If I were to perish from lets say, emersion hypothermia, and then my body is removed from that context to another location like a parking lot and dumped, how would the Medical Examiner be able to tell? Aside from wrinkly skin.

Basically how is exposure determined to be a cause of death?

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Don, you'll never get away with it!

Seriously, I'm no expert, but I imagine that a person who has cooled to death may lack blood in the extremities because the body tries to preserve the core temperature at the expense of the extremities.

Just a guess.

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As above, so below

If I read this right, you mean that the victim is held in water until they die, then taken out an placed in a dry area. If that's right, then it should be pretty obvious.

Prune fingers and other signs of being in water. If the person were to die in something like a walk in cooler, where the cause of death was exposure, but there was no actual immersion, then you'd need to look at the different types of Time of Death Indicators.

Lividity- When the heart stops, so does the blood. Mostly. It will actually pool to the lower parts of the body. After a fewEDIT: 6-12 hours. lividity becomes "fixed" This means the blood as basically clotted in the body and will no longer pool. When the investigators find the dead guy, they poke the lividity line. If it makes a void where touched, then fills back in, lividity is not yet fixed, and is a good indicator that TOD is less than 2 to 4 hours.
EDIT: Extreme cold produces a bright pink lividity. This could be a way to make it clear that the COD was not, for example a heart attack in the mall parking lot.

Liver Temp- Normal body temp is 98.6* F It will drop by a specific amount each hour after death. I don't have my book here, so I won't try to give the numbers. There are many factors that will affect this, mainly the temp at death, and the weather conditions at the location. If someone were to have a lower liver temp than the ambient air, then it would be safe to say there was something wrong.
EDIT: Body temp is no longer considered a good estimate, due mainly to those factors I mentioned. Body cooling has an "s" shaped curve, where it will drop for a bit, then level off for a while, then drop again. The link below explains it.

If lividity is not fixed, but the liver temp indicates death occurred 10 hours ago, somethings wrong.

Edit: Meant to mention Rigor, but it was for the best. I didn't have the times right at all. Total body stiffening happens after death, and can begin anywhere from 2 to 14 hours after death. The more muscles get used just prior to death, the faster it will come on. It didn't mention shivering specifically, but I think that would count as muscle use. That would mean that a person that dies from cold, the shivering could bring on rigor faster than if they were poisoned and dumped in a parking lot. (Strychnine not withstanding)

There may be other indicators as well. Capillary constrictions. As you get cold, your body will restrict bloodflow to the extremities in an effort to keep the core temp up. This might be something that could also set off a flag in an autopsy, but I'm not sure.

I've got some books at home that is a writer's guides to various murdery things. One was written by a real CSI, the other by a medical examiner. The purpose of the books is to teach budding writers how to describe things with enough accuracy to be passable, and there are whole sections on the various ways of clouding there TOD issue. If I forget, keep on me about it. I won't get home til about 8 AM your time.

What's the specific scenario you have in mind?

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

I did just find this:
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/forensicmedi.../timedeath.pdf

It's a 19 page PDF on determining time of death written by the Dept of Forensic Medicine at the Univ. on Dundee. I'm reading it now, but the first section is on cooling, and it discusses some of the things that need to be taken into account.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Organs don't all die at once, and each cause of death has a specific order for the organs to fail in. For example, if the liver or kidneys go first, blood chemistry gets seriously goofed up, but in different ways, whereas if the heart or lungs do, then there's practically no difference in the blood but a lack of oxygenated hemoglobin and a buildup of deoxygenated hemoglobin and dissolved carbon dioxide (carbonic acid). By going through a more complete list of determinors of the organs' order of failure, they then compare that with the known orders of failure for various causes of death.

One of the most easily visible signs of extreme hypothermia is the skin turning bluish and swelling. (This is not dependent on freezing; freezing causes frostbite instead.)

Just curiosity, honest. It would seem to me that "cooling" to death would leave little recognizible trauma.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Not all death would have to have trauma. But just because there is no visible trauma doesn't mean there won't be some indicators. It's just a matter of getting the ME to see them. "First rule of getting away with murder..." after all.

I thought the main point of your question would be how to disguise the method or time of death.

Actually, reading that paper gave me an idea on a way to fake a nearly fool proof suicide. I think.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Don,
See: http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/articl...00A0378808.php

Forensic diagnosis of death from cold. Mizukami H.; Shimizu K.; Shiono H.; Uezono T.; Sasaki M. Legal Medicine, Volume 1, Number 4, December 1999 , pp. 204-209(6)

Abstract;To clarify the forensic diagnosis of hypothermia, the postmortem changes in the bodies of 211 cases of hypothermia (partly including death from diseases) encountered between January 1990 and January 1999 were studied as follows: i) The rectal temperature had been measured in 83 cases in which the time after death was known relatively clearly, and the rate of decrease in the rectal temperature per hour was evaluated. The rate of decrease in the rectal temperature was. 2.3.+-.1.2.DEG.C., 2.7.+-.1.5.DEG.C. and 3.6.+-.1.9.DEG.C. per hour (mean.+-.SD) when the ambient temperature was .GEQ.0.DEG.C., 0.DEG.C.> to >-10.DEG.C. and -10.DEG.C..GEQ., respectively. ii) The color of blood collected from the right and left hearts was different in 43 (33.6%) of the 128 cases of death from cold that underwent inquest and in 20 (87.0%) of the 23 cases that underwent forensic autopsy. This color difference was useful for the diagnosis of fatal hypothermia. iii) Gastric or duodenal submucosal bleeding (Wishnewski's spots) was noted in 10 (43.5%) of the 23 cases that underwent forensic autopsy. iv) Paradoxical undressing was observed in 35 (21.3%) of the 164 cases that underwent inquest. (author abst.)

Search time approx 45 secs.

John the data miner

Wow, thank you Mr. D, thank you Tog.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

I know you are always in trouble with the moderators, I think this will be taking things a tad serious. I am sure everybody have their least favourate MOD, but please we need them to keep this forum running.

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This whole internet thing is probably not a passing fad.-Ronald Brak
While speech might be free, consequences cost.-Doodler

I wouldn't need elaborate hijinks M.

I live near San Francisco. And almost got myself banned.

Nice try.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

BigDon,

I frequently work at Royal Darwin Hospital in Australia's Northern Territory. The daytime temperature there changes little throughout the year, maybe 33C - 36C, with humidity varying between unbearable and utterly unbearable.

The Aborigine in-patients prefer to sit with their drip stands outside on the grass rather than stay on the air-conditioned wards where the air is cool and dry.

One of the pathologists there told me that they have actually had some Aborigines die of exposure on the wards. Imagine that!

clop

If I were to perish from lets say, emersion hypothermia, and then my body is removed from that context to another location like a parking lot and dumped, how would the Medical Examiner be able to tell? Aside from wrinkly skin.

Basically how is exposure determined to be a cause of death?

What's up, Don? Is Big Bad Boo's boyfriend causing you concern?

Actually Mr Jacks, Boo has the perfect boyfriend.

Well spoken, nicely educated and visiting his father in Singapore all summer.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Well, probably the best way to get away with the deed would be to make sure no one finds the body. No body, and all you have is a missing persons case. Of course with DNA testing and such it is getting harder and harder.
And for your next question, no, I am not a murderer. I am however fascinated in a purely theoretical sense. It's the same reason I love heist movies. The mechanization of crime is intriguing to me.

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