Question

Imagine a man in the Chicago suburbs went outside to shovel his driveway after the Feb 10, 2018 snowstorm and had a heart attack while shoveling. When the police discovered the body later that day at 4PM, his body temperature had dropped from 98.6°F to 42°F. The environmental air temperature was 10°F. What time did he die from the heart attack?

Answer 1

I did my best with the information! The Man died at around 11:20 am.

Explanation:

So due to the algus mortis process, after death, a body can stay at its regulated temperature for up to 2 to 3 hours postmortem. But after that, the body soon drops at about 1 degrees celsius each hour. 1 degrees celsius is about -33 . So he was found at 42 degrees fahrenheit, which means he died somewhere around 11 o-clock. We do not know how long the postmortem process had his temperature delayed, so it would be roughly I say around 11: 20 am.