Murder or bugs? Cause of death can be surprising
Case study a cautionary tale of forensics
The Ontario woman’s naked body was found deep in a forest, her legs spread apart, what appeared to be bruises speckling her face, neck and torso. Evidence from the eerie scene and common sense pointed to one thing: sexual assault and homicide.
But then authorities carried out an autopsy and more investigation, producing a much different story — and a cautionary tale for a province where forensic science has a contentious history.
The bruises were actually the effects of insect bites, while the victim had a history of mental illness and had once before run unclothed through the woods, says a newly published study of the case. Her death was eventually blamed on heat exhaustion and insect stings, says the report by Dr. Michael Pollanen, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist.
The sexual-homicide “mimic” underscores the importance of considering alternative theories, of “disentangling our preconceptions from the actual truth,” he said.
“This case … is a reminder to forensic pathologists to avoid tunnel vision,” wrote Pollanen in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology. “We need to be skeptical of the allure of common sense based on first impressions of the scene and body. Forensic pathologists must be unafraid to scientifically explore improbable, but true, alternative explanations.”
His warnings would seem to embody a key part of Pollanen’s original mission in Ontario. Appointed a decade ago, the highly respected expert overhauled the province’s forensic-pathology system in the wake of the scandal around Charles Smith, the pathologist whose rush to blame caregivers for children’s deaths led to several miscarriages of justice. Smith sometimes cited foul play when accident had resulted in a child’s death.
And yet, Pollanen himself was called to task recently for wearing blinders, with a judge saying he had been too dogmatic in justifying his opinion that a child’s injury was the result of violence, not mishap. Pollanen has yet to comment on the ruling, and postponed an interview about his journal article after a National Post story on the criminal case appeared.
The study i nvolved a 52-year-old woman who had been reported missing, then found dead in a forest, naked, on her back with legs apart.
Details are withheld to protect the person’s privacy.
She appeared to have multiple, bruise-type injuries on her face, neck and abdomen, and her clothes were strewn around her van, found a kilometre away from the body.
“The probability of sexually motivated homicide seemed high,” says the paper. But the post- mortem and other investigation suggested otherwise. There was no subcutaneous bleeding at the injury sites indicative of bruises, no damage to organs, or of structures inside the neck.
Microscopic examination suggested the bruise- like marks were probably reactions to insect bites, with a possible allergic response. An entomologist found numerous wasps, bees and other stinging “Hymenoptera” insects at the scene. No semen was found in her body.
And it turned out the woman had schizoaffective disorder — with symptoms of both schizophrenia and mood disorders like depression — and had run through a forest naked before.
“A nice cautionary tale, to be sure,” Dr. Brian Peterson, president of the U.S. National Association of Medical Examiners, said by email. “One of our toughest challenges is to see beyond our initial case impressions — it’s not so much about keeping an open mind, but keeping an informed, questioning mind at all times.”
Nathan Gorham, the lawyer whose case resulted in the recent judicial dressing down of Pollanen, said he’s still troubled by the impact of such experts’ work on criminal cases. He declined to comment on the Ontario doctor’s work specifically, but l amented that pathologists often voice strong opinions based on general medical literature that may not apply to the case at hand, and essentially usurp the jury’s role by factoring in non-medical, circumstantial evidence.
“It’s difficult to overstate how important this evidence is when it bears on a truly contested issue in a trial,” said Gorham. “It gives a real, unfair advantage when you have someone who is cloaked in all of this expertise and a stellar reputation … who is essentially providing a thinly veiled argument.”