A fatal drowning filmed in a private pool: Analysis of the sequences of submersion

• Main Authors: M. Marrone, D. Ferorelli, A. Stellacci, F. Vinci
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-07-01
• Series: Forensic Science International: Reports
• Subjects: Drowning; Immersion sequences; Time of death; Pool; Autopsy
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665910721000207

Investigating a body found in water, without eyewitnesses, to determine the cause and manner of death is often difficult. Video recorded by a surveillance camera can document events and provide useful data for case assessment. The authors report the case of a 26-year-old man found dead in a swimming pool. The images taken by the surveillance camera are useful for reconstructing what happened: to confirm the autopsy by attributing the cause of death by drowning, without the interference of extrinsic factors. The sequence of events related to the submergence of the body, as seen from the video surveillance recording, does not seem to differ much from that described in the experiments reported in the literature even if it presents some discrepancies on the times of death, having been able to precisely control the times of death by acquiring the video surveillance. Reporting this drowning in a swimming pool has yet to be considered an isolated important case study for the study of the drowning process in humans.