Value of stomach content in a case of fatal child homicide

Abstract

In death investigations, the volume of gastric contents may be useful concerning the time of death estimation, or to clarify the circumstances of death. Here, the case of a 4-month-old male infant who was found dead in his mother’s bed is presented. SIDS was assumed as the cause of death after initial police investigations. Later, autopsy results revealed that this case was a homicide due to extensive abusive head trauma. The infant had three skull fractures on the back of his head with subdural hemorrhage and cerebral oedema. The survival time after feeding him formula and corresponding the time of death was determined to evaluate the mother’s initial claims that the infant was alive several hours after feeding. In this case, the volume of stomach contents of the last meal was known. From the volume of milky fluid found in the stomach at autopsy, it was possible to estimate the time of death within a narrow time frame of less than one hour after feeding. The mother’s claims could be ruled out, and she later confessed to having killed the child soon after feeding him. Even methods with low precision for estimating time of death, like examining stomach contents, can be essential for solving practical cases. To our knowledge, this is one of the first published cases in which an infant’s stomach content was used successfully in the reconstruction of a homicide.