It is crucial to establish an accurate timeline of events surrounding the discovery of the dead body and the time of death. Police and investigators spend so much time determining the time of death because it helps in exonerating a suspect or even point important pieces of evidence to the suspect. Time of death can make or break a case. There are three different times of death, namely:
- The psychological time of death: this is the time the victims’ psychological functions ceased.
- Legal time of death: this is the time indicated on the certificate.
- The estimated time of death, which refers to the time estimated by the legal authorities that the death occurred.
Accurate estimation of the time of death leads to identifying the assailant. For example, in a scenario where a husband’s testimony indicates that he was away for a business meeting at 2 pm and returned home at 8 pm when he found his wife dead and that the whole morning she was well and alive. Therefore, where the time of death is estimated to have occurred in the morning hours, then the husband can be a suspect.
If the time of death is in the afternoon hours, it is less likely that the husband was responsible and will shift investigations towards a different direction. Accurately identifying timeline events is important because it provides the investigator with information surrounding the cause of death. Each life event is important in accurately estimating the time of death. In addition, establishing the chronological order of events provides the actual sequence of the previous events, which can significantly assist in reaching a concise presumption of the cause of the death.