Journal de recherche médico-légale

Recent changes in the land use pattern have severely impacted wildlife, specifically large carnivores like leopards, by reducing natural habitat and prey base. Being highly adaptable, with a distribution more outside than inside the protected areas, leopard very often attacks human and livestock. In human-leopard conflicts, once an animal is declared as man-eater, it is either translocated or killed by officials as per Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 of India. Identification of conflicting leopard is very difficult and sometimes lead to the castigation of innocent animal. Here, we describe the individualization of a leopard from one such human-leopard conflict in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh, India using modern molecular genetic techniques. The methodology suggested in this study would be of great importance in correct identification of conflicting animals.

Introduction: On November 21, 2013 an approximately ten-year-old mummified corpse of a 74-year-old female was found in the living room of her apartment located near the city-center of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Definition: A domestic-setting corpse is defined as a dead body found in an urban area with a minimum postmortem interval of 24 hours.

Discussion: Not much research is performed about domestic setting corpses. In Rotterdam were 145 cases with a postmortem interval of at least 14 days in the period January 2006 until November 21, 2013. In the period from the finding of the ten-year-old mummified corpse (November 21, 2013) until December 31, 2015 there have been 42 domestic setting corpses with a postmortem interval of at least 14 days found in Rotterdam.

Conclusion: We recommend doing an extensive study with a broad perspective to examine the demographic and medical/mental problems and the characteristics of domestic setting corpses so local governments can arrange specific measurements to decrease the number of domestic setting corpses and lower the number of days’ people lie dead in their homes.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the discriminating power of non-destructive methods, including optical methods likes the Video spectral comparator method (VSC) and Micro spectrophotometer (MSP) used to differentiate ballpoint pen ink which is commonly used in question document and fraud cases in India. Documents have been investigated to determine the feasibility of utilizing the Video spectral comparator method (VSC) and Micro spectrophotometer (MSP) for the differentiation and comparison of inks on paper. The work focused on how to develop the most effective procedure to ensure quality, when Micro spectrophotometer is used to differentiate writing materials by characteristics color scan of each ink. Six different commercially available blue ballpoint pen inks produced from most popular pens in Indian Market which were used as research material. We have studied most selling pens in Indian market (Reynolds, Parker, and Lexis 2 types, Cello griper and local made pen) for overwriting, alternation and modification of ballpoint pen ink on documents. These pens are generally used on questioned document in forensic discrimination cases and these questioned documents cases received by forensic science laboratories regularly. In forensic discrimination cases generally initial writing is overwritten by using other ink and to identify which ink was used to overwrite is challenging task in field of forensic science. The present study highlighted that the Video Spectral Comparator method (VSC) and Micro spectrophotometer (MSP) can be used routinely in such types of document cases and it has demonstrated to be an excellent analytical method for the forensic analysis of inks on a questioned document.

Alcohol is a psychoactive drug, a central nervous system depressant, which is disinhibitory and causes euphoria. It is the most consumed depressant substance in the world. Its medico legal importance is due to association with changes in higher brain functions, blocking them and encouraging violent behavior directly related to crimes and accidents. The influence of alcohol on the cause of death is the primary factor in a substantial number of violent deaths. The IML-DF analyzes all violent deaths in the Federal District, which in 2014 owned a population of 2,852,000 inhabitants. The Federal District comprises a central region (Pilot Plan) and several satellite towns. In 2014, necropsy of 1,845 deceased people was due to violent deaths. Among them, 446 had positive blood alcohol and were analyzed in this study. The others had negative or alcohol was not measured due to the time elapsed between fact and death. Among the 1,845 examined deaths, traffic accidents accounted for 782 cases and homicides by firearm and white guns (knives) for 792 deaths. Among the 446 cases examined, the leading cause of death, with positive results for alcohol, was murder (37%), followed by traffic accidents (31%). The blood concentration of alcohol ranged from 0.01 to 10.4 g/l, an average of 1.74 ± 1.2 g/l. The average age of the cases was 35 years; and in cases of murder, the most frequent age group was between 18-29 years; and 30-39 years for traffic accidents. The results show a significant association between alcohol consumption and violent deaths.

Although the rapid development of speaker recognition technology is happening, there are still many problems to be solved. The biggest problem arises when the cases of disguised voice samples are come across for the purpose of identification. The samples of disguise are frequently encountered in the forensic scenario like in case of anonymous calls, ransom calls and threatening calls where the speaker makes a deliberate effort to change their voice in order to hide their identity due to the fear of being caught. Voice disguise complicates the process of speaker identification by causing damage to the normal vocal parameters of the speakers; especially fundamental frequency (F0) which is the basic frequency with which the vocal cords of individuals vibrates. The aim of this paper is to study the amount of variation occurring in F0 of disguise and normal speech samples of speakers. This will also aid in determining the validity and reliability of F0 parameter of voice under different disguise conditions.