Application of forensic entomology to postmortem interval determination of a burned human corpse: A homicide case report from Southern Taiwan

Determining the postmortem interval (PMI) is strongly impacted by several variables, which consequently results in inaccuracy in the estimation of PMI used in court trials. A PMI experiment was conducted in Kaohsiung County by disposing a burned pig corpse in the woods. One month later, unexpectedly and interestingly, a homicide case, very similar to this mock study, occurred at a distance of 6 km away from the experimental site. The female victim had been killed and burned. The maggots collected from the victim were identified to be Chrysomya megacephala by morphologic observation and were then confirmed by mitochondrial DNA sequence. A PMI of 50 hours was concluded for the burned human body, based on the information of the maggots from the pig corpse. The murderer was eventually arrested and confessed to the crime. According to his statement, the elapsed time since death was calculated to have been 46 hours. In this case, the PMI was estimated successfully and it was almost precise. It would appear that the more similar the surrounding environment between the mock study and the actual case, the more precise can be the PMI estimation.