Estimating Blow Fly Age and Reducing Error in Postmortem Interval Cases

Insect evidence can provide valuable information during death investigations. Forensic entomologists estimate the ages of the immature insects like blow flies, which can provide useful information regarding timelines in death investigations. In this webinar, we will hear from three NIJ-funded researchers whose work offers new ways to estimate blow-fly age and new science to quantify the variance in age estimation that accounts for simple genetic variation within a fly species.

Detailed Learning Objectives:

1. Improvement is needed in the accuracy of blow-fly age estimates.
2. Our research offers two ways to improve it by using a different blow-fly measure than physical size and observed development stage.
3. Our research offers a way to improve it by establishing statistical certainties around time-of-death estimates (estimated date +/− a number of days), based on universal variations in development time within the species.