Practical Homicide Investigation

Autopsies are vital to homicide investigations as they are the examination of a corpse by dissection and evaluation to determine the cause, mechanism, and manner of death. Geberth’s Practical Homicide Investigation does an excellent job in explaining these concepts. Cause of death is anything that is resulted in an individual to have died, which can be caused by an injury, illness, or anything that could cause harm to the body (Geberth, 2015, pg 815). Examples of causes of death are people dying from heart attack, heat stroke, freezing to death, choking on something, drowning, falling from a tall height, car accident, or a heavy object falling on them. Mechanism of death is the process which causes harm to a part or parts of the body resulting
Manner of death is the part that explains the reason of death, such as if the individual died because of homicide, suicide, accidental, or natural death (Geberth, 2015, pg 815). An example of death due to homicide is if an individual was murdered by another individual. Suicide is if a person decides to kill themselves and they decide to overdose, or even shooting themselves. An example of accidental death is when a person dies due to a unforeseen incident, such as accidently falling down the steps causing injury to their neck or brain causing them to die. A common example of natural death is when a person dies due to old age because their body can no longer function normally. Sometimes people would label deaths as undermined, so that police and medical investigators can further investigate if the cause of death is for sure not connected to a homicide or suicide (Geberth, 2015, pg