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| Death
Manner |
| Forensic pathologists provide valuable
information about the manner of death after the autopsy has been performed.
There are four main categories regarding the manner of death. These
include natural deaths, accidental deaths, homicidal deaths and suicidal
deaths. The information found during the autopsy not only reveals
the causes of death, how, when and where they occurred, but also shows
what manner it's of. |
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Select one of the following two topics to read more:
--> Natural
and accidental deaths
--> Homicide
and suicide
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| Natural
And Accidental Deaths |
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| Natural
deaths are the cause of the majority of deaths that occur. The manners
of death in this category include heart failure, disease, and death
during sleep etc. The autopsy reveals certain aspects of the death,
whether it occurred suddenly, unexpectedly or if the person was critically
ill and hadn't seen a doctor in the last two weeks. Accidental deaths
are common but if the police suspect that the accident was deliberate
or could have been avoided, a criminal investigation will be conducted.
An example of an accident that could have been avoided is a safety
guard left off a dangerous piece of machinery, as would be the perfect
deliberate accident. |
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Motor vehicle accidents are a large cause of death among the consequences
of alcoholic consumption. Photo courtesy of www.greenvillecounty.org.
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| Homicide
And Suicide |
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Homicide,
meaning the killing of a human, is regarded as murder, where
the criminal's intention was to deliberately cause someone's
death. Some common examples of murdering include shooting, stabbing,
smothering, strangling, hitting with a blunt object and burning.
Each weapon leaves distinct marks on the corpse, which a pathologist
may identify belongs to a certain type of weapon and thus leading
investigators to the actual murder tool. Manslaughter, where
death is not the intention, is however, also regarded as homicide.
Suicide, meaning intentionally taking one's own life, is in
fact illegal, as is assisting someone else to commit suicide.
A suicide agreement between two people is when it involves both
people claiming their lives together. If one person, however,
survives the attempt, he/she can be charged with manslaughter,
or, unintentional death. |
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The above was a victim of suicide, as was determined by anthropologists
from the arrangement of bones. Photo courtesy of Valeri
Craigle and the Spencer
S. Eccles Health Sciences Library.
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