Effective medical testifying Book

If talk of maggots and decay turns your stomach, stop here. You probably won't enjoy this book.

But if you're a forensics junkie, run out and get Corpse right away. It's not only packed with interesting cases and people; it's the best book I've come across, in terms of clear writing and good research.

Jessica Snyder Sachs, a former editor of Science Digest, is a freelance science and health writer. She has a knack for making the gruesome fascinating and the mundane intriguing. And it all revolves around the hunt for the elusive moment of death.

By determining the time of death, police can show whether a suspect could have been at the scene.

There are a variety of methods to finding time of death. The most familiar deals with what Sachs calls the "triple stopwatches of death:" rigor, algor, and livor mortis. Most people know that rigor is when the muscles become rigid. Algor mortis is the change in body temperature as the victim cools and livor mortis - or lividity - is the settling of blood in the lowest points of the body. These three methods are not very reliable because so many factors affect their timetables. Ambient temperature, whether the body is covered, uncovered, clothed, in water, buried, animal activity, and weather are among the factors influencing changes in the body. Stomach contents can sometimes prove helpful, but pre-death activity can affect the rate the stomach empties. And in the case of partially or fully decomposed bodies, what is one to do?

In my last article, I talked a little bit about forensic entomology. Sachs dives into the history and current practices of this incredible and often-overlooked field. Dr. Bill Bass shows up, as well as several of his protégés and colleagues. The stories are riveting.

Here is an example:

Paul Catts, a former professor of entomology at Washington State University, was asked by Tacoma police to help when they discovered the decomposing body of a 34-year-old man who had been shot in the neck in his apartment, which was locked from the inside.

There were signs of a struggle, yet the only gun, found in a nightstand, was unfired and didn't match the victim's bullet.

Investigators collected the only evidence they could find: a handful of maggots.

Catts found that two generations of blowflies had hatched. Using the predictable three weeks per generation, Catts estimated that the body had been in the room at least six weeks.

Searching police reports, detectives ran across a nearby party in Catts' timeframe in which one enthusiastic partygoer had fired several shots into the air. Ballistics experts matched the bullet to the gun and traced the bullet's path from the party, to a metal beam of an adjacent garage, where it ricocheted into the victim's bedroom.

Sachs writes, "Clearly, death had not been instantaneous, given the apparent signs of struggle."

Ugly. But what a way to solve a crime!

Sachs also looks at forensic botany, a field I had never heard of. Plants apparently serve as fairly reliable witnesses, if properly interpreted. Advances in reading chemical markers have also been made and though the chapter discussing this area is short, the science sounds promising.

Accuracy is vital in the field of forensic ecology, and Sachs reviews the efforts of leaders who have made impressive discoveries, emphasizing caution and conservative estimates.