial'. Thankfully enough, the doctor was found not guilty. A remarkable story indeed on death by air injection. I had thought that killings by air injections could be done only by criminals with criminal intentions. But here is a remarkable case in which a doctor having an exalted place in society killed his patient with air injection. It was done with good intention however. The doctor couldn't see the pain of the patient. He could neither cure her disease, nor lessen her pain. So he deemed it fit to end her life. However whether he did it right or not remains a controversial topic. Readers may send their views on this. Thank you Ritu, for sending us such a nice story related to death by air injection. Readers may keep sending similar stories, newsclippings or other material of interest to me for inclusion in our forthcoming issues. This time I am going to tell you about a very interesting case which I solved in November 1993. On 16th November, 1993, I was called by the police to a house in Vasant Vihar, where they had found the dead body of an 18 year old girl Rajni. Rajni was a student of B.Com. in Delhi University. Her parents were simple middle class people. She had a younger brother, a 15 year old boy called Raju. Rajni was in love with a boy Pramod, who was her colleague in the college. Everybody knew about their love-affair. Her parents were however very much against this love-affair, and had advised their daughter to terminate this affair but she would not listen. Pramod came from a good family, but his company was not good. There were rumors in the campus, that they even had sexual relations. However Rajni had confided everything to Sarita, her best friend. During the police investigations later on, Sarita told the police that Rajni had no sexual relations with Pramod. However only a few days back Rajni had told her that lately Pramod was insisting to start sexual relations with her, but as she was against such things before marriage, she had refuted his advances. Anyway she had not lost her love for Pramod. It was just that she did not want to have sexual relations with him before marriage. On 15th November, 1993 Rajni came home from college at the usual time of 5 pm. She had her evening cup of tea, and then went to meet her friends. She came back again at about 8 pm, had her dinner and went to her room. At about 10 pm, her father heard some voices from her room. Out of curiosity he went to her room, and knocked at the door. Rajni opened the door after an inordinate delay. Her father however saw someone run away from the window. He immediately rushed to the window and saw a shadow rapidly moving away from the house. Her father became very furious with Rajni and asked who had come to meet her. She wouldn't say anything, but his father knew it was Pramod. He woke up his wife and told everything to her. Rajni's mother became very furious and slapped Rajni twice. She also shouted at Rajni and said that she was ruining the name of the family. This drama went up to 11.30 pm after which Rajni's parents left the room. When in the morning, her parents saw the room still closed at 8 am, they became very worried and knocked at the door. When they couldn't get an answer, they called their neighbors. Someone broke open the door. To everyone's horror, Rajni was found dead in her bed with a scarf tied around her neck. Her skirt was folded up showing her thighs and even her undergarments. Her face was congested. The bedclothing had been thrown back in a manner consistent with getting out of bed. There were no signs of any struggle. However I could notice a flower pot which had tipped down. Rajni was dressed in a nightgown. Some bleeding had occurred from her nose which made a stain on the bedding. The tongue was protruded. From the circumstances, it appeared that someone had strangulated her. Rajni's parents immediately accused Pramod. Her father told the police that he had indeed visited his daughter the previous night, and had entered their house through the drainage pipe. He said that when he caught him in some dastardly act, he ran away from the house. His contention was that Pramod came again after sometime, and killed her. Sarita's statement that lately Pramod was demanding sexual intercourse from her, seemed to corroborate the story that Pramod had indeed killed her. It was quite possible that Pramod came back again after some time, demanded sexual intercourse from Rajni, and when she wouldn't relent, he strangulated her out of frustration. When Pramod was contacted and told that Rajni had died, he seemed perturbed. However he could not give satisfactory answer as to where he was on the night of 15 Nov. Police swung in action and arrested Pramod even as he kept insisting about his innocence. It was at this stage that Rajni's dead body was brought to me for post-mortem. Here I would like to say a few facts about strangulation before we go on further. Strangulation is a kind of death in which the neck is compressed by a ligature. By and large strangulation points to homicide. Although one can commit suicide by strangulating himself, such cases are not very common. I generally take a case of strangulation to be homicidal in nature, unless proved otherwise. Many types of ligature have been used for strangulation. Cases of strangulation with such weird materials as electrical cables are not unknown (reproduce fig. 143 on page 402 here). Strangulation is of several different types. The cases in which some kind of ligature (such as a necktie, scarf, dhoti, or even an electrical cable as just mentioned) is used, go by the name ligature strangulation. However the neck could be constricted by other means too. For instance, one could simply use hands to constrict the neck of his victim. These cases go by the name throttling or manual strangulation ( From Latin manus, hand ). Manual strangulation can leave tell-tale fingernail marks and scratches (from nails of the assailant) on the neck (reproduce fig. 147 on page 411 here) . There might be signs of struggle too, such as bruising of the face (reproduce fig. 139 on page 397 here). The face is generally congested (engorged with blood), but it might be pale (reproduce fig. 141 on page 398 here). Strangulation can also be effected by compressing the victim's neck against the assailant's forearm. This form is known as mugging. When a victim is attacked from the back without warning, and strangled by grasping his throat or throwing a ligature over the neck and tightening it quickly, it is known as garrotting. It can overpower and kill even a healthy robust male without any struggle. Loss of consciousness is so rapid that the assailant is able single-handed, to tie the ligature with one or more turns. Garrotting, as a mode of execution, is practiced in Spain and Turkey. In Spain, the prisoner is seated with his back to a post, to which he is firmly secured. A metal collar is then applied to the neck and tightened. The apparatus may include a spike which is forced into the nape of the neck during the execution. The bowstring is used in Turkey. In our country, especially in the Northern regions, a very weird form of strangulation is used. This is known as Bansdola ( doing away with a bamboo). In this form of strangulation, the neck is compressed between two sticks or hard objects, usually bamboos, one being placed across the throat in front and another behind. These are strongly fastened at one end and a rope is passed at the other to bring the two bamboos together. The unfortunate victim is thus strangled to death. Sometimes, the throat is pressed by means of a bamboo or lathi placed across the front of the neck, the murderer standing with a foot on each end of the bamboo or lathi, thus squeezing the victim. There is another method of strangulation known as the palmar strangulation (reproduce fig 137 on page 393 here). In this method, both palms are so pressed over the nose and mouth that the victim can not breathe. In cases of strangulation, abrasions and bruises round about the ligature mark are quite common. These injuries are produced by the assailant's nails, and even by the victim's own nails during the struggle to pry the ligature away from his neck. Many times, the pattern of the ligature material is reflected very faithfully on the neck. The weave of a rope for instance can come very accurately on the neck and many times a victim can be apprehended from that. In the adjoining figures (reproduce figures 133 and 134 on page 391 here), the weave of the ligature material gave away the criminal. The criminal strangulated a young boy with a plastic twine, with a characteristic weave. This weave was faithfully reproduced on the neck of the victim. When the accused was finally apprehended, a plastic twine was recovered from his which had exactly the same weave as was found on the neck of the boy. This helped to nab the criminal very easily. Differentiating suicidal from homicidal strangulation however can be a very tough affair. In the given case, I found at my wit's end to decide whether I was dealing with a case of suicide or homicide. The pattern certainly seemed similar to homicide. It was quite possible that Pramod came back later in the night to press his demand for sexual intercourse, and when Rajni resisted he strangulated her with her own scarf. It was quite possible for him to do that. Police investigations revealed that lately he was moving in bad company. Rajni's upturned skirt showing her underclothings pointed to the fact that Pramod might indeed have tried to molest her. However the two things that caught my attention were relatively undisturbed state of the room and the position of the knot in front of the neck. If the death was as result of homicide, there should have been a struggle between the two. Rajni might have shouted, but nobody heard her cries in the night. Furthermore one would expect the furniture and other things in the room to be in a violently disturbed state. But everything seemed to be in order, save for a flower pot which might have tipped because of the carelessness of Rajni. In suicidal cases, mostly the knot is in the front. Further the scarf was applied with five turns, and there was a final tying of the free ends with a half-knot. This is the hallmark of self-strangulation. A killer generally makes only one turn around the knot, and more often than not he would merely tighten the ligature without actually tying it. A person committing suicide by strangulation would have to tie the knots. If he merely tightened the noose, he could not strangulate himself. The reason is not hard to find. First of all he would tighten the noose with his muscular effort. Before dying he would fall unconscious. The moment he would fall unconscious, his muscles would relax. He would not be able to keep the ligature tight. The ligature would loosen up and he will start breathing again. Thus if a person wants to commit suicide by strangulation, he would have to tie a knot, so that the grip is not loosened. Another interesting point was the presence of scarf round the neck of Rajni. If Pramod had killed Rajni by strangulation, why hadn't he taken away the ligature material (the scarf) with him? It is very natural for a killer to take away the ligature material from the scene of crime. No criminal wants to leave behind any incriminating piece of evidence. All these pieces of evidence led me to conclude that Rajni had actually committed suicide by strangulating herself. She had been severely scolded by both her parents the previous night. She was in a state of great turmoil otherwise too. Her love-affair was not seen in the proper light by her parents and this had disturbed her a lot. All this caused her to take that drastic step on that night. The police had faith in my findings and released Pramod. A few months later, Rajni's father confided in me that he had indeed found a suicide note in Rajni's drawer, in which she had stated that she was taking her life because her parents refused to acknowledge her love-affair. He had destroyed that suicide note because he wanted Pramod to go behind bars. In his opinion, Pramod was morally and ethically responsible for his daughter's death. This confession confirmed my conclusions in that case. I was very satisfied on that day, that forensic science could help save the life of an innocent young man.

