The Erratic Behavior of Lesions in Burnt Bone

Abstract

This study analyses depressed fractures (by blunt force trauma) and circular full-thickness injuries (drill injuries and gunshot wounds) in charred bones. Fifty bovine ribs (total 104 lesions) were divided into three groups. The first group consisted in 20 depressed hammer-produced fractures; in the second one, 60 round drill-holes were produced (30 circular, 30 semicircular); in the third group, 12 fleshed and 12 skeletonized ribs were hit by 9-mm bullets. Each specimen was carbonized in an electric oven up to 800°C. Morphological and metric analyses were performed before and after: morphological features were preserved, but depressed fractures showed an increase in their dimensions (p-value<0.05); the drilled holes shrunk (p-value<0.01); the charring cycle increased the number of fractures in samples with gunshot wounds differently in fleshed and defleshed ribs. This study showed the complex behavior of charred bone, for what concerns the interpretation of trauma and how caution should be applied.

Sharp and blunt force trauma concealment by thermal alteration in homicides: An in-vitro experiment for methodology and protocol development in forensic anthropological analysis of burnt bones

“…The results have shown that signatures associated with sharp and blunt force trauma were not entirely masked by heat exposure and that there is potential for future standardization of fracture analysis in burnt bone given further experimentation of this nature. In the literature, perimortem trauma is exacerbated by heat [59][60][61] whereby pre-existing fracture lines radiating from impact points extend further along the bone shaft and increase in depth. However, in these studies, existing fracture lines prior to burning were notably different from heat fractures [12,29] which were sharp, well-defined and the majority penetrating the cortex, particularly the longitudinal ones.…”

Characteristics and Frequency of Chipping Effects in Near‐Contact Gunshot Wounds

“…The same type of experimental setting has also been previously used to simulate the behavior of human bone through the use of the same type of samples. However, it is worth considering that the lack of interposition of soft tissues could be a confounding factor, and therefore a limitation of the present study .…”

A scanning electron microscopy study of projectile entry fractures in cortical bone; genesis and microarchitectural features

“…Apart from one specimen impacted at 885 m/s that exhibited two macroscopic radial fractures, impacted porcine scapulae did not show the large radial or concentric fractures that are commonly associated with gunshot entry and exit sites in human crania. These fracture types are also typically absent in bovine scapulae subjected to ballistic impact [ 6 ] but have been documented in bovine ribs [ 56 ]. Radially and concentrically orientated cracks were identified around the cortical entry at the microscopic scale in both re-bound and perforating impacts, but whilst the radial cracks may be analogous to those seen macroscopically in human material the concentric cracks are not.…”