Uncertainty in Temperature-Based Determination of Time of Death

Temperature-based estimation of time of death (ToD) can be performed either with the help of simple phenomenological models of corpse cooling or with detailed mechanistic (thermodynamic) heat transfer models. The latter are much more complex, but allow a higher accuracy of ToD estimation as in principle all relevant cooling mechanisms can be taken into account. The potentially higher accuracy depends on the accuracy of tissue and environmental parameters as well as on the geometric resolution. We investigate the impact of parameter variations and geometry representation on the estimated ToD based on a highly detailed 3D corpse model, that has been segmented and geometrically reconstructed from a computed tomography (CT) data set, differentiating various organs and tissue types. From that we identify the most crucial parameters to measure or estimate, and obtain a local uncertainty quantification for the ToD.