1. The place where the body is found. When inspecting the place where the body is found, care should be taken to ascertain, if possible, whether or not the person died in that place, for most of the information to be obtained from an inspection. depends entirely upon the death having taken place in the spot examined. A hasty conclusion, therefore, regarding the place of death being the same as the place where the body is found, is to be avoided. In cases of very severe wounds, particularly of the head, jurors and even medical men are too apt to think that the injured person must have been instantly deprived of the power of volition and locomotion, and have died immediately. This is not always the case, for persons have been known to live for days after the most severe wounds of important organs, and to have retained their power of willing and moving to the last. Instances of this kind have already been noticed in Chapter V., and others can readily be found in works on medical jurisprudence. Even when the wounded person is too much injured to walk, he may have sufficient power to turn upon his face or back, and thus change the relative positions of the murderer and the murdered, so as to render valueless any inference to be drawn therefrom. If a severe wound of an important organ is accompanied by great hemorrhage, in general there can be no struggling or violent exertion AFTER the wound is inflicted. A careful examination of the place where the body is found and the place where the person died will often supply evidence to distinguish between homicidal, suicidal and accidental death, and the examination should be made bearing in mind these three kinds of death. Any peculiarity in the soil should be carefully noticed, and compared with any mud that may be found on the body or clothes of a su-pected person. Foot-prints near the body should be guarded from obliteration. The method usually recommended for ascertaining if a footprint was made with a particular boot is to make an impression with the boot near the one found, and compare the two. Placing the boot into the impression is not advisable, as doing so may destroy the print without giving any satisfactory evidence, and will not afford any means of comparing the nails, patches, etc., on the sole with the original impression. Some writers assert that the foot-print on the ground is generally smaller than the foot which made it, owing to the consistence of the soil, the shape of the foot, or the boot or shoe covering it, or the manner in which the foot was placed in walking. Sometimes it is said to be larger if on a light soil.1 But Prof. Tidy, who seems to have given this matter his usually close and careful attention, states foot-prints in sand or other material of fine and freely moveable particles, are usually smaller than the foot, and in clay, or other material not composed of fine and free particles, the impress is larger than the foot. An impress made by a person running is always smaller than that of the 12 Beck. 149. same person walking, and of the same person standing still will be larger than either.1 The direction of stains, position of weapons, etc., compared with the foot-prints, should be recorded. If a decomposed body is found in ice, or snow, the chances are that the person did not die from cold, but that after putrefaction commenced, the body was by some means brought from a warm place to where it was found." Suicides rarely choose a long, lingering and painful mode of death. 2. The position of the body.-The position of the body will sometimes indicate the mode of death, and will often afford evidence strongly corroborative of or adverse to its supposed or ascertained cause. For instance, a body found in an upright or sitting posture with a severe wound on the head would lead to the supposition that it had been placed in that position after death. But murderers have been known to purposely place their victims in positions calculated to indicate accidental or suicidal death. And, on the other side, persons dying from accident or by their own hands have been found in positions strongly suggestive of murder. An extraordinary case of this kind is on record. A prisoner hung himself by means of his cravat tied to the bars of his window, which was so low that he was almost in a sitting posture, and when found his hands were tied by a handker 1 Tidy, Vol. I. pp. 153, 154. 2 Tidy, Vol. II. p. 737. chief. This was undoubtedly a case of suicide. It was supposed he had tied his hands with his teeth. In cases of death by hanging, the posture of the body may be of considerable importance in distinguishing suicidal from homicidal hanging, but in the former it is not necessary that the body should have been totally suspended. Cases frequently occur where the bodies are found with the feet on the ground, kneeling, sitting, or even in a recumbent posture.1 The convict Greenwood, who hung himself in the Toronto gaol, some years ago, when found was hanging by a long towel from the bars of his cell window, and so close to the floor that he had to crouch in order to throw his weight on the towel. A convict named Switzer committed suicide by strangling himself with a small rope attached to the grating of his cell. He was found on his feet, but leaning forward far enough to produce the pressure sufficient to cause strangulation. A curious case connected with this subject occurred within the writer's own knowledge during the month of January, 1864. A woman of dissipated habits was found dead in her own house in a sitting posture. She appeared to have slipped from her chair while intoxicated, and in doing so caught the string of her cap over the back part of the chair, and being alone and unable to extricate herself, was strangled. As a rule a horizontal mark of a cord, the knot being on the same level as the cord, more especiTaylor, Vol. II. pp. 55, 57. ally if it be a complete mark and below the larynx, suggests strangulation rather than suspension. And if there are several marks of the cord, strangulation is always rather suggested than hanging.1 When the last attitude of life is maintained after death, important evidence may be gathered from the position and posture of the body. It should be noted whether the body fits itself to the surface on which it rests or not. It should also be noted whether the eyes are open and jaw dropped.a What was in the hands, if any thing, and if a weapon, whether it could, from its position be a case of suicide or not. Whatever is found should be carefully preserved and means taken to identify it. The force with which the articles are grasped, should also be noted before removal from the hands. A firm grasp would rather indicate suicide than homicide, but if the weapon be found loosely held, no conclusion of value can be deduced as to the question of suicide or homicide." If possible, the body should be first viewed exactly in the position in which it was found. 2 Prof. Tidy says if a dead body be discovered, evenly extended and filling accurately the surface on which it rests, having the eyes and jaw closed, it is practically certain there must have been some interference with the corpse after death, and before post mortem rigidity commenced. (Vol. I. p. 56.) Old nurses and other experienced persons close the eyes and bind up the lower jaw as soon as possible after the person is dead in anticipation of the rigidity which may set in very soon. Tennyson alludes to this custom in The Death of the Old Year: "His face is growing sharp and thin, Alack! our friend is gone, Close up his eyes; tie up his chin; And waiteth at the door." 3 Tidy, Vol. I. p. 56. |