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE NOVEMBER 1999 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY CICUTOXIN -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a middle aged man today. What happened to him? Please tell me.” “Good morning Tarun. The name of this man is Radhey and he is about 54 years old. He was a carpenter by profession and had been in good health till yesterday. Yesterday morning he went to catch some fish in a nearby lake, along with his friend Shyam. Both of them were very friendly. While they were fishing, a person by the name of Lal came there and offered some sweet potatoes to them. Sweet potatoes as you perhaps know are known as ShakkarKandi in Hindustani. Both of them ate some of it. Shyam however spat out after one bite, because he thought it was not tasting how it should be. Radhey took some lusty bites from it, because he was hungry, and he liked its taste too. Half an hour after eating the plant, Radhey felt nauseated and dizzy and had stomach pains. Following this, he suddenly stiffened, fell on the ground unconscious, and made gross, irregular movements of his arms and legs. Shyam was alright by this time.” “Oh, from the story it appears to me, that Lal had given Radhey some poison mixed in sweet potatoes.” “Yeah, it sure does. The police has investigated into the background of Lal, and they have found that Lal held some grudge against Radhey. He wanted to settle an old score with him. So it does appear that Lal had a motive to give him some poison. The question is whether we can prove he gave him some poison or not. According to the only eye witness available - Shyam - the only thing Lal gave to Radhey was sweet potatoes. And sweet potatoes are not poisonous. So the police is going to have a tough time in the court proving anything against Lal. Sure enough they are banking heavily on my investigation.” “So what have you found doctor?” “Let me complete my story first. About one and a half hour after eating the sweet potatoes, Radhey was admitted to a hospital emergency room. On the way to the hospital, he was reported to have had four convulsions. I have asked the doctors who treated Radhey, about his condition when they first saw him. They tell me that when he was brought to them - at about 10 am yesterday - he was comatosed, and was bluish all over. This bluishness is known as cyanosis in medical terminology.” “Oh, that is terrible!” “Yes. He was not responding to any painful stimuli, which means he was really in a deep coma. His blood pressure was normal, but his pulse was more than twice the normal- about 150 per minute. The normal rate as you know is about 72 per minute. His breathing was stertorous. He was perspiring extensively, drooling saliva from his mouth, and his parotid glands were markedly swollen. He alternately clenched and ground his teeth and made chewing movements. His tongue was bleeding from a left sided laceration. His arms and legs showed intermittent, coarse, uncoordinated, and restless movements. He had extreme but intermittent muscle spasms, in particular of the muscles of shoulder and neck, causing throwing back of the neck. The pupils of his eyes were markedly constricted. In fact so constricted were they, that the doctors told me they were like pin points. You know that normally the pupils have a diameter of about 4mm. In this case, they were smaller than half a mm. His eyes were red. The eyeballs protruded somewhat.” “Oh, Radhey must surely have died dreadfully. What did the doctors diagnose?” “They couldn’t know what had befallen Radhey. They gave some conservative treatment, but Radhey’s condition worsened and he expired yesterday night at about 10 pm, about 14 hours after having ingested those mysterious ‘sweet potatoes’.” “Doctor, how do you think Radhey must have died? I think Lal injected some poison in those sweet potatoes.” “He probably could have done that. But by listening to the history of this case, and after talking to the doctors, I can only think of one poison.” “What is that poison doctor. Please tell me. I am getting curious.” “Tarun, the symptoms are so peculiar that there could only have been one poison- Water hemlock.” “What? Water hemlock? Never heard of it as a poison. Could you tell me more about it please?” “Tarun, Water Hemlock is a member of the genus Cicuta, of the Umbelliferae family of plants. There are nine subspecies of Cicuta, and all are very poisonous. Cicuta virosa is the common European water hemlock, and Cicuta maculata and Cicuta douglasii are the varieties found in North America. These varieties are found in India also. Common eponyms for Cicuta are cowbane, five-finger root, snake weed, wild carrot, dead man’s fingers, poison parsnip, wild parsnip, beaver poison, muskrat weed, spotted hemlock, spotted cowbane, musquash