Forensic entomology applies insect evidence to legal problems such as the estimation of minimum postmortem interval (mPMI). For this purpose, knowledge of the insect fauna that are attracted to human cadavers in each geographic region is a prerequisite. Despite many studies investigating the insect fauna attracted to meat, there has been no survey of the entomofauna on human cadavers in the East Asian temperate climate zone, particularly in Korea. Therefore, this study reports the entomofauna collected from medicolegal autopsies in northeastern Seoul and its suburbs. Insect samples were collected from 35 medicolegal autopsies in 2010, 2011, and 2013. Molecular and morphological methods were utilized for taxonomic identification. Among 1398 individual samples belonging to 3 orders, 13 families, 18 genera, and 32 species, the dominant family and species were Calliphoridae and Lucilia sericata, respectively. Despite its limited scale, this study provides a snapshot of the general entomofauna that are attracted to human cadavers in this region.

Uterine and extrauterine tumors composed of cells featuring endometrial stromal cells often show ovarian sex cord-like structures and smooth muscle differentiation. A few cases of endometrial stromal tumors showing rhabdoid differentiation have been reported. The present case is a 20-year-old woman with endometrial stromal sarcoma that had sex cord-like structures, smooth muscle components and rhabdoid differentiation.

Quantitative RNA analyses of autopsy materials to diagnose the cause and mechanism of death are challenging tasks in the field of forensic molecular pathology. Alterations in mRNA profiles can be induced by cellular stress responses during supravital reactions as well as by lethal insults at the time of death. Here, we demonstrate that several gene transcripts encoding heat shock proteins (HSPs), a gene family primarily responsible for cellular stress responses, can be differentially expressed in the occipital region of postmortem human cerebral cortices with regard to the cause of death. HSPA2 mRNA levels were higher in subjects who died due to mechanical asphyxiation (ASP), compared with those who died by traumatic injury (TI). By contrast, HSPA7 and A13 gene transcripts were much higher in the TI group than in the ASP and sudden cardiac death (SCD) groups. More importantly, relative abundances between such HSP mRNA species exhibit a stronger correlation to, and thus provide more discriminative information on, the death process than does routine normalization to a housekeeping gene. Therefore, the present study proposes alterations in HSP mRNA composition in the occipital lobe as potential forensic biological markers, which may implicate the cause and process of death.

Sudden cardiac death (SCD), which is primarily caused by lethal heart disorders resulting in structural and arrhythmogenic abnormalities, is one of the prevalent modes of death in most developed countries. Myocardial ischemia, mainly due to coronary artery disease, is the most common type of heart disease leading to SCD. However, postmortem diagnosis of SCD is frequently complicated by obscure histological evidence. Here, we show that certain mRNA species, namely those encoding hemoglobin A1/2 and B (Hba1/2 and Hbb, respectively) as well as pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 (Pdk4), exhibit distinct postmortem expression patterns in the left ventricular free wall of SCD subjects when compared with their expression patterns in the corresponding tissues from control subjects with non-cardiac causes of death. Hba1/2 and Hbb mRNA expression levels were higher in ischemic SCD cases with acute myocardial infarction or ischemic heart disease without recent infarction, and even in cardiac death subjects without apparent pathological signs of heart injuries, than control subjects. By contrast, Pdk4 mRNA was expressed at lower levels in SCD subjects. In conclusion, we found that altered myocardial Hba1/2, Hbb, and Pdk4 mRNA expression patterns can be employed as molecular signatures of fatal cardiac dysfunction to forensically implicate SCD as the primary cause of death.

This is a statistical analysis of the data obtained from legal autopsies performed at the headquarters of the National Forensic Service during 2011. This report aims to analyze 2,723 cases.1. There were 1,995 (73.3%) cases involving mortalities among men and 707 (26.7%) among women; evidently, the number of deaths that occurred among men were twice as many as that among women. With respect to age, 694 (24.4%) deaths occurred in individuals aged in their forties and 658 (22.8%) among those in their fifties. 2. There were 1,437 (52.8%) cases of unnatural deaths, 1,159 (42.5%) cases of natural deaths, and 127 (4.7%) deaths from unknown causes. Among the 1,437 unnatural deaths, 483 (33.6%) were suicidal, 255 (17.7%) homicidal, 546 (38.0%) accidental, and 153 (10.6%) were of undetermined causes. 3. There were 618 cases of trauma-related death, accounting for 43.0% of the 1,437 unnatural deaths. Blunt trauma was the leading cause of trauma-related deaths, accounting for 174 (28.2%) cases. Deaths due to asphyxiation, among which hanging (187 cases, 64.7%) was the predominant cause, accounted for 289 cases. There were 192 (13.4%) deaths from poisoning, 151 (10.5%) from drowning, 139 (9.7%) from thermal injuries, 31 (2.2%) as a complication of medical procedures, and 14 (1.0%) from electrocutions. 4. Among the 1,159 natural deaths, heart diseases accounted for 600 (51.8%) deaths and vascular diseases accounted for 160 (13.8%) deaths. 5. There were 83 cases of death among children aged under 10; out of 33 unnatural deaths, 20 (24.1%) cases were homicidal.