Hanging is a common method of committing suicide and a routine task in medico-legal autopsies. The hanging mark is the most relevant external sign and its characteristics are well known, but, for unknown reasons, there are major differences in reports on internal findings. We retrospectively studied 228 consecutive cases of hanging deaths. A complete standard autopsy was performed for every case. We investigated the association between the characteristics of the hanging mark and the frequency of bone, cartilage, soft tissue, and vascular injuries with the mode of suspension. Most cases (75.3%) presented some kind of bone or cartilage fracture, but these were unrelated to any of the variables studied. Vascular lesions are clearly more infrequent: intimal injuries were found in the carotid artery (9.1%), the jugular vein (2.2%), and ruptures of the carotid adventitial layer (21.7%). These could be partially associated with the use of a hard fixed noose and body weight.

Orthopantomographs taken from 308 Spanish Caucasian and 200 Venezuelan Amerindian children, aged between 2 and 18 years, were analysed following the Demirjian's method. The aims of this study were to test the applicability of the Demirjian's method to two different sample populations, and to develop age prediction models for both populations using the original French Canadian scores described by Demirjian (1976) and the new multi-ethnic dental scores proposed by Chaillet et al. (2005) when the ethnic origin is unknown. Results showed that despite the good correlation between dental and chronological age, Demirjian's method overestimates the age in the Spanish Caucasian sample using both scores, the mean overestimation being higher when the Demirjian's scores were used than when the Chaillet's scale was applied. In the Venezuelan Amerindian sample, the opposite was found: Demirjian's method underestimates the age using both scores, the underestimation being higher when the Chaillet's scale was applied than when Demirjian's scale was used. New graphs were produced to convert the maturity scores to dental age for Spanish and Venezuelan children. With these graphs, the Demirjian's scores showed to be inadequate after the age of 12 in both populations, while Chaillet's scores offered useful information until 14 years of age.

No abstract

The estimation of stature from of a variety of bones is an important aspect of forensic work. In order to obtain reliable results, it is important to have comparative data obtained from the same population group as the skeletal remains. However, lack of up to date information on the population groups of Southern Europe makes the estimation of stature from bones in this area subject to possible error. In this study, the stature of 104 healthy adults from Spain was measured, and an anteroposterior teleradiograph of the right lower and the right upper limb of every subject in the study was made in order to measure the lengths of the femur, tibia, fibula, humerus, cubitus and ulna. Pearson's regression formulae were obtained for both limbs. In males, we found the femur to be the most accurate predictor of stature (R = 0.851), whereas in females best results were obtained with the tibia (R = 0.876).

This study was designed to observe the results of DNA typing on teeth subjected to aging, different temperatures and various environmental factors. A total of 570 teeth were studied. The study included the analysis of the PCR-based polymorphisms HLA DQA1, D1S80, HUMTH01, HUMFES/FPS and the XY homologous gene amelogenin. In general the best results were obtained with the XY homologous gene amelogenin, followed by the two STRs studied (HUMTH01 and HUMFES/FPS). The small fragment sizes and the method of detection used after PCR amplification are the main factors explaining this fact. In general, teeth submerged in water gave the poorest results. Teeth exposed to outdoor conditions provided better results than teeth buried in sand or soil, but even in these cases good results were obtained. Up to 4 degree C, temperature had only a slight influence on the results. Positive results were obtained in most cases at high temperatures (400 degrees C for 2 min) which are rarely reached in practical casework. Positive typing results for the XY homologous gene amelogenin and the STRs were obtained from teeth 10-30 years old. The usefulness of dental pulp for identification purposes is exemplified in some actual cases.