@article{ref1, title="Unusual death of a transvestite: Identification of crime weapon and survival time", journal="Journal of forensic sciences", year="2009", author="Cornetta, Sandra and Addante, Annalisa and Zotti, Fiorenza and Dell'Erba, Alessandro", volume="54", number="5", pages="1149-1151", abstract="The authors report a case of a transvestite found murdered near his automobile with several lacerated contused wounds to the face and cranial fractures. Autopsy revealed that the cause of death was a serious head trauma with subdural and subarachnoidal hemorrhages. In order to identify the crime weapon, a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used which revealed metallic residue on the skin fragments with the same molecular composition of the car paint. As for survival time, antibody anti-beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP) was applied to brain fragments and brainstem tissue, allowing for axonal varicosities (which form 2 to 3 h following death) to be observed under the optic microscope. So, by using SEM we understood that the fatal cranial-encephalic lesions were the result of the victim's head being repeatedly struck against the car door while anti-betaAPP led to the understanding that the time elapsed between injury and death was less than 2 to 3 h.

Language: en

", language="en", issn="0022-1198", doi="10.1111/j.1556-4029.2009.01102.x", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2009.01102.x" }