Identificatin of victims in criminal cremation and accidental fire disasters – A case study

The death may be caused due to criminal burning of the body, in accidents like plane crash and fire in a car, train, buses, houses, public places, forests and in suicidal burning. The identification from bone chips of such fire victims is a challenging task for forensic experts. In these extreme burning cases, determination of origin, age and sex etc. becomes very significant from the fragments of burnt bones. In certain cases portion of teeth, jaws, vertebrae and other bone remnants led to the identification of origin & age of bone chips. The latest biotechnological tool, DNA fingerprinting also fails in some cases because of the denaturation of DNA at such a high temperature. The anatomical reconstructions and scanning electron microscopic study of burnt bone fragments alone or in combination is the only answer to the problem. In cases of exposure to extremely high temperature, it is reported that the color of bone fragments speaks about the degree of the temperature. In a case fully burnt whitish bone chips were received for the identification of origin and age. Using scanning electron microscopic technique, study of recrystallisation and also the temperature based color change pattern, it was successfully deduced that the bone chips were of middle aged human being.