How maggots and infrared cameras are solving murders

You've got to love how human beings can turn the macabre into magic - or in this case‚ the maggots into the mystery-solvers.

A police researcher in Australia has invented a way to detect decomposing corpses from high up in the sky using an infrared camera. The camera‚ which is mounted onto a helicopter‚ is able to detect heat on and around a corpse‚ enabling police to find a missing body that they would not be able to pinpoint at ground level.

The science behind the invention is as fascinating as the gadget itself: basically‚ when a person dies‚ their body turns stone cold as all the systems shut down and the warm blood stops coursing through their veins.

Within hours after this‚ however‚ unless properly refrigerated‚ the body warms up again‚ this time not because of what's inside‚ but what’s outside. It will soon reach the same temperature as the immediate environment.

A few days after that‚ the body becomes extremely warm - even warmer than the environment‚ courtesy of maggots that arrive en masse to start doing their bit for the ecosystem. As they start feasting and squirming around‚ they produce so much heat energy that they warm up the corpse on which they are feasting.

And that is how the researchers got their eureka moment. If an infrared camera can detect heat‚ and a dead body heats up so quickly after the maggots arrive‚ then surely it’s a match made in forensic heaven?

Attaching an infrared (or IR for short) camera to a helicopter‚ they discovered that even from a kilometre away‚ they could detect a dead body.

“When thousands of maggots group together‚ they form larval aggregations‚ and these can generate a lot of heat‚” senior constable Mike Lee‚ a forensic investigation officer with the Western Australian police‚ told online science media platform‚ Particle.

“It was pretty clear. When you compared the IR images with actual photos‚ you could see that it was the larval aggregations that were visible in the IR image. A lot of the time‚ the carcasses weren’t detectable‚ but the insects were.”

He had gone about his research for the University of Western Australia by dropping 50 of the closest approximation to a human corpse (namely‚ dead pigs) in a wide research area.

Then‚ for 50 nights after that‚ observations would be made on the ground to check insect activity and temperatures‚ as well as from above to check for signs of warmth showing up on the IR camera.

And voila - it became clear that an aerial view coupled with manic maggot activity and an IR could solve the mystery of missing bodies.

There is‚ however‚ one more mystery that has not a yet been solved.

Even after a corpse had been removed‚ the IR would detect a warm patch - like a ghost that had escaped from the spiritual world of belief and plonked itself down in the empirical world of science.

At this stage‚ say the researchers‚ there is one possible explanation that would need to be tested… and it’s not for sensitive readers.

It could be that “greasy‚ decomposing liquids from the carcasses leached into the soil below‚ changing the emissivity of the soil‚ which is the way that it absorbs‚ emits and reflects heat.”

Said Lee: “With a lot of things in forensic science‚ there are lots of ideas for things that we would like to find out but not enough students to test them.”