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Method for determining if a corpse has been frozen: measuring the activity of short-chain 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA
A Miras1, H Yapo-Ette, C Vianey-Saban
1Lyon Institute of Forensic Medicine, 12 Avenue Rockefeller, 69003 Lyon, France.
Forensic Science International
|December 14, 2001
Abstract:
Accidental deaths by exposure to the cold have figured in many publications, whereas the freezing of the corpse is not well known. The study which we have reported was motivated by an observation of homicide in which ignorance of the fact that the body had been frozen was responsible for an underestimation of the time since death. It proved that measuring the activity of short-chain 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (SCHAD) could reveal that the body had been frozen.