Determination of Time Since Death from Body Fluids

Estimation of time since death is an integral part of criminal investigation and has been investigated thoroughly through ages. On death, the cells of human body start to die and decomposition kicks in. Initially, the time since death can be determined using the changes in skin colour, rigidity, body reflex. Other features such as livor mortis, rigor mortis, algor mortis, mummification, adipocere can also reflect on the postmortem interval. Recently, in many studies’ amino acid and ionic concentration in body fluids such as vitreous humor, cerebrospinal fluid, pericardial fluid, synovial fluid has been explored as a method to find out the time since death. Similarly, the concentration of C-reactive protein (CRP) in blood is also an indicator of time since death. However, more research is required in this field so as to develop more reliable models for postmortem interval estimation.