Maggots reveal a case of antemortal insect infestation

Insects on corpses can give a wide range of information in forensic investigations. The most common application is calculating when insects oviposited on a dead person to give an estimation of the postmortem interval [1]. Since the infestation of a dead body may be delayed by certain circumstances such as indoor locations [2] or wrapping [3], it is more accurate to talk about the colonization time. Insects, being restricted to a certain area, can give further hints to the investigators such as if a body has been moved to a different location after death; also, body parts of insects can link a suspect to a crime scene [4]. Another application is the detection of toxic substances in insects feeding from dead persons' tissues [5]. There have been several studies done according to the biology of these animals' living associated with corpses as well as their application in legal investigations in the last years [6–12]. Many necrophagous flies are attracted by the odor of decomposition [13], but for some, other odors such as those from urine, feces, and the associated bacterial fauna are quite attractive and stimulate oviposition [14, 15]. The infestation of the living by dipterous fly larvae is known as myiasis. Wounds or anogenital regions are often found being fed by maggots in cases of neglect in humans or animals [16–19]. In certain cases, the chronologically nonmatching infestation of the anogenital area and favorable sites for oviposition of flies being attracted by the dead, such as the face, can give both the information of how long somebody has been neglected as well as how long a person has been dead [14, 15, 20]. Flies of the genus Lucilia belong to one of the first and most abundant summer species on corpses in Europe [21] and play an important role as facultative parasite causing myiasis [22]. It has to be emphasized that blowfly maggots will mostly feed from necrotic tissues [23] and will seldom eat the fresh and healthy skin or organs in humans or animals which has been reported for other fly species such as those from the family Oestridae under mostly tropical circumstances [24]. This unique property of fly maggots is commonly used in the maggot debridement therapy for treating nonhealing wounds [25]. Sterile fly larvae are applied to such resulting in a cleaning, disinfection, and increased healing-rate of the damaged tissue. The green bottle fly Lucilia sericata is the usual species used in this form of wound management [26]. The following case of an elderly dead woman reports the possibility to distinguish between maggot infestation before and after death, helping to reconstruct the formerly unknown circumstances.