Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How long before a body starts smelling?

Takes mine about 2 weeks of elk hunting unless i make a mistake and shart.

Some bodies smell before they are dead!

your open window will have flies causing a hell of a noise in 3 days tops and maggots in 4

I like the way you think. That's a good idea. I'm still mulling over how the deed got done. I've got 10 chapters before I have to deal with it. My guess is the autopsy would turn up the first conclusive signs of foul play and rule out suicide. The first third of the book is styled as a classic hoodunit with the apartment maintenance man cast in the role of sleuth. The second third, after it turns out it's cold blooded murder, is a spies-among-us tale and the last third will be lots of paranoia, terror and mayhem.

You are wrong about the bleeding. I have worked lots of gunshot wounds as a paramedic. A shot to the head, even from a little .32 would bleed out several quarts of blood.
Think of the two huge carotid arteries that run up the neck and supply blood to the brain.

Though the brain is shot, to coin a phrase, the heart is still beating and that blood is going to come out of the hole in the head. It coagulates and I have seen the blood from a head shot piled up 6 inches high, looks like a slightly red chocolate Jello pudding.

Have worked lots of dead, smelly corpses, unfortunately.

I would say that at room temp it would take 2 or 3 days for the body to get to smelling real bad.

How about one of those handheld crossbows? Quieter than a gun and a similar size hole, less splatter, too. At least theoretically anyway, never have owned one.

"No Country for Old Men" had a unique solution.

"Murder Inc." had an interesting way to deal with this. They would first shoot the victim in the side of the head. The second guy, completely naked to avoid getting blood on his clothes, would jump out, wrap a towel around the head and stab they victim in the heart to stop the heart from pumping. They would drain 'em in the tub, dismember them, bag 'em and leave the victim in a dumpster to be disappear in the landfill.

Kinda hard to have that determined suicide.

Good Spies tend to like simple and subtle solutions.

1975 also give you some interesting technology gaps. GSR and Blood spatter tests were both in their infancy, so you could out right ignore them, or, it would be plausible an intelligent person would not think of these avenues of investigation and make leave some evidence.

Very true.

Just an interesting side story.

Shot in the correct spot, one shot from even a 22 is pretty much instant death.

I have had the unfortunate opportunity to work a number of dead bodies in all stages, from still warm to mummified, natural to murder. There are far, far too many factors at play to make even one general statement other than "Maybe."

I have seen more than one gunshot wound to the head with little to no blood loss. I have seen .45 Ball at contact range enter with no exit, while .22s cause injuries far worse then they should.

If I had to make an educated guess, based on your criteria and my experience...

Lets assume for simplicity that the small caliber gunshot was a contact shot, and was immediately effective. Some bleeding would be expected, but would depend largely on the location of the wound, the angle of the shot, and the position in which the decedent came to rest.

In the climate you describe, with no HVAC present, and in a well sealed room, I would expect that the three day timeline you present is probably unrealistic for preoccupied neighbors to notice. He isnt going to smell good, but the odor wont be so horrendous that it will alert the entire complex. At three days postmortem, you may not even be able to smell him at the front door until you open it, but you would be getting close. Day 5 would be about where it would become quite obvious.

A lot of this depends on the victim. Size, health, clothing, even diet plays a role in this. Insect activity can accelerate the decomp timetable somewhat, as well as direct sunlight. In a dark, well sealed, fairly cool room...the timeline will be retarded to an extent.

I can assure you, though...at three days postmortem, hes gonna be ripe when you move him.

This woman lay dead in her home for 8 yrs before anyone found her.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ean-Wood-lay-dead-house-EIGHT-YEARS.html

Not so.

Lots of variables.

wonder if there could be a bit of a sidebar about a little bird fluttering in the window and trying to escape in the room where the murder/suicide occurred?

maybe it had gotten in earlier in the day when the window was ajar. once the victim got home, he closed the window as the day was cooling off thusly trapping the bird. maybe a sparrow, or a a wren or something like that.

another one for you, guys shot thru the eye ball with 22bbcap no blood.

rest is up to room conditions and cockroaches.


norm

This has got to be the most unusual thread I've ever read.

I'm glad I've never seen this type of schit.

I've seen GSW's that bled a lot and I've seen GSW's that hardly bled at all. Like Simon said, usually there's a lot of blood and it coagulates fast, just like bright red pudding. It depends on how long the heart kept pumping.

It's a hell of a thing trying to save the life of someone so intent on ending it.

I think when the sphincter muscle relaxes and the bladder empties,that smell starts right away