Lumen Autumn 2025 - Flipbook - Page 8
“SOMETIMES THE MOST HONEST STATEMENT IS THAT THE PERSON
HAS CLEARLY DIED SOMETIME BETWEEN WHEN THEY WERE RELIABLY
LAST SEEN AND WHEN THEIR BODY WAS FOUND.”
The mummified remains of ‘Ötzi’, a late Neolithic hunter who
lived between 3350 and 3105 BC, which were found in the
Tyrolean Alps, were in such good condition that his tattoos were
still visible.
One of the surprising findings subsequently was the inability to
obtain DNA profiles from the victims. Given that paleogenetic and
ancient DNA laboratories can get material from dinosaurs after
millennia this did not seem to make much sense. However,
time can be kind or not to forensic material, and the fluid,
oxygen-depleted environment of the barrels had simply broken
down all of the material.
Sometimes changes will occur after death that will also
preserve bodies and confuse time of death evaluations. Adipocere,
the so-called ‘fat of graveyards’ or ‘corpse wax’, is material derived
from the breakdown of fats which replaces normal tissues and
preserves the outlines of bodies.
Although urban myth has it that the bodies were dissolved in
acid, this was not the case as the acid that had been added to the
barrels had been neutralised by the fluid seeping from the corpses.
Although it usually takes months or years to develop, adipocere
may be found within days of death. Apparently during the
exhumation of a large number of graves in Paris in the nineteenth
century ‘many tons’ of adipocere were found. Rather than
discarding this malodorous material it was allegedly sold to local
soap and candle makers.
An additional problem was also in determining the times of deaths
as decomposition and partial preservation made this impossible.
Sometimes the most honest statement is that the person has clearly
died sometime between when they were reliably last seen and when
their body was found. Most lawyers will accept this.
An example of preservation over years was a case of two rubber
boots containing the remains of feet that were dredged up by a
fishing boat in the Great Australian Bight. In this instance, despite
the watery nature of the environment, DNA was successfully
extracted and matched to a fisherman who had been swept
overboard more than a decade earlier.
Thus, the above examples show us that time can be a somewhat
nebulous entity in forensic practice, one that can easily confuse
and/or mislead.
Perhaps it is true after all that even in science time remains
an illusion?
Emeritus Professor Roger W. Byard AO PSM DSc held the Marks Chair
of Pathology at the University from 2006-2023 and is currently Senior
Specialist Forensic Pathologist at Forensic Science SA. He was awarded
the title of Emeritus Professor by the University of Adelaide Council in
2023 for his distinguished and sustained service to the University.
Examples of the effects of time being slowed are numerous and
may sometimes confuse contemporary investigators. Tollund Man
was a body retrieved from a peat bog in Jutland in northern
Denmark in 1950. He was so well preserved that the incised
wound to the throat and the noose around his neck were thought to
indicate a recent homicide.
Main image of Roger, with his dog Minnie, by Isaac Freeman,
photographic editor of Lumen. Image of Roger in the mortuary
supplied by author.
After careful evaluation it was instead determined that he had been
the victim of a ritual sacrifice in the fifth century BC - so much for
an accurate time of death at that scene!
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