Technical Question - Alcohol in Blood

Cornelius Gault

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NOTE: Title and text changed per moderator's notes (originally posted as "Fan Fiction).

I am writing a mystery story. I have a generic question or two:

The murder victim has wine, but did not drink any. The killer wants to make it look like she drank it, but after killing her, cannot just pour it into her mouth. Would there be some way to "fake" alcohol in the blood?

How long after drinking alcohol does it get into the blood? For instance, if she was killed immediately after drinking the wine, would she show alcohol in her blood? Of course, the autopsy might show alcohol in her stomach. Would the lack of alcohol in her blood, but in her stomach, be used to determine any details about what happened before her death?

Thanks for any help.
 
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Torill

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I think you'd get more responses if you filed off the fanfiction mentioning and posted this in the 'experts wanted' subforum. Fanfiction is not allowed here, so I doubt anyone will want to help you writing it.
 

DancingMaenid

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Considering many of us are fanfic writers, I don't think people will be biased against the OP (I also don't think there's any rule against talking about writing fic. Just posting it). But I agree that this would probably be better in the Experts Wanted subforum since that's where people generally go to find research questions to answer.
 

Torill

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I'm another fanfic writer, so I'm not against the OP doing it. But I seem to remember this kind of request has been frowned upon before. But I'm no mod, so I'll shut up now. :)

Good luck, Cornelius! (I love Columbo, too)
 

Namatu

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I second? third? the suggestion that you post this question in the experts wanted forum. I have absolutely no idea. :D
 

veinglory

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You could probably inject some in the areas blood would most likely be drawn. But it would be rather hit and miss.
 

Cornelius Gault

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OK, the OP was moved. My original questions remain.

If you wish to remove some of the above comments about "Fan Fiction", please do so, otherwise the thread doesn't make any sense now.
 
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Drachen Jager

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Unless the ME was drunk I don't think there's any realistic way to fake a high blood alcohol level after the victim is dead. There's no circulation to carry the blood through the body and if you do as veinglory suggests, not only is it hit and miss, but any competent ME would notice the puncture mark right next to where they were drawing blood.

I simply wouldn't buy it.
 

jclarkdawe

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I agree with Drachen -- impossible with a competent medical examiner.

You'd think pouring anything down the mouth would end up in the stomach, but that ignores the epoglottis. Our throat goes two ways, one to the lungs and one to the stomach. When you breathe, the epoglottis blocks air going to the stomach, and when you eat, the epoglottis blocks food going to the lungs.

Chances are very high that when a person dies the epoglottis is going to be set for breathing. Or in short, anything you pour into the mouth is likely to end up in the lungs. You can bypass this process with a tube (and why patients are tubed), but you're likely to leave traces of the tube if it is inserted after death unless you have some experience in tubing patients.

Even if you get the alcohol into the stomach, getting it into the blood stream is the least of your problems. You've got to get it to perfuse organs. Organs will be removed for independent examination and need to have alcohol in them for it to matter. Even if you pumped the blood through a heart pump, until you get perfusion, you're going to be caught short.

What your murderer wants to do is keep pouring alcohol down the throat of the victim as the victim is dying. You want at least a half hour and preferably an hour or so.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

King Neptune

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How much trouble would someone be willing to go to? While there would be no absorption in the intestine and no circulation, injecting a suitable amount into and hooking the body to a heart-lung machine for a few minutes would spread the alcohol pretty well, but that seems a bit farfetched, unless the person were in a medical office that a suitable machine ready to be used. And it would require that the machine be cleaned afterward to ensure that the fakery no be noticed.
 

Drachen Jager

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@KN

Problem with that is, it requires puncturing the skin to hook someone up to a heart lung machine, and that would raise questions, since it would be obvious the operation was done postmortem, and once suspicions were raised, it would be easy to check whether the alcohol was pumped in postmortem (by examining the liver for instance).
 

King Neptune

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@KN

Problem with that is, it requires puncturing the skin to hook someone up to a heart lung machine, and that would raise questions, since it would be obvious the operation was done postmortem, and once suspicions were raised, it would be easy to check whether the alcohol was pumped in postmortem (by examining the liver for instance).

