A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solve Crimes - Hardcover

Goff, M. Lee

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674002202 ISBN 13: 9780674002203

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2000

Synopsis

The forensic entomologist turns a dispassionate, analytic eye on scenes from which most people would recoil--human corpses in various stages of decay, usually the remains of people who have met a premature end through accident or mayhem. To Lee Goff and his fellow forensic entomologists, each body recovered at a crime scene is an ecosystem, a unique microenvironment colonized in succession by a diverse array of flies, beetles, mites, spiders, and other arthropods: some using the body to provision their young, some feeding directly on the tissues and by-products of decay, and still others preying on the scavengers.

Using actual cases on which he has consulted, Goff shows how knowledge of these insects and their habits allows forensic entomologists to furnish investigators with crucial evidence about crimes. Even when a body has been reduced to a skeleton, insect evidence can often provide the only available estimate of the postmortem interval, or time elapsed since death, as well as clues to whether the body has been moved from the original crime scene, and whether drugs have contributed to the death.

An experienced forensic investigator who regularly advises law enforcement agencies in the United States and abroad, Goff is uniquely qualified to tell the fascinating if unsettling story of the development and practice of forensic entomology.

About this title

About the Author

M. Lee Goff is the Coordinator of the Forensic Sciences Program and Professor of Forensic Sciences at Chaminade University of Honolulu.

Reviews

This is a lively and informative firsthand account of forensic entomology in the United States. Goff (entomology, Univ. of Hawaii, Manoa) is a consultant to the Medical Examiner of Honolulu. He is especially well qualified to write this book because of his active involvement in many criminal investigations and his leadership in a profession that has come into its own within the past two decades. Much of the book deals with the use of entomology in investigations, especially in estimating the postmortem interval--the time elapsed between death and discovery of the body. The interval can now be estimated with considerable accuracy by identifying the insects present on the corpse, their stages of development, and their relationships with other insects. This book is not for the squeamish owing to the descriptions of corpses at the scene of death, in the morgue, and in various states of decay, including insect infestation. But Goff also writes about coping with murder scenes, testifying in court, and publicizing his profession. This book should appeal to a wide audience owing to its readability and novel subject matter. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-William H. Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674002202
• ISBN 13: 9780674002203
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240