odontology
by Leif Kullman
The case with the skeleton remains in the archipelago
One spring day, in the end of the 80’s, a fisherman finds some skeleton
remains in an island in the outer archipelago of Gävle. He contacts the
police who find a mandible, bones from two feet, a pelvis and parts of a
vertebra. The other parts of the skeleton are missing and the remains are
lying close to the water near the seashore. Nearby some clothes are find, a
blazer, trousers and a shirt. But nothing can be found in the pockets,
giving a clue to identity.
As usual the police start to look in a list for missing people. About one
year ago a retired submarine researcher disappeared close to this island.
Somebody found his boat, floating for itself on the see and they suspected
that he had drowned. Some people even believed that he had been kidnapped by
the intelligence service of some foreign country, due to his knowledge about
submarines. Whatever was true, these people and the police now thought that
he had finally been found.
The policemen in charge knew that we had the ante-mortem record of this
researcher in our register for disappeared persons, so they sent the remains
to us in Stockholm.
I have earlier described the computer register for missing people that we
started to use in the early 80’s. In 1987 the Swedish police also
established new rules about the procedure of collecting information about
disappeared human beings. Besides the usual police description (length, hair
colour and so on), they also started to obtain the name of the doctor and
dentist that the missing person visited. These are supposed to be contacted
and are asked to submit relevant medical and dental recordings to the
National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Stockholm. The dentists are
prompted to submit all material, it can be written records, photographs,
radiographs or dental casts. The dental records are then stored in our ante
mortem database.
We received the post-mortem material and started our examination. The police
had not asked for any forensic autopsy, our forensic exam would hopefully be
enough. We found a missing lower first molar (tooth 36) and an amalgam crown
in the second molar (37). When we compared this finding with the ante-mortem
records of the submarine expert, we could directly rule him out as being
identical with the victim. The expert had no such large amalgam
restorations, instead a lot of gold crowns. We called the police and told
them the bad news, the victim was some completely unknown person.
This happened when we had just started our register and still we had no
established rules how to run everything. Immediately when we had replaced
the phone on the unit, did we realize: We have to make a comparison of this
post-mortem data against all ante mortem records that we have recorded in
the register of course! This was immediately done and yes, the computer
found a suitable candidate (let us call him Peter) among registered
disappeared persons. We compared the other teeth in the mandible and
everything matched. So we called the policeman back to inform him and he was
really happy and surprised!” How did you found out that” did he ask and we
had to explain a little more about our register and how it worked.
Peter was from Gävle and the reason why the police never suspected it could
be him when they found the skeleton remains was very simple. Peter had
disappeared a couple of years earlier and the last time he had been seen by
a witness was outside his flat, far away from the sea. That´s why no
connection was made with a body found in the Baltic Sea several years later.
Computers and different kinds of softwares are already in
worldwide use in Forensic Odontology and in Sweden we have such a computer
program, in which the antemortem (from the dental records) and postmortem
(from the body) recordings can be registered. The ante- and postmortem data
are put in separate databases and the computer helps us to select candidates
with a possible match. Searching by means of the computer can be done on
e.g. a single filling in a specific surface found postmortem in a body. The
searching is then performed against the database containing all the
antemortem records.
Of course it is also possible to ask the computer if a specific tooth is
missing or not or to search about the condition of several teeth
simultaneously. One rare or very characteristic filling is often enough to
select a couple of possible candidates. The program is made in both a
Swedish and an English version and is adopted to the forms for
Identification of disaster victim, newly agreed upon by Interpol.
There are two main situations when this program is used in Sweden. At first
in mass disaster identification. Traditionally, in every missing person a
dental signalement has to be registered and an antemortem form written. In
every victim of the disaster postmortem dental findings must be checked and
the postmortem form has to be written in a particular form. After that, a
matching between the "graphichal view" of all missing persons have to be
"manually optical" compared with the same of all victims. In earlier
aircraft disasters there have been situations where the whole floor in e.g a
hangar has been filled with these forms. It is not hard to understand that
in disasters with a large number of victims, the identification process will
be much faster if all cases can be registered, sorted and compared with the
aid of a computer. However finally, to establish a safe identification, an
ordinary manual comparison by a forensic odontologist is performed. During
this procedure every existing postmortem tooth must be compared with the
antemortem registrations. If the ante- or postmortem material was very
small, radiographs must often be taken and used. A single antemortem
radiographs is often enough to establish an identification if an postmortem
is taken of the same tooth area.
. Since 1987 the Swedish police has new instruction about the procedure of
collecting information about disappered human beings. Besides the usual
police description (length, hair colour and so on), they also try to obtain
the name of the doctor and dentist that the missing person visited. These
are contacted and asked to submit relevant medical and dental recordings to
the National Institute of Forensic Medicine inStockholm. The dentists are
prompted to submit all material, it can be written records, photographs,
radiographs or dental casts. The dental records are then stored in our
antemortem database. When dead bodies, without any indication of the
identity are found somewhere in Sweden, as happens about 20 or 30 times
every year, it is possible to make a comparison.
Leif Kullman
