The potential use of the eye temperature decrease in determining the time of death in the early postmortem period:...

Area of Science:

• Forensic Science
• Veterinary Pathology
• Postmortem Physiology

Background:

• Accurate determination of the postmortem interval is crucial in forensic investigations.
• Current methods relying on core body temperature (rectal or muscle) can be unreliable during the early postmortem period due to a plateau phase.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the potential of eyeball and orbit soft tissue temperature measurements for estimating the early postmortem interval.
• To compare the cooling patterns of ocular tissues with those of muscles and rectum in pigs.

Main Methods:

• Continuous postmortem body temperature measurement in pigs.
• Computerized recording of cooling curves for eyeball (vitreous humor), orbit soft tissues, muscles, and rectum.
• Analysis focused on the initial 0.5 hours postmortem.

Main Results:

• Eyeball and orbit soft tissues exhibited a continuous temperature decrease without a plateau phase.
• Muscles and rectum showed a distinct plateau phase in their cooling curves.
• Absence of a plateau in ocular tissues suggests their utility for early postmortem interval estimation.

Conclusions:

• Eyeball temperature measurement is a promising alternative method for determining the time of death in the early postmortem period.
• Ocular cooling patterns differ significantly from muscle and rectal cooling, bypassing the unreliable plateau phase.
• This finding has implications for improving the accuracy of forensic time of death estimations.