But if someone really wants to get alcohol into a corpse, then that's pretty much the only way.

There would also be the problem that there wouldn't be a suitable amount of alcohol in the stomach and the small intestine.
 

Fitch

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The only way I can see to do it is to fake the report - have the killer somehow alter the ME's report in the computer database.

That only works if the ME is never again consulted about the report. It could work in a cold case where the ME passed away and the body was cremated.
 

jclarkdawe

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An autopsy report consists of the results of various tests performed by people other than the medical examiners. If someone is suspected of being under the influence of alcohol, brain, liver, and some other organs, as well as the blood, are sent to various labs for further testing to determine the blood/alcohol level. The medical examiner is the one who puts it all together. Killing the medical examiner doesn't solve the problem.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

stephenf

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Hi
It is an interesting problem , alcohol needs to pass though the liver befor it is in the blood . Alcohol is found naturally in blood and there is not a normal level for everybody . So, a blood test taken from a dead person is not very useful . There is no convincing way that alcohol can be added to a dead persons blood . If you need to have the victim drunk , you will need to do it when thay are alive , and it needs to be at least half an hour befor and a large amount to push to level to abnormal leavels .
 
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Pyekett

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I bet in a standard autopsy, the only test for alcohol would be in blood, not in tissues (unless there was a reason to test tissues--I don't think the norms are as reliable). Maybe you could make the victim have a recent abrasion or laceration pre-mortem, have the killer inject through the damaged tissue into a conveniently nearby vein, and then have him or her perform CPR on the corpse?

Wave your hands a bit and chant magically.
 

jclarkdawe

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The OP said "murder victim." This is not a simple autopsy. Each and every factor in the death can come into play during the trial. Further, there is a lot of study of the effects of alcohol of brains and autopsies are a good way of doing this.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Pyekett

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The OP said "murder victim." This is not a simple autopsy. Each and every factor in the death can come into play during the trial. Further, there is a lot of study of the effects of alcohol of brains and autopsies are a good way of doing this.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

You think it's common to test the blood alcohol level in the brain in a murder victim, over and above the blood alcohol level? I can ask.

Maybe for certain circumstances, but I doubt it is done in most murder autopsies. There are norms, but they are not well-validated as in BALs. Unless there was something like a visible postmortem puncture, I don't see why more than standard blood testing would be done. It is, after all, the standard, and if there is no reason to doubt it, then--tautologically--there is no reason to doubt it.

Added: Can it be done? Sure. Would it be done? That's the real question, plotwise.
 
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jclarkdawe

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As a defense attorney, the autopsy usually doesn't give me much room to work with. I don't want to explore the track of the gunshot wound one more time. The prosecutor and doctor have discussed that ad nauseam on direct. I don't need to repeat stuff like that and bore the jury.

So I look for places where I can show the doctor didn't cover. So if the only mention of BAL is in the blood, then I'm going to ask about why it didn't show in brain and liver tissues, or in the stomach contents. What I want to show is the doctor did a sloppy autopsy.

Sloppy autopsy, sloppy police work, and a few more sloppy things and maybe the jury will come back with a not guilty. It's not much, but if you've got nothing to work with it, you have to go that route.

I'm not going to ask the doctor the numbers, because he knows them better than I do. But if the brain's report doesn't indicate the presence of alcohol, while the blood does, I'm going to point it out.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Pyekett

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Okay. I'd buy that. You can't perfuse tissue well, just circulate blood in a minimal way.

What if there weren't a defense attorney to probe further? Say, if there was no suspect to defend, or if our murder victim in the OP wasn't identified as a murder victim? Killer sets it up to look like a drunken fall down the stairs, nobody knows a second person was there, victim was new to the neighborhood so nobody knows he wasn't a heavy drinker.

Mind you, the writer would probably be best to signify some reason there was incomplete work. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I believe half-assed work goes on all the time, especially when it's believed it won't be critiqued.
 
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