Why can the killing be hidden as a natural death

three elderly people were found dead with four-week intervals in the Østerbro district of Copenhagen, their death, first written off as natural after a forensic inquest, with the participation of an experienced police officer and a health officer.

But after police suspected the killing was aroused by the daughter of the last victim, identified a post-mortem of the last two victims, according to the police, that they had been suffocated. The third victim had already been cremated without autopsy. It has not come forward, exactly how kvælningen must have happened.

According to the statsobducent Peter Mygind Leth from the Forensic Institute at the University of Southern denmark and chairman of the Danish society of forensic science, it can in some cases be difficult to determine the choking at an inquest - for example in the form of punktformede bleeding in the eyes.

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By kværkning with the grip on the neck closes one of the for, that the blood may run from the head, but blodtilløbet is still there.

- This means that there will be an overpressure in the face, and then jumping the vessels, so you get the punktformede bleeding. But the situation has you not, when there is external blocking with something over the mouth, and then closes the you just of of the air, and it does not give excess pressure in the head, says the coroner, who stresses that he doesn't comment on the case, because he doesn't know about it.

The three victims lived all in the same small housing association at Vangehusvej on Østerbro in Copenhagen. Photo: Jonas Olufson

He says that you don't necessarily always want to be able to demonstrate that a person has been suffocated by, for example, to get laid a pillow over the face by an autopsy.

- But of course it is always wise to be on the safe side, with regard to autopsies, and would rather obducere a little too many than a little too few, he says, and mentions a case he had in Greenland, where an elderly man died, but was not opened, so the cause of death was unknown.

And then they had a begravelsesgilde with the same food as he had eaten, where several died of pølseforgiftning. For it was indeed it, he was dead. It is such an example that it is probably better to be on the safe side and get it properly investigated, he says.

the 112 - 15. mar. 2019 - at. 13:42 26-year-old charged for three killings: Two victims were suffocated

In 2012, passed the decision on when that should be carried out autopsies, to the politikredsen, who himself also had to pay for obduktionerne.

Then came the criticism from the then president of the Danish society of forensic science, professor Jytte Banner, University of Copenhagen, denmark, that the police saved on obduktionerne, because they now have to pay for them, and the consequence was, that the danger to overlook for example the killing.

According to Peter Mygind Leth is the number of necropsies in each case, in south jutland, where he belongs, back at the level from before the system was made for.

the 112 - 15. mar. 2019 - at. 12:12 of 26-year-old man charged with three killings

- in Fact, I think that it is a very reasonable arrangement, we have, with the retslægelige inquest. But my dream is that you go into and improves the retslægelige inquest, for example, by the practice of CT. We have CT scanners and scanner all that gets opened, but if you now CT-scans before the inquest, then one would have a better basis for decisions about whether there should be an autopsy or not.

The three victims in the case was an 83-year-old woman, a 80-year-old man and an 81-year-old woman, who was hjertesyg and bad walking. Photo: Mogens Flindt

- In the specific case of older people. Would the previous pr. automatics have opened them, if they suddenly died, without that one could determine the cause of death?

- No, I think it's actually not. Not if it is someone who is hjertesyge, and they are found dead, and who, incidentally, is not any sign of something suspicious, say statsobducenten and tells that retsmedicinerne write "unknown" cause of death by 5 per cent. of obduktionerne.

It is especially younger people who have a hereditary disease, which the doctors do not know yet, but it can also be older, and perhaps hard calcified in the heart's coronary arteries, which may have had an impact on his or her death.

- Then write to dødsmåden do as soon as assumed to be natural death. The autopsy is not flawless, he says.

- thus, There is no death, where it is not possible to find the cause of death?

- It is the total picture, which means that one can reach to a probable dødsmåde and cause of death. A judicial investigation, the questioning of witnesses, the conditions on the findestedet, autopsy, says Peter Mygind Leth.