Determining Time of Death - Coroner Talk™ | Death Investigation Training | Police and Law Enforcement
Summary: Defining Time of Death <br> There are several times of death. Let me repeat that—there are several times of death. Time of death seems to be a simple and straight forward term that obviously means the exact time that the victim drew his last breath. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.<br> There are actually three different times of death:<br> <br> * The physiologic time of death, when the victim’s vital functions actually ceased.<br> * The legal time of death, the time recorded on the death certificate.<br> * The estimated time of death, the time the medical examiner estimates that death occurred.<br> <br> It is important to note that the estimated time of death can vary greatly from the legal time of death and the physiologic time of death.<br> The only absolutely accurate determination of the time of death is the uncommon circumstance in which a person died with a physician or other skilled medical professional present. The doctor could make the determination and mark the time, and even this is assuming his watch or the clock on the wall was accurate. But that little inaccuracy aside, a death witnessed in this fashion is the only time that the three above times of death would correlate with one another.<br> Otherwise, it is impossible to determine the exact time of death. But what if someone witnessed the fatal blow or gunshot or what if the event was recorded on a timed surveillance camera, wouldn’t that accurately mark the time of death? The answer is a qualified yes. If the witnessed event led to immediate death, then the witness would have seen the actual death. If not, the witnessed event is simply the trauma that led to death but not the actual moment of death. People can survive massive and apparently lethal injuries for hours, even days or years.<br> But most deaths are not witnessed. Natural death may come during sleep, and accidental and suicidal deaths often occur when the victim is alone. In homicides, the perpetrator is typically the only witness and he rarely checks his watch, and even if he did, he’s not likely to talk about it. This means that when the medical examiner must determine the time of death he can only estimate the approximate time.<br> These times of death may differ by days, weeks, even months, if the body is not found until well after physiologic death has occurred. For example, if a serial killer killed a victim in July, but the body was not discovered until October, the physiologic death took place in July, but the legal death is marked as October, since that is when the corpse was discovered and the death was legally noted. The medical examiner estimated that the time of death could be July, or it could be June or August. It is only an estimate and many factors can conspire to confuse this determination. But, it is critically important for the medical examiner to be as accurate as possible.<br> The Importance of the Time of Death<br> An accurate estimation of the time of death can lead to discovering the identity of the assailant. In criminal cases, it can eliminate some suspects while focusing attention on others. For example, a husband says that he left for a business meeting at 2 P.M. and returned at 8 P.M. to find his wife dead. He says that he was home all morning and that she was alive and well when he left. If the ME determines the time of death was between 10 A.M. and noon, the husband has a great deal of explaining to do. On the other hand, if the estimation reveals that the death occurred between 4 and 6 P.M., and the husband has a reliable alibi for that time period, the investigation will move in a different direction.<br> Notice that in the above example the ME gave a range rather than an exact time for his estimated time of death. He didn’t say 4:30 P.M. but rather said between 4 and 6 P.M. Simply put, that’s the best he can do and that’s why it’s called the estimated time of death. It’s a best guess.<br>
