Forensic entomo-toxicology

Abstract

Drugs present in a decomposing corpse may be identified through analysis of maggots feeding off it. Case reports in forensic entomo-toxicology are sparse and the data base is unstructured. Drug concentrations should be measured in residual skeletal muscle, the principal food source for fly larvae, as well as in washed maggots, and the fly species should be determined. An untested possibility is the analysis of puparia or puparial cases which could extend the time frame for analysis into years or even into palaeopathology. In deaths indoors, the analysis of flies known to have emerged from the corpse is a theoretical possibility. To what extent drugs are retained in successive levels of the food chain is entirely unknown; drugs might be detectable in beetles feeding off fly larvae.