Citation

Duband S, Forest F, Clemenson A, Debout M, Péoc'h M. Forensic Sci. Int. 2011; 206(1-3): e49-e51.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.forsciint.2010.08.006

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A scavenging postmortem crawfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) is presented. A 60-year-old woman was found dead immersed in 2 m of water in an artificial lack near a dam. The divers, on discovering the body, observed numerous crawfish near the face, the abdomen and the hands of the cadaver that disappeared at their approach. Her face showed extensive hemorrhagic lesions of the eyelids, lips and neck, initially attributed by the police investigators to a possible criminal assault. On autopsy, the face injuries were identified as a postmortem defect by animal scavenging. We present the macro- and microscopic aspects of these postmortem changes in relation to animal predation.