Forensic Entomologists are typically employed by academic institutions and not law enforcement agencies. They can provide valuable information to law enforcement, Medical Examiners, and Coroners in establishing a portion of the postmortem interval. Entomologists are experts at determining the age of insects on human remains. Such information can be extremely valuable when law enforcement investigators are attempting to establish a time frame to support or refute suspect and/or witness statements.
Forensic entomology is a young subfield, which is the application of this science to medicolegal death investigations. Forensic Entomologists estimate the post-mortem interval (PMI)—the amount of time that passes after the death of the victim. These scientists use insects to make such determinations, as well as to help reveal the probable cause, location, and time of death. Forensic Entomologists are also able to glean other valuable information by studying the insects that live on dead bodies. For example, insect evidence can be used to:
• deduce if a body was disturbed or moved after death
• identify a body by analyzing the DNA of flesh consumed by insects
• determine whether a dead individual used drugs by analyzing accumulated toxins in the insects that fed on the body
• establish whether a suspect was present at the scene of a crime
• ascertain the presence or position of wounds in badly decomposed bodies
Forensic Entomologists have expertise about the life cycle of insects that feed on decomposing flesh. They know that certain insects eat specific parts of bodies at particular intervals. Insects also develop through their life phases from egg to larvae to pupae to adults within a constant timeframe according to each insect species.
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