Identification of toxics in adipocere: Two case reports

Summary Adipocere formation requires very particular conditions of humidity and pH, but when it is formed, it can persist for very long periods. To date, there are very few cases with toxicological analyses performed on adipocere. We report two cases with a long delay between death and the discovery of the body (24 days and 12 years) associated with adipocere formation. In both cases a screening was carried out by GC-MS and LC-DAD. Additionally, a LC-MS/MS screening for drug facilitated sexual assault was performed allowing the detection of psychotropic substances at very low levels. Adipocere samples were hydrolyzed with a lipase buffer before liquid-liquid extraction. In the first case, diazepam, nordazepam and flunitrazepam were found at 2.1 ng/g, 1.8 ng/g and 1.2 ng/g, respectively. In case 2, phenobarbital was found at 26 μg/g in adipocere and 59 μg/g in liver. Although the post-mortem delay was important and the environmental conditions may have affected the measured concentrations, we were able to highlight the presence of 3 benzodiazepines and a barbiturate. The interpretation of these results remains complicated because of the lack of data in the literature.