Forensic Pathology News
Dr. Young will post links to news articles that interest him about
forensic pathology, medical examiners, coroners and death
investigation in this section.
Pathology in the News
- Medical examiner rules Brooklyn infant's death a homicide
- Police say the baby boy's father called 911 on March 8 after he became unresponsive in the family's home located at 101 East 32nd Street in East Flatbush. The baby was taken to SUNY Downstate University Hospital and died two days later on March 10. At this point no one has been charged in the case, but sources say it may be a case of shaken baby syndrome.
- Gabby Petito autopsy: Coroner faces challenges in determining time, cause of death, says forensic pathologist
- The body believed to be Gabby Petito will undergo an autopsy Tuesday as her fiance, Brian Laundrie, remains missing. Board-certified forensic pathologist Priya Banerjee joined "Fox & Friends First" on Tuesday offering her expertise on the key features of the autopsy and the potential challenges in determining the time and cause of death.
- 'Excited delirium' denounced long before controversial Antioch in-custody death
- Freeman said the term is too often used as a way to explain when people die while being restrained by law enforcement when there’s no obvious cause present in an autopsy. He co-authored a study in 2020 that looked at published cases of excited delirium and found the diagnosis rarely, if ever, happens independent of police involvement. "There is no really good evidence that excited delirium exists in the absence of restraint," he said. "Basically, 98% of the cases restraint was described and most of the time it was quite aggressive restraint."
- Woman Sues Cops After Court Overturns Shaken-Baby Conviction
- Jennifer Del Prete was working at a Romeoville, Ill., day care center when a child she cared for suddenly stopped breathing. Eleven months later, the child, I.Z., died from complications, and Del Prete was charged with murder. She was convicted of killing the child after a pediatrician, Dr. Emalee Flaherty, opined that the child’s brain bleeding was caused by someone violently shaking the child.
Pathology Links
- ACCPE means Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. It is The Sherlock Effect.
- Whenever an expert states the past events that occurred on the basis of looking only at the physical evidence without reference to eyewitness statements, he or she is Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. This is not only logically invalid and unsound, it never works in practice, Sherlock Holmes, CSI and Bones notwithstanding. Whenever ACCPE is listed in my comments to a news article, recognize one more tragic example of how this fallacy can destroy lives. ACCPE can also be understood as "backward reasoning,""effect-to-cause reasoning," or "abductive inference."
- American Academy of Forensic Sciences
- ForensicScienceDegree.org
- For further information on forensic science.
- National Association of Medical Examiners