Forensic science

Part of the beneath the surface of room nine

By Nikita Senior
 Introduction

• There are four things a pathologist can do to tell how long a dead body has been dead and they are...

• What is inside the stomach and the eye

• How stiff the body is

• How warm the body is

• The environment can tell a lot of information so can blood.

• So there is a little bit about what I am going to be talking about today.

How do forensic scientists know how long a corpse has
been dead?

Murder investigations often begin with a dead body. If they know how to examine a dead body & what

look for, a body can tell you a lot of information. Even though it can’t talk. A dead body can tell you...

who it is, when did they die & last of all, how they died. These are the key questions for a detective

hoping to catch & convict the criminal (or murderer.)Knowing the exact moment when a person died,

helps the police to trace their movements before they died, & can reveal who the last person to see

them alive was. Pathologists can examine four different things to estimate when a person died:

How stiff the body is:Once blood stops pumping through all of the muscles in our body, we
start to get stiff this is called rigor mortis. (say: rig - or - mor - tis.) It begins three hours after death.

Two days later the muscles start to soften up again.

How warm the body is: Living body’s have a constant temperature of 37.c ( 97.f .) After death the

body will cool down 1. per hour, until it is soon the same temperature as the room or area they’re in.

Pathologists need to know exactly where that person has been since they died. the reason why this is is

because...A body will cool down much faster under water.

What’s in the stomach: Did you know it can take more than thirty hours to fully digest a meal !
Food passes through the stomach after two hours then sit in the intestines for a while. After death the

body will stop digesting, so if pathologists find any food ( in the stomach ) they can guess the length of time

between the person last meal & their death.(using food!)

What’s in their eyeball: Did you know that each of your eyeballs contain a small amount of
potassium! It’s true, & did you also know that when you die the potassium in your eye will increase

at a steady rate.
 How do forensic scientists solve a crime
scene using blood?

• Everyone has different blood, you have 9 pints (5.1) of thick red, s ticky blood. After a crime scene

• blood is often left behind. Patterns are in hidden in the blood & can reveal how many people were

• involved, what weapons were used & what order things came in. Blood can also tell which blood

• belongs to which person involved in it. Some blood is so tiny that you can’t see it with the human eye,

• & can only been seen with special tools. Blood can tell even tell who started the fight, who held

• which weapon, where the victim was standing & how many times the victim was hit. Experts can

• normally tell the difference between blood from a bullet wound or a knife or baseball bat wound.

• Forensic scientists can also tell what weapons were used in the fight using the s hape of the blood.

• Take this for example...if the blood was pointy it would a knife or maybe glass, if they can’t tell by the

• shape thats when they use the patterns in the blood to find out what the victim got hit, shot or

• stabed with.

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 How do forensic scientists solve a crime
scene using insects?

• Some times the best information doesn’t come from the people involved, it comes from the world

• around us. crimes up to no good in the forest or any other bushy area will disturb the trees, insects

• & plants around them, leaving evidence behind. The name of a person who study’s blood is called a

• entomologist. These are the first things a entomologist would do once he or she went into the crime

• scene... first he or she would look for an insect to examine, then he or she will look at how old it is

• example pupa or larva. Did you know that there are different types of fly’s? well there is, & they are...

• bluebottle fly & the most common type of fly, the blow fly. Most crime scenes have a dead body, & the

• insects often like to hang around dead body’s, it gives the warmth they need, the food they need &

• a lot more than that.

 Conclusion
• I really hope you enjoyed these interesting facts on different ways to solve a crime. Maybe next

• time you hear of a crime it might make you think to yourself, I wonder what helped them solve the

• the crime.