Forensic entomology is the branch of forensic science in which information about insects is used to draw conclusions when investigating legal cases relating to both humans and wildlife, although on occasion the term may be expanded to include other arthropods.
The insects that can assist in forensic entomological investigations include blowflies, flesh flies, cheese skippers, hide and skin beetles, rove beetles and clown beetles. In some of these families only the juvenile stages are carrion feeders and consume a dead body. In others both the juvenile stages and the adults will eat the body (are necrophages).
History of forensic entomology
The Chinese used the presence of flies and other insects as part of their investigative armoury for crime scene investigation and instances of their use are recorded as early as the mid-tenth century.
Indeed, such was the importance of insects in crime scene investigation that in 1235, a training manual on investigating death, Washing Away of Wrongs, was written by Sung Tz’u. In this medico-legal book it is recorded that the landing of a number of blowflies on a particular sickle caused a murderer to confess to murdering a fellow Chinese farm worker with that sickle.
Between the thirteenth and the nineteenth century, a number of developments in biology laid the foundation for forensic entomology to become a branch of scientific study.
The two most notable were, perhaps, experiments in Italy by Redi (1668) using the flesh of a number of different animal species, in which he demonstrated that larvae developed from eggs laid by flies, and the work by Linnaeus (1775) in developing a system of classification. In so doing, Linnaeus provided a means of insect identification, including identifying such forensically important flies as Calliphora vomitoria (Linnaeus).
These developments formed foundations from which determination of the length of the stages in the insect’s life cycle could be worked out and indicators of time since death could be developed.
A particularly significant legal case, which helped establish forensic entomology as a recognized tool for investigating crime scenes, was that of a murdered newborn baby. The baby’s mummified body, encased in a chimney, was revealed behind a mantelpiece in a boarding house when renovation work was being undertaken in 1850.
Dr Marcel Bergeret carried out an autopsy on the body and discovered larvae of a fleshfly, Sarcophaga carnaria (Linnaeus), and some moths. He concluded that the baby’s body had been sealed up in 1848 and that the moths had gained access in 1849. As a result of this estimation of post mortem interval, occupiers of the house previous to 1848 were accused and the current occupiers exonerated (Bergeret, 1855).
The next significant point in the history of forensic entomology resulted from observations and conclusions made by Mégnin (1894). He related eight stages of human decomposition to the succession of insects colonizing the body after death.
He published his findings in La Faune des Cadavres: Application de l’Entomologie à la Médicine Légale. These stages of decomposition were subsequently shown to vary in speed and to be dependent upon environmental conditions, including temperature and, for example, whether or not the corpse was clothed. However, the similarity in overall decomposition sequence and the value of the association of insects has been demonstrated for decomposition of the bodies of a number of animal species. This knowledge about insect succession on a corpse became the basis for forensic entomologists’ estimations of the time since death of the corpse.
In the twentieth century insects were shown to be of value in court cases involving insect colonization of body parts recovered from water and not just whole corpses found on land.
On 29 September 1935, several body parts, later identified as originating from two females, were recovered from a Scottish river near Edinburgh. The identities of the deceased were determined and the women were named as Mrs Ruxton and Mary Rogerson, ‘nanny’ for the family. The presence of larvae of the blowfly Calliphora vicina Robineau-Desvoidy, in their third larval instar, indicated that the eggs had been laid prior to the bodies being dumped in the river. This information, combined with other evidence, resulted in the husband, Dr Ruxton, being convicted of the murder of his wife and Mary Rogerson.
The acceptance of forensic entomology has depended upon both academics and practitioners working alongside the police and legal authorities, to refine and develop forensic entomology as a scientific study in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
In 1996, American Board of Forensic Entomology, a certification Board for Forensic Entomologists was made.
Find out How Insects help in Criminal Investigation in our next post.
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