ABSTRACT
In the first few hours after death the forensic pathologist, a medical doctor specialized in forensic pathology, will use medical parameters to estimate the elapsed time since death. These include things such as cooling of the body (algor mortis), stiffening of the body (rigor mortis), and coloration change in the body (livor mortis). However, about 24 to 48 hours after death, most of these biological changes have been completed so they are of little value in estimating elapsed time since death. It is then that the police will turn to an entomologist.
