Tessa Jones
Professor Pericone M.S.
Human Anatomy & Physiology I – BIOL 130-03
20 November 2017
The Stiff Truth About Rigor Mortis Growing up, I have always been intrigued by murder mysteries. My favorite shows consisted of Criminal Minds, CSI, and NCIS. From watching these shows episode after episode, I have become familiarized with the term “Rigor Mortis”. Rigor Mortis is referred to as the third stage of death, where the muscles in the body contract leaving the body “stiff” for a period of time. Rigor Mortis occurs shortly after death, usually within three to four hours when the cells lose their oxygen supply. In order for muscles to contract, ATP is required. After death, ATP is no longer produced leaving the muscles tense. The process …show more content…
This causes the muscles to stiffen making the deceased body go into the Rigor Mortis stage due to the accumulation of acid in the muscle tissue. Rigor Mortis hits its peak state about twelve hours after a person’s death and slowly decreases over the next forty-eight to sixty hours. Although Rigor Mortis may seem like a reliable source to use when predating a time of death, it is not. “It is not ideal because of the large spans of time it encompasses. The windows can vary by as much as 24 hours and there are also several factors that can severely impact the onset and timeline of Rigor Mortis” (Dillion, “Death and Kinetics.”). Other factors which can alter the reliability of prediction based on Rigor Mortis is if: the deceased person had an illness, the temperature of the atmosphere in which the body was discovered, what the person’s activities were before death, and the conditions in which the body was found. Due to the great list of factors that can modify the prediction of time of death using Rigor Mortis, I do not think it is a reliable source for doctors, detectives, or scientists to predict a time of
Professor Pericone M.S.
Human Anatomy & Physiology I – BIOL 130-03
20 November 2017
The Stiff Truth About Rigor Mortis Growing up, I have always been intrigued by murder mysteries. My favorite shows consisted of Criminal Minds, CSI, and NCIS. From watching these shows episode after episode, I have become familiarized with the term “Rigor Mortis”. Rigor Mortis is referred to as the third stage of death, where the muscles in the body contract leaving the body “stiff” for a period of time. Rigor Mortis occurs shortly after death, usually within three to four hours when the cells lose their oxygen supply. In order for muscles to contract, ATP is required. After death, ATP is no longer produced leaving the muscles tense. The process …show more content…
This causes the muscles to stiffen making the deceased body go into the Rigor Mortis stage due to the accumulation of acid in the muscle tissue. Rigor Mortis hits its peak state about twelve hours after a person’s death and slowly decreases over the next forty-eight to sixty hours. Although Rigor Mortis may seem like a reliable source to use when predating a time of death, it is not. “It is not ideal because of the large spans of time it encompasses. The windows can vary by as much as 24 hours and there are also several factors that can severely impact the onset and timeline of Rigor Mortis” (Dillion, “Death and Kinetics.”). Other factors which can alter the reliability of prediction based on Rigor Mortis is if: the deceased person had an illness, the temperature of the atmosphere in which the body was discovered, what the person’s activities were before death, and the conditions in which the body was found. Due to the great list of factors that can modify the prediction of time of death using Rigor Mortis, I do not think it is a reliable source for doctors, detectives, or scientists to predict a time of