ISDP: The Kill Bill Edition

It’s the thirteenth of the month again; the usual caveats apply. Only the morbidly curious should continue reading . . .

This is not your typical apartment complex murder revealed by smell:

An upstairs neighbor told Hawaii News Now that there was a foul odor coming from the unit, so he opened the unlocked door, looked inside, and found the resident with two samurai swords through his chest.

Just before Christmas in Southeast Washington, D.C., “neighbors complained about a foul odor” in an apartment house. Building engineers tracked the source to an apartment which they entered. They found the body of 16-year-old local boy who had been shot to death.

The body of a 52-year-old woman missing from Huffman, Texas was found when volunteers from the Equusearch group “noticed red hair and a foul odor coming from a large storage locker.” Turns out the victim was “the sister of a veteran Equusearch volunteer.” Weird, in a self-referential sort of way.

Finally, for all you CSI fans an esoteric bit of data about the dilatory effect of perfume on blowfly oviposition. Field studies show, and lab experiments confirm, that several common household products tend to repel blowflies from laying eggs on decaying rat and mouse corpses. The implication is that forensic entomologists would underestimate the post-mortem interval if the deceased was wearing fragrance, or to be precise,  30% patchouli oil in alcohol base by Devineau.

You can bet on this becoming a key plot point in an upcoming episode of CSI: Grasse.

P.S. Be sure to visit the updated ISDP Interactive Map.