A New Method for Determination of Postmortem Interval: Citrate Content of Bone

• Published in: Journal of forensic sciences Vol. 55; no. 6; pp. 1516 - 1522
• Main Authors: Schwarcz, Henry P., Agur, Kristina, Jantz, Lee Meadows
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2010; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Age; Animals; Bone and Bones - chemistry; Bones; Burial; citrate; Citric Acid - analysis; cortical bone; Crime; Female; Forensic Anthropology - methods; Forensic osteology; forensic science; Human remains; Humans; hydroxyapatite; Male; Models, Animal; Postmortem Changes; Regression Analysis; Specimen Handling; Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; storage temperature; Swine; Temperature; Time; time since death
• ISSN: 0022-1198; 1556-4029
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2010.01511.x

:  Few accurate methods exist currently to determine the time since death (postmortem interval, PMI) of skeletonized human remains found at crime scenes. Citrate is present as a constituent of living human and animal cortical bone at very uniform initial concentration (2.0 ± 0.1 wt %). In skeletal remains found in open landscape settings (whether buried or not), the concentration of citrate remains constant for a period of about 4 weeks, after which it decreases linearly as a function of log(time). The upper limit of the dating range is about 100 years. The precision of determination decreases slightly with age. The rate of decrease appears to be independent of temperature or rainfall but drops to zero for storage temperature <0°C.