Forensic entomology is the study of the succession patterns of arthropods taking into account the various stages of development of different species which are found on the decomposed matter during legal investigations. Simply put, forensic entomology is the study and application of arthropod biology in relation to criminal cases. It is used to aid in death investigations and other crimes such as drug detection and poisoning, help in determining the location and time of an incident, especially concerning the infliction of wounds. In murder cases, by studying the pattern of injuries on a body, forensic entomology assists investigators to determine which kind of tool was used to inflict the body. On the other hand, the science assists investigators assess the time of death by studying larvae and other insects found on the body of the victim (Bugelli et al., 2015). This follows the theory of spontaneous generation which was disproved by Francesco Redi, an Italian physician who observes that maggots develop spontaneously from rotting matter.
In this regard, the stage of a maggot development on a victim helps determine the time the victim must have died, and in establishing postmortem index (PMI), which is the time interval between the time of death and the time the corpse was discovered. Such factors help establish any association the corpse might have had with any other individual within the given time frame to help in the association of suspects at the crime scene. In general crimes, such as death due to poisoning, the science helps establish the cause of death by studying the manner in which the body decomposes by taking into account the fact that various members of the class arthropods develop in different environments instigated by different chemicals (Wells & LaMotte, 2017) . Therefore, by studying the body to access the type of wounds inflicted due to the decomposition pattern, it becomes easy to establish the type of chemicals or poisons the victim must have come into contact with.
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References
Bugelli, V., Forni, D., Bassi, L. A., Di Paolo, M., Marra, D., Lenzi, S., ... & Vanin, S. (2015). Forensic entomology and the estimation of the minimum time since death in indoor cases. Journal of forensic sciences , 60 (2), 525-531.
Wells, J., & LaMotte, L. (2017). The role of a PMI-prediction model in evaluating forensic entomology experimental design, the importance of covariates, and the utility of response variables for estimating time since death. Insects , 8 (2), 47.
