Establishing Blow Fly Development and Sampling Procedures to Estimate Postmortem Intervals

The researchers propose developing curvilinear temperature models for key forensic blow fly species of the U.S. to allow estimation of a PMI with a statistically sound measure of variability and to develop blow fly larval sampling procedures for use with specified levels of accuracy and precision. The developed models will be validated with field tests and with known time of death cases. Furthermore, larval sampling procedures will be developed to provide accurate estimates of larval age structure within statistically valid limits. ca/ncf