root, false parsley, fever root, mockeel root, wild dill, spotted parsley and carotte à moreau. They are found in marshy sloughs and meadows and on the banks of streams. Cicuta plants are difficult plants to identify, which may explain why Radhey mistook them for sweet potatoes. In fact, they have been mistaken for many diverse edible plants such as artichokes, celery, sweet potatoes, sweet anise, and wild parsnip. Cicuta plants are difficult to identify in the early spring, when only the fleshy swollen roots, particularly toxic at this time, are present. Later in the year, the roots are less poisonous, but the leaves and stem then contain sufficient poison to prove fatal if ingested.” “Oh, I see. What is the poisonous substance present in these plants doctor?” “Cicutoxin. Chemically, it is a highly unsaturated higher alcohol. Its formula -if you care- is: HOCH₂ (CH₂)₂ (C≡C)₂ (CH=CH)₃ CH(OH)CH₂CH₂CH₃ There is another poison in these plants, and that is Oenanthotoxin. This is found in Cicuta virosa, and is actually an isomer of cicutoxin. It was first isolated by a scientist Boehm in 1876 and was crystallized by Clarke in 1949.” “Doctor, how do these poisons actually kill the person?” “Tarun, Cicutoxin belongs to a category of poisons known as cholinergic poisons. This name comes from a natural substance found in the nerve endings, acetylcholine. You may be surprised to know that although acetylcholine is normally found in nerve endings - in fact it is essential for muscle contraction - an excess of this substance can prove dangerous to human body. Many insecticides such as organophosphorus compounds also show cholinergic effects and prove poisonous because of that.” “Oh, I see. Please tell me more about these poisons doctor.” “Cholinergic poisons exhibit two main groups of symptoms. One are called muscarinic effects, because they resemble the symptoms caused by eating a poisonous mushroom Amanita muscaria. These symptoms include salivation, perspiration and constriction of pupils. In fact, the moment I heard these symptoms from the doctor, coupled with the information that Radhey had been given “sweet potatoes” by a potential foe, I came to the conclusion that he had been given the root of some plant of the Cicuta species. The second group of symptoms is called the nicotinic effects, because they include symptoms caused by nicotine, a very poisonous alkaloid found in tobacco. Main among these symptoms are muscle twitchings and convulsions.” “Doctor, we have all the circumstantial evidence that Lal gave some poisonous roots to Radhey, but how are you conclusively going to prove in the court that Lal indeed gave him this substance?” “Tarun, I have taken the stomach contents of Radhey and have done a chemical test on that. They have proved positive for Cicutoxin and Oenanthotoxin. This surely means he has been given Cicuta roots by Lal. I did not stop at that. I specifically asked the police to raid Lal’s house. They raided and found many more such roots. Here they are, and any botanist can tell to the court that they are roots of Cicuta plants. Do we need any more proof than that?” "Surely not doctor. That was very clever of you doctor. Without your clever deduction - especially your noticing the peculiar symptoms of Radhey at the time of his death, and your sound knowledge of botany- everybody would have thought he died of some mysterious natural disease. This was a most interesting discussion doctor. Tell me what are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison- Brodifacoum."

< Back To Main Page. LinkedIn X (Twitter) Facebook Copy link Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Volume 27 Number 1 ( January - June 2026) Contents Papers Posttraumatic Ischemic Brain Stroke After Sharp Neck Injury: A Case Report Based on Autopsy Ivan Tsranchev Pavel Timonov Stela Yancheva Kristina Hadzhieva Teodora Gudelova Mirena Sotirova Antoaneta Fasova Elizabet Dzhambazova Petar Uchikov 1. Medical University of Plovdiv, Republic of Bulgaria, Europe DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15743623 Read Can Lip Prints Change Overnight?: A Study of Lip Print Stability Across Day and Night as a Forensic Identification Tool Noor Hazfalinda Hamzah Khairul Osman Naakshectra Nadarajan Tham Jia Ci Nurhanis Khairuddin Muhammad Izhan Sabri Atikah Mohd Nasir Nur Mahiza Md Isa ¹⁻⁷ Forensic Science Program, Centre Diagnostic, Therapeutic and Investigative Studies (CODTIS), Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Bangi, Selangor D.E. , Malaysia ⁸ Department of Veterinary Pathology & Microbiology, Faculty of Medical Veterinary, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor D.E. , Malaysia DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15743496 Read

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