forensic- odontology
by Leif Kullman
A misleading confrontation identification
This is an identification case where a forensic odontologist not was involved. If I wanted to be a bit malicious, I could say that was why everything went wrong, but I will not do that. Some other very unlucky circumstances created the mistake, but of course you must say that confrontation identification is an unsecure method, we have learned that from other misidentifications in our history.
In a drug nest in one of the northern suburbs of Stockholm, one of the male addicts deceases. There are several people in the apartment and one of them is enough unaffected to call for an ambulance. The staff in the ambulance can only establish that the male is dead. In the usual way, the police also arrives and try to get an idea of who the suspected dead is. After a while, they come to the conclusion that the male probably is the owner of the flat, a male that we can call Per.
The most usual way to establish identity of a deceased in Sweden, if some uncertainty exist, is to let someone who knows the suspected dead be confronted with the deceased (or to compare the appearance with a photo etc.). One prerequisite being that the body is more or less intact, in a recognizable condition. However in this case, thinking of the state of mind of most persons in the flat, the police decides not to rely on these. Instead they come up with the bright idea to ask the neighbors in the same floor. So one of them goes out in the stairwell and press the bell on the next door. A middle aged male opens and when the policeman asks him, he says yes….. he can look at the dead male, he can recognize his neighbor.
He follows the police into the apartment, looks at the deceased male and says yes. that’s him, my neighbor.
A couple of days pass. The police, who is in charge for the death investigation finds the parents of Per and call them and announce that their son is dead. Of course they are very grieved about the message, but they were aware of the abuse of their son and had understand that something like this could happen.
A few days more pass, when one day the same police officer visits the public custody in Stockholm in another matter. He gets very surprised. One of the prisoner is Per. He has been arrested and sitting in the custody for some weeks. No doubts exists about his identity. How come? Well, the male in the flat was not Per of course, it was another abuser. The neighbor had made a mistake. He had met the dead male from the flat a lot of times in the stairwell and really thought it was his neighbor, when he in fact only was a common visitor.
This is an example on where a complementary tooth identification could have been a extraordinary precaution if it had been used. But it is easy to be wise after the event. There are also events where forensic odontologists are used almost unnecessarily. I myself was once asked to assist and to make a comparison between dental antemortem and postmortem findings in a dead, where the body was intact and in good
condition and where relatives were available to make a possible confrontation identification. The reason for my participation was that the relatives were reluctant to look at the body, it was psychological too difficult for them. The human pattern of behavior is wide and must be accepted and understood.
Next month I will tell you about identification work in mass disasters.
Leif Kullman
