Insect evidence to locate missing persons and aid in unresolved homicide investigations

With more than 300,000 unresolved homicides and 225,000 missing persons cases in the United States alone, the complexity of these criminal investigations requires novel and interdisciplinary approaches. Searching for remains in remote locations or difficult to reach terrains presents a challenge for law enforcement, search and rescue organizations and volunteers. In forensic entomology, information can be gained from the use of insect evidence in legal investigations. Typically, insects provide a timeline of the minimum time of colonization of insects on remains, which may result in the minimum postmortem interval or time since death. Due to the ability of blow flies to detect and arrive to remains shortly after death, there is ample opportunity to use this biology to detect and approximate locations of human remains in a given area. Insect evidence offers a cost effective and novel tool that can be applied in search and rescue efforts for remains in difficult to reach terrain and can narrow down a location of interest. Traps for collecting flies in a given area are easy to deploy, and offer the ability to detect human DNA in the digestive system of the blow fly which can quickly provide information regarding potential remains or traces of a missing individual or homicide victim. This presentation will provide a brief overview of entomological applications in forensic science and will highlight novel applications of insect evidence to unresolved investigations.