Day 11

February 10th, 2010

Case 1
Caucasian M, approx 75 YO
Suicide GSW to the head
Deceased shot self intraorally, during the night. Wife slept downstairs that evening, reported hearing no sounds.
COD suicide GSW

Case 2
Black M, approx 17 YO
Homicide GSW to the head
Deceased had close-range entrance wound in R cheek, no exit
Multiple skull fractures
Bullet recovered in L parietal lobe of brain
COD homicide GSW

Case 3
Caucasian F, approx 45 YO
Unknown
Hx depression, bipolar disorder, paranoia
Found on couch by teenage children, thought to be asleep, but children called 911 when mother was unresponsive.
COD unknown. Samples sent to Tox.

Case 4
Black M, approx 25 YO
Adrenal insufficiency (?)
Brother died several years before of same.
Massive amts blood in pericardium, R and L chest
Could not grossly identify adrenals
COD unknown, samples sent to tox.

The H GSW was shot through the right cheek, at very close range (muzzle impression/powder blackening around wound). It was a small projectile though, or his head would have been unrecognizable as that crucial appendage. As it was, the face and skull were swollen and shiny, unblemished except for the purplish entrance wound from the bullet. He hadn’t been alive long enough for much ecchymosis to surface, though the head and face had suffered multiple fx in the impact, easy enough to feel through the hard, cold, swollen skin. The enlarged head with its thick, fluffy mat of hair seemed unnatural, unstable, on the skinny, little-boy body it belonged to.

The right eye had not withstood the impact. It had not avulsed, but rather, had apparently popped, leaving a black, glutinous-looking, bulging and shiny line of discharge under the stuck lashes of the eye. When the lid was pulled back for withdrawal of vitreous, the globby-looking but surprisingly hard lump of bloody vitreous had to be pulled up with the upper eyelid that it had stuck to, and underneath the lump, where it attached redly to the white of the eyeball, the iris was semi-intact, cloudy and streaked. It was a fish-eye, burst, the white dyed red with broken vessels, the same as the intact left eyeball. It was a fishy, cloudy, passive, dead eye, and as Charity ran the hose over the face and neck, the black discharge glued it shut and ran in snotty lines down the cheekbone and into the ear.

An open casket funeral was definitely not an option.