The Pathology Of Homicide

Dr. Lester Adelson's original The Pathology of Homicide has been described as a "superb textbook" and "without doubt…the best written book of its type in the English language" by Dr. Charles Hirsch. This new, revised edition preserves Dr. Adelson's eloquent and articulate voice, while bringing the subject matter up to date. Since the first edition was published in 1974, Dr. Adelson’s book was a treasured text among many forensic pathologists. The “aging” of the book, however, made it less appealing to the new generation of forensic pathologists, and Dr. Adelson’s important contribution to forensic pathology was at risk of being lost. Although much has changed in forensic pathology in the ensuing nearly fifty years since it was first written, much also has stayed the same. In this new edition, the author, Dr. James Gill—Chief Medical Examiner of the State of Connecticut and past president of the National Association of Medical Examiners—preserves the voice, vision, and wisdom of Dr. Adelson while updating the forensic pathology material. The author has included nearly 700 all new color images. In addition, the references have been updated with over 4,400 citations. Six new chapters and sections have been added, including death certification, elder abuse, pediatric head injury, drugs of misuse, histopathology, and bereavement. Other updates are included on DNA technology, CT scans, and novel drugs. Although primarily concerned with homicides, there is the need to be able to recognize natural, accidental, and suicidal deaths; therefore, these topics are interspersed in the text to give the appropriate context. This book will help the reader understand the details of injuries and how a person was injured, why they died, and how these injuries, perhaps at first blush seemingly insignificant, can shed new light on a death investigation. It is the author’s hope to get this book to the next generation of forensic pathologists.

Pediatric homicide investigations are clouded by a number of factors, not the least of which is a lack of straightforward resources. The cause of death in infants and children is often subtle and difficult to establish. Designed for quick access, Pediatric Homicide: Medical Investigation provides an invaluable resource for medical examiners, police

Leading forensic pathologists from around the world synthesize the practical advances in a variety of important subspecialties of forensic pathology and demonstrate how the latest medical and scientific progress is being applied to solve current problems of high interest to forensic pathologists today. The authors offer cutting-edge insights into death from environmental conditions (lightning and elder abuse), homicide by sharp force, death from natural causes (asthma, Marfan syndrome, and peliosis of the liver and spleen), and pathology of human endothelium in septic organ failure. Additional chapters address special aspects of crime scene interpretation and behavioral analysis, neogenesis of ethanol and fusel oils in putrefying blood, agrochemical poisoning, imaging techniques in forensic pathology, and fixation techniques for organs and parenchymal structures. A comprehensive, up-to-date review of the international literature is given for each chapter.

Former Baltimore City homicide detective Kelvin Sewell has seen it all. Gang members burned alive; a baby unceremoniously stuffed into the ground by its own mother; a sex offender who killed a child in a delusional jealous rage.The constant grind of bearing witness to violent death has given Sewell an unprecedented perspective into the minds of killers.He sat in the Baltimore Police Department's interview room with 14-year-old Devon Richardson as the teen tried to explain why he shot a woman he didn't know in the back of the head. He watched the father of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds cry over the corpse of his dead daughter, murdered for a cellphone.But now for the first time Sewell has decided to share the insights and the pain, the dehumanizing effects of crime and waves of psychic despair and social dysfunction in his groundbreaking book, Why Do We Kill?"I think people deserve to know the truth," said Sewell, a 20-year veteran of Baltimore City's police department. "They need to get a sense of why people kill in Baltimore."I want people to see what we see as detectives," he explained. "I think there are misconceptions about crime in Baltimore, and I hope this book will clear them up."The book recounts some of the most notorious homicide cases in Baltimore in the past decade, all told from the perspective of the cop who worked them.Joining forces with Sewell is award-winning investigative reporter Stephen Janis, who covered City Hall for the now-defunct Baltimore Examiner and is founder of the award-winning news website Investigative Voice."What makes this book different is the collaborative voice," said Janis. "Kelvin would discuss his thoughts on the cases and I then tried to tell the story by adding the context that comes naturally with being a reporter."Janis's colleague at Investigative Voice, reporter and political scientist Alan Z. Forman, served as editor for the project.Janis is no stranger to the Baltimore crime scene, winning a string of prestigious awards for his crime reporting, including two consecutive Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association awards in Category A for his series on the murders of sex workers and his investigation into the high number of unsolved killings in Baltimore.

"Real-life" crime dramas on television intrigue us with the details of postmortem examinations leading to the arrest of murder suspects—but how do forensic pathologists, the doctors who investigate unnatural deaths and chilling crime scenes, actually bring criminals to justice? The story lies in the body of evidence. Literally. The human body provides a wealth of scientific evidence that allows forensic pathology, or legal medicine, to help resolve criminal cases and convict even most elusive perpetrators. The human body records the story of a crime in the language of cuts, wounds, and bruises, and in the fingerprints and bloodstains. Forensic pathologists are trained to scrutinize and interpret this evidence in ways no other scientist can. Examining victims' remains from the outside in, forensic pathologists investigate every inch of the human landscape to discover when, how, and why the victim died. Sometimes, a time of death is all a jury needs to convict a suspect of murder, and forensic pathologists are experts at uncovering this crucial evidence. Visiting crime scenes, collecting bodies in the middle of the night, and excavating suspicious burial grounds are all in a day's work for the sake of bringing justice to victims who can no longer speak for themselves.

A collection of cutting-edge accounts of special topics from various fields of forensic pathology and death scene investigation. The authors offer critical insight into the medicolegal investigation of bodies found in water, the forensic aspects of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 infection of the central nervous system, deaths in a head-down position, and forensic bitemark analysis. Additional chapters address taphonomic changes in human bodies during the early postmortem interval, arrhythmogenic ventricular dysplaisia that produces sudden death in young people, the postmortem diagnosis of death in anaphylaxis, and iatrogenici deaths. The forensic aspects of suicide, murder-suicide, and suicide trends in the United States are also discussed, along with the evaluation of fatal pulmonary thromboembolism and the use of radiology in medicolegal investigations.

In this new volume of the globally recognized Forensic Pathology Reviews, Dr. Michael Tsokos has gathered chapters from the top experts in the field to reveal both the applied and scientific areas of expertise along the broad spectrum of forensics studies. Volume 5 piques the mind as leading forensic pathologists from the United States and around the world offer advanced insight into death caused environmental conditions, trauma, neuropathology, natural causes, and ballistics. The authors of this volume further their exploration as they impart research related to identification, serial murder, histopathology, and age estimation. While unveiling unsurpassed and cutting-edge knowledge, Forensic Pathology Reviews, Volume 5 will also inspire emerging forensic scientists to immerse themselves in innovative research.