We would like to express our gratitude to the funerary services of Madrid, Spain (Servicios Funerarios de la Comunidad de Madrid) for supporting this project and for the technical assistance provided during the use of the cremation furnace, through the cooperation agreement signed in 2017 with the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, Spain. We would also like to thank the Forensic Anthropology and Odontology Lab members at Universidad Complutense de Madrid for their help during the sharp force trauma experiment and validation. Finally, we kindly thank Daniel García Rubio for his assistance in designing the tables and figures.

No abstract

This study provides an overview of victim and offender data, the cause and manner of death, the dismemberment type, the post-dismemberment alteration, and the forensic investigation, for 35 Spanish forensic cases. The main aim of this study was to perform a retrospective analysis of dismemberment and body part alteration in Spain since 1990, in particular relating to burning. The sample was selected from a Spanish national database on criminal records (CENDOJ). Official court records were examined for 96 variables, which were analysed through non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis (nMDS). The results obtained revealed that the number of dismemberment cases between 1990 and 2016 totalled 35 (amounting to a total of 40 bodies) with an incidence of 0.29% of the total number of homicide cases in the database. Most of the aggressors were Spanish adult males, and the victims were adult females of foreign nationality. The most commonly employed tool used to kill and dismember was the knife. A total of 15.00% of the 40 bodies were further altered by fire. It was concluded that dismemberment and other postmortem actions contributed to complicating the forensic investigation and hindering the identification of the deceased.

No abstract

Decomposition is a natural process that begins approximately four minutes after death and continues until the body is degraded to simpler biochemical components which are gradually recycled back to the environment. This process is dependent on extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Embalming is a chemical preservation technique that aims to preserve the external appearance of the body in good condition for an indeterminate period. In Spain, there is a lack of experimental studies carried out to analyse the variables that affect decomposition in embalmed bodies, therefore, in accordance with the conclusions reached by previous authors, it is hypothesised that embalmed bodies show quantifiable characteristics during the late stage decomposition which distinguish them from control, unembalmed, cadavers. An anthropological and statistical analysis was performed on 14 individuals from Cementerio Sur de Madrid exhumed after ten years according to the Mortuary Health Law of the Autonomous Region of Madrid. The preliminary results obtained showed that there is a qualitative and statistically significant relationship between the variables evaluated, being the presence or absence of soft tissue the most notable difference. The mortuary or thanatopraxy treatments performed before the burial and the microenvironmental conditions of the burial positively influence the soft tissue preservation on embalmed bodies. These results contribute to the understanding about the decomposition rate of an embalmed cadavers in cemeteries, and the related extrinsic variables.