Editing Post-mortem interval (section)

==Examination of body and scene of death==
{{details|Stages of death}}
Changes to a body occurring after death ([[post-mortem changes]]) include:<ref name=":1" />

* [[Algor mortis]]: body cooling;
* [[Livor mortis]]: settling of blood in the lowest-placed parts of the body;
* [[Rigor mortis]]: stiffening of limbs.

Conditions at the scene of death affect the estimation of time of death. To ''algor mortis'', ''livor mortis'' and ''rigor mortis'', together with consideration of stomach contents, there needs to be some observation of environmental conditions at the death scene to accurately measure the PMI (Fig. 1).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dix |first1=Jay |last2=Graham |first2=Michael |title=Time of Death, Decomposition and Identification: An Atlas |date=7 December 1999 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-1-4200-4828-5 |page=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qxO3Z0um6WMC&pg=PA1 |language=en}}</ref> Factors that can affect the rate of human decomposition are concerned with the particular environment a body has been recovered from.<ref name=":2" /> Bodies can be found anywhere from terrestrial to aquatic environments, each possessing their own variables that can alter interval estimations.<ref name=":3" /> Along with common factors of temperature, humidity and element exposure, [[body habitus]] and clothing are an example of a component that can affect the rate of cooling of the body, and so its rate of decomposition.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{cite book |title=FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin |date=1973 |publisher=Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zutC-X8o_bwC&pg=RA9-PA12 |language=en}}</ref> A very approximate rule of thumb for estimating the postmortem interval is as follows:<ref>{{cite book | last=Senior | first=T | title=Forensic ecogenomics : the application of microbial ecology analyses in forensic contexts | publisher=Academic Press | publication-place=London, United Kingdom San Diego, CA | year=2018 | isbn=978-0-12-809360-3 | oclc=1023028365}}</ref>
*Warm and flaccid: less than 3 hours
*Warm and stiff: 3 to 8 hours
*Cold and stiff: 8 to 36 hours
*Cold and flaccid: More than 36 hours.
Due to significant environmental variations between regions, universal formulas would be ill-suited for this topic in [[forensic science]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Cockle |first1=Diane L. |last2=Bell |first2=Lynne S. |date=2015-08-01 |title=Human decomposition and the reliability of a 'Universal' model for post mortem interval estimations |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037907381500211X |journal=Forensic Science International |language=en |volume=253 |pages=136.e1–136.e9 |doi=10.1016/j.forsciint.2015.05.018 |pmid=26092190 |issn=0379-0738|url-access=subscription }}</ref>