Thanatochemical Utility of Postmortem Vitreous Biochemical Parameters in the Discrimination of Deaths Connected with Bleach Toxicity using Animal Models

The vitreous, unlike blood which putrefies shortly after death, promises to be a viable alternative specimen in the chemistry of death but there are no vitreous-based biomarkers for distinguishing amongst the emerging common causes of deaths. This has created a diagnostic gap that is being exploited to mask homicide as the court finds it difficult to accurately ascertain the cause of death where there are no physical injuries, as in cases of chemical toxicities. This study aims at exploring the discriminatory potentials of selected vitreous biochemical parameters in the autopsy of death by bleach toxicity and in death disguised as bleach toxicity using rabbits. Completely randomized block design (CRBD) was used for this study. 96 male rabbits were used for this research and were structured into four groups of twenty-four rabbits each: two treatment (test) groups and two control groups. In one test group, the death of the experimental subjects was caused by bleach toxicity. In the second test group, the death of the experimental subjects was caused by strangulation, thereafter, the dead subjects were administered lethal doses of bleach as a cover up of the actual cause of death. The remaining two groups are the baseline controls. After a postmortem interval of twenty-four hours, vitreous samples were obtained from each group of the experimental animals by Coe and Tente’s methods. The samples were analyzed for the levels of Sodium, Potassium, Carbon iv oxide, Chloride and Calcium using ion selective electrode method, while Total protein, Albumin, Globulin, Glucose, Total cholesterol, Triacylglycerol, Urea, Creatinine, Uric acid, Creatine kinase and Lactate dehydrogenase were analyzed using their specific standard methods. Results obtained were then analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (Version 18-21) and one-way ANOVA (Post Hoc-LSD). The results show that postmortem vitreous levels of Na, K, Cl, total protein, creatinine and lactate dehydrogenase differed significantly (P≤0.05) between samples from deaths caused by bleach toxicity and deaths by strangulation but disguised as bleach toxicity. The striking differences in the levels of these notable analytes can be utilized either as primary or confirmatory tests to reveal and discriminate between death disguised as bleach toxicity and death by actual bleach toxicity.