Facial reconstruction during postmortem examination: Autopsy case reports

Dead bodies are brought to the mortuary with injuries. These injuries may cause mutilation of the dead body. In addition to the injuries by weapons, mutilation may be caused by other means too. Whenever there is mutilation to the face it becomes very painful for the family members and the friends to look at the face especially when it is the dead body. When a postmortem examination is conducted on the dead bodies in addition to serving other objectives of the autopsy one of the objectives is to give back the body in a presentable form so that relatives and friends can grieve over the dead body in a humanitarian and peaceful way. This objective will involve the reconstruction of the mutilated body, especially the face. This can be done in a variety of ways. Two such cases are being presented in this paper to highlight the importance of reconstruction of the face during postmortem examination.