Death Investigation of Diabetes Mellitus: Scene Investigation and Interrogation of Technology

Diabetes mellitus (DM) affects millions of Americans and is a common cause of death. The medical examiner/coroner (ME/C) may be called to investigate the death of a person with DM due to the possibility of a suicide, accident, or even homicide that relates to the treatment or lack of treatment of the disease. The ME/C can ellicit abundant circumstantial information from a death scene investigation and interrogation of devices such as glucometers, insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors, and insulin injector pens used for the management of diabetes. These devices contain stored information that can very powerfully assist the ME/C in determining the cause and manner of death. This article provides a review of DM treatment and common medical devices used in the treatment and management of DM, offers the ME/C some instruction for interrogating the devices on their own, and highlights the benefits of beholding the information contained within the devices. At the conclusion of this review, the reader should have an understanding of how these devices work, how the information they contain can be accessed, and how useful that information can be in death investigation.