Posts tagged cause of death

CHICAGO (CBS) — Investigators have been trying to determine how a 46-year-old man who won $1 million on an instant lottery game last summer ended up dying from cyanide poisoning.

Urooj Kahn won a $1 million jackpot in a scratch-off game in June, after buying a ticket at a 7-Eleven in Rogers Park.

He repeatedly jumped for joy, and shouted “I hit a million!” but just days later he was dead.

Cook County Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Cina said Monday the initial autopsy ruled his death to be the result of natural causes.

“He did not have any obvious trauma. The initial investigation didn’t suggest anything suspicious about his death,” Cina said.

But days after Kahn died at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, a relative called the medical examiner’s office, saying something didn’t add up.

“They just felt this didn’t seem likely, that it didn’t seem like it could have been a natural to them, and they just wanted us to look a little harder,” he said. “In forensics, you have to have an open mind, and when additional information comes to light, you have to be willing to revisit cases.”

So a new autopsy was ordered, and toxicology tests revealed a new cause of death: homicide by cyanide.

“Life’s not like CSI. Sometimes there’s not a smoking gun that leads us immediately toward the perfect conclusion,” Cina said.

Kahn lived an immigrant’s dream. Arriving from India with nothing, he owned several dry cleaners and rental property.

At Kahn’s shop on Western Avenue, his widow said she could write a book about how great her husband was, but she didn’t want to talk on camera.

Kahn was buried at Rosehill Cemetery, but the next step in the investigation could be exhuming his body.

“I’ve been in discussions with the Chicago Police Department, and with the [Cook County] State’s Attorney’s office, and it looks like we’re leaning in that direction,” Cina said.

Exhuming Kahn’s body could produce more detailed toxicology information. Death by poisoning of any type is extremely rare. Of the 508 Chicagoans murdered last year, Kahn was the only one who was poisoned.

Cina said, of the 4,400 autopsies he’s performed in his career, he’s had only one poisoning.

He said poisoning is so rare, he wrote about the case in a medical journal.

(Source: chicago.cbslocal.com)

Bloodied and riddled with bullets, a man’s body sat slumped over for hours in a parked car — its engine running and windshield wipers flapping long after the rain stopped — as passersby, including school children, came and went throughout the day, Bridgeport police said Friday.

Police on patrol found the man’s body at about 6 p.m. Wednesday in the residential North End neighborhood called Sunshine Circle, according to The Connecticut Post.

“They banged on the window and got no response,” Detective Keith Bryant, a police spokesman, told the Post. “He was slumped over the wheel.”

Neighbors told police they heard gunshots at about 11 a.m. Wednesday, but no one reported a shooting. Some residents say they saw the car as early as 9 a.m., but little else.

Paramedics pronounced the man dead, finding multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, police said. Detectives said they have no motive. Police said the victim has not been positively identified and planned to release his name later Friday.

Police said the Nissan Maxima’s darkly tinted windows obscured the man’s body from view, but Bryant said someone could have reported the gunshots earlier in the day. Residents of the neighborhood near a public housing complex “have become numb to unusual noises, even gunshots, and they probably didn’t react to it at all. And that’s not good,” Bryant told the Post.

Only a rusty fence separates the neighborhood from an area where gunfire is commonplace, the Post reported, and residents have been worried about the increase in drug activity.

Councilman Warren Blunt, who represents the city’s 135th District, has promised residents he’d fight to curtail the drug-related violence by working with police to create a surveillance plan and increase patrols, according to the Post.

“It’s an ongoing struggle,” Blunt told the Post.

There have been 20 homicides in Bridgeport so far this year, matching the total number for all of 2011, according to the Post.

In May, 20-year-old Kaqwan Glenn was fatally shot where Wednesday’s gunshot victim was found in the parked car, police said.

(Source: usnews.nbcnews.com)

There are any number of reasons why a body might be exhumed for forensic analysis but they must first be deemed justified by a judge before an order to exhume will be issued.

It is important to examine first of all why forensics dictates that a body might need to be exhumed. There have been, in the past, mistakes made when it has come to making a proper case for the defense or the prosecution in a murder trial for example: as a result of this important information may have been overlooked or identification of the victim made in error.

Why Exhume a Corpse?

As we have already mentioned briefly a corpse may be exhumed for a number of reasons. Here we list the most common:

• Incorrect identification of the corpse
• Incomplete toxicological studies
• Trace evidence missed or overlooked
• Incomplete or improper wound analysis

Incorrect Identification of the Corpse

It may not happen as often nowadays but in times passed the misidentification of a corpse was something that could take place. This normally occurred if the corpse was dressed in a similar way to say a missing person: or indeed if they had a similar height and build. The law says that every effort must be made to correctly identify the deceased before they are given over for burial.

The exhumation of a corpse can help provide valuable DNA analysis as well as blood and tissue samples which can be used to positively identify a corpse that has been buried for some time.

This is also something that is used as an important part of any forensic education.

Incomplete Toxicological Studies

With so many advances in forensic medicine it is now possible to exhume a body that has been buried for a number of years and take bone and DNA samples to prove if the victim had been poisoned. In the fifties, sixties and seventies such testing was non existent so unless a pathologist was one hundred per cent convinced the victim had been poisoned – accidentally or otherwise – it was nearly impossible to prove. These new tests enable cases to be tried under law which might have gone untried indefinitely.

Trace Evidence Missed or Overlooked

Sometimes things happen to the human body that may not have any bearing on an investigation at the time but may prove vital later on. Medicine and science have now begun to work in tandem to provide crucial evidence in murder trials regarding trace evidence which – although collected at the time – may have provided no clue as to motive or indeed killer. Some trace evidence like pollen from plants or seeds from grass may have originally given no clue to where the crime took place but exhuming the body now that there have been so many advances can have a staggeringly high success rate.

Incomplete or Improper Wound Analysis

As we have already mentioned forensic science and forensic medicine have moved on substantially as the years have passed. So much so that bodies can now be exhumed in order to pinpoint the exact type of weapon that was used to inflict the killer blow or shot. In years gone by this was not always possible and the law had to make do with the best guess of a pathologist as to what caused death. Now however with advances in medicine and science which have been incorporated into forensic education and forensics as a whole, such wounds can be accurately identified and the weapon used identified right down to the percentage of metal used in its manufacture.

In essence the exhumation of a corpse may sound like something creepy that should be consigned to the pages of a thriller novel or the big screen but it is something that has helped forensic scientists and forensic pathologists alike provide legal teams with concrete evidence that not everything was as it seemed when the victim died.

(Source: exploreforensics.co.uk)

Criminal poisoning is the result of available poison or poisons being administered to a victim of choice by one with criminal intent

Profile of a typical poisoner

Caucasian; male; average to above average intelligence; underachiever; inadequate personality; non-athletic; cowardly; neat and orderly; meticulous; loner; careful planner; and non confrontational (either physically or psychologically).

(Source: thecarlsoncompany.net)