Hi all, I've written myself into a bit of a dead end in my latest book. Basically, I need to know what circumstances would need to exist for a pathologist to mistakenly believe a 35~ year old woman's body was actually that of a 17-18 year old girl. I know things like skull lines and pelvic shapes would be dead giveaways... what would need to be missing or bludgeoned beyond belief for it to be realistic?
That would be harder to pull off - would be easier if the body has some kind of deformity. Could the body have been burned maybe. How long does the mistake need to be in place for ? If the body has been severely deformed, maybe even skinned, chopped up or burned then something identifying the body as the 17-18 year old might work (like her handbag, shoes etc) if she is the same height. The police could make the assumption until the pathologist does a proper post mortem or could have the body stolen from the mortuary.
All very thought provoking, thanks! Will PM you with details if you don't mind, as don't want to spoil the book for any readers
I'm sorry, but I think that even if the body was badly damaged they can get a relative age from bone density (like the growth rings of a tree)or even teeth. I may have just read it or saw it on SVU/CSI, but they do have ways to determine age and sex with little remains. A mistake that big would mean some kind of abnormality or something.
where and when is this taking place?... and how good is the pathologist who'd be doing the determining?
These are very important questions. If the pathologist is drunk or easily bribed or just not on the job, I guess this could happen. There might be some external influences that make the pathologist jump to conclusions, for example if the body was dressed in a very teenage type of clothing. If any pathologist really studies the body carefully, they will discover the age with ease. Age and gender are about the two most obvious things you can determine from a dead body. The teeth alone will probably give everything away. However, I can ask my wife about this if you like. She's a pathologist, albeit not one for humans.
Temperance Brennan would never..... I kid! You might consider something like this girl who appears not to be aging, a reverse-progeria type syndrome. http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/29-06-2009/107873-brooke_greenberg-0/
I agree with this. It sounds as if the victim would have to be suffering from some kind of medical condition to make her appear older. There is a similar condition, but I can't think of the name of it. A child could be eight years old yet, physically she looks like a grandma.
That got me thinking that a very heavy use of drugs would also make a 17/18 year old girl look like a 34-year old woman (heavy smoking, LSD, ecstasy, heroin etc.). Of course, this is purely external. Pathologists have a habit of opening up the stuff they get delivered and looking inside, where they would quickly find out about everything that would deceive at first glance.
Bones do tell the tale but it is specialised - a suggestion would be remove head and then burn the body at a very high temperature basically so the bones become dust when lifted- you can then leave something metallic that identifies the body as the daughter. Then the identification becomes expensive and difficult or sometimes impossible.
