Cocaine in Decomposed Human Remains

Abstract

From March 1988 through March 1990, at the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office toxicology laboratory, samples from 77 decomposed human bodies were tested for the presence of cocaine, employing gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The material analyzed included decomposed soft tissue, bloody decomposition fluid, mummified tissue, maggots, and beetle feces. Twenty-two cases (28.6%) were positive for cocaine, many of these cases in states of advanced decomposition. These findings indicate the usefulness of testing decomposed tissue for cocaine in all cases where its presence is suspected. This is contrary to what might be expected, since cocaine is generally labile and rapidly broken down by both enzymatic and nonenzymatic mechanisms.

The detection of toxic substances in entomological specimens

“…Following the work of Beyer et al [9], demonstrating the presence of phenobarbital in larvae found on a skeletonised female body, numerous experiments were carried out by other groups [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,20,21,23,24] to detect controlled substances and drugs (e.g. opiates, benzodiazepines, antidepressants, cocaine, acetylsalicylic acid and amphetamine derivatives) and to gain useful information on the cause of death, when the toxicologist was unable to examine the usual biological fluids and tissues.…”

“…Only few drugs, such as cocaine [13] and amitriptyline [20] have been found using a modified hair extraction technique.…”

“…larvae, pupae, adult flies) are washed again with distilled water and dried with filter paper. This multiple washing treatment is necessary to prevent contamination by human fluid exudate or transudate [16] and 1-10 g [9,10,11,12,13,16,17,21,23,24] of cleaned larvae are weighed and finely chopped with scissors. In the works where pupae have been analysed, a lower amount, 2.5-5 g, was used [21,23].…”

“…Purification of cocaine from aqueous extracts obtained from decomposed soft tissues, including maggots, and beetle faeces [13,32], was performed on Clean Screen DAU columns for GC/MS analysis.…”

“…In 1980, the first article about a drug, phenobarbital, was published by Beyer et al [9]. In entomological cases, other authors have also analysed drugs and narcotics, in particular triazolam, oxazepam, phenobarbital, alimemazine, clomipramine [10], bromazepam, levomepromazine and clomipramine [11], morphine and phenobarbital [12], cocaine [13,14], amitriptyline, propoxyphene and acetaminophen [15], opiates [16,17,18,19], amitriptyline and nortriptyline [20,21,22], amitriptyline, temazepam, trazodone and trimipramine [23], salicylates, paracetamol, aminohippurate, amphetamines and barbiturates [24], and amphetamine derivatives [25].…”