Condition of a corpse after 2 weeks.

ether said:

Okay, I'm finishing up last-minute edits so here's hoping I can nab quick responses. I want to ensure I have the details right so someone isn't reading later and rolling their eyes.

Currently, the situation I have set up in my MS:
Women, not obese (I've heard that makes a difference?), dies from a gunshot to the head. The body is indoors in a bedroom, not exposed to the elements or anything. The house is about an hour inland from the West coast, December, so it's pretty chilly.

My question: after two weeks, what kind of state would this body be in? How would it look, how would it smell? I'm wanting the characters to be able to be in the house without noticing it right away, but I'm not sure what the conditions would need to be for that to happen.

Thoughts? I know we have some experts lurking around.

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You wouldn't want to go into that room. If the heat was off, then it would encourage one set of bacteria, but I don't know how effective they would be. You might want to travelup that way, and see how things rot. There is a huge amount of variation in in decay bacteria, and location is a big factor. Temperature is also a factor, and it might be the dominate factor in December, if there is no heat source. At temperatures below 32 F bacteria don't do much.

If the characters aren't supposed to notice, then have the temperature below freezing.

I have been in houses where there hd been no heat in the Winter, and there was no noticeable smell of anythine.

There's an episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under called "The Invisible Woman" where a woman chokes to death in her apartment and decomposes for a week or so before her body is found stiff, bloated, blue, smelly and covered in ants. Add a gunshot wound to the mix and you'd probably find flies and maggots too.

Search "decomposition" on Wikipedia and it gives the stages of human decomposition.

I don't think you could be in a house with such a fresh corpse without being overpowered by the smell.

dreamcatcher said:

Search "decomposition" on Wikipedia and it gives the stages of human decomposition.

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Really? Wiki's so cool. Going to have to go check it out.

Speaking from experience (used to work at an innercity trauma center with a busy morgue), a body can be in the cooler for several weeks without a noticeable odor. At room temp, assuming no open wounds, secretions or other bodily fluids are present, 3-4 days before an odor can be detected. The above factors can significantly hasten decay and odor production. We once had a couple bodies come in from a fire, charred head to toe, and the whole place reeked within minutes and seemed to seep right into the stainless steel.

(love this thread, btw)

To save a discussion about what it will smell like, take a look at The smell of a corpse and The smell of a corpse.

Now somehow or other, people can live with a corpse in the house. It doesn't happen often, but it seems about once a year or so, somewhere a body will be found in a house where another person has lived for a year or more. (Despite rumors to the contrary, the dead are not especially a source of disease.) Most recently in the news is the serial murderer in Ohio who was just convicted and where the smell was blamed on something like a sausage factory.

As a general rule, the higher the temperature and humidity, the faster and more putrid the decomposition. How closed or open the environment is will also effect the situation. Lastly the more excited the victim was at the time of death, the faster the decomposition. And as you say, the more obese the victim, the faster the decomposition.

Smells are produced from a variety of sources, and not all sources may be present. Additional sources of smell may include vomit/stomach contents, urine, feces, and blood. All of these will decompose on their own and produce their own, special odor. Blood can be particularly offensive. If the body bloats enough (usually in more obese individuals) so that the stomach splits open, the guts and the associated smells will be released. You'll need a strong stomach to survive a corpse in that state. Wounds will increase the speed of decomposition, as you now have an easy access point. Depending upon where the wound is will effect the quantity and quality of the smell.

California has a wide range of humidity, both seasonally and geographically. This morning in San Francisco at 5:00 AM the humidity is 91% while in Mojave the humidity is 37%. That's a factor you need to figure.

Assuming a closed room, GSW to the head, normal household temperature of 70 degrees, normal household humidity (about 50 - 60%), my guess is you'd have a moderate to strong odor. It would be noticeable to most people. However, if the house-keeping is bad enough, it's possible the smell would blend in. Even a moderate odor of decomposition is fairly strong, and will drown out other odors.

One thing that happens with a human's sense of smell is we get used to it. However, putridfication is one of the strongest and most lasting odors out there.

You'd also probably have an incredible fly problem. The maggots that are feasting on the corpse turn into flies. Quickly.

It's unlikely the people in the house won't notice. But there's been a couple of houses I've been in where I could see it happening. You have decomposing food in the kitchen, bathrooms that even a guy wouldn't use, clothing and bedding that doesn't know what water is, then it is possible. In a normal house, it's going to be very noticeable, all the way up to people gagging upon entering the house.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Putrefaction, the third stage of a corpse, and the one that brings the foulest of smells, starts about three weeks after death. (Variables being humidity and temperature.) It is possible that the corpse is not discovered because of its odor until then. The other smells might not make it out of a well-sealed room, perhaps on a different floor than where the occupants stay. You can stage the location to accommodate what you want.

I vote for being near a sausage factory...
or municiple waste disposal site...

Here's a good resource for anyone dealing with bodies from Dr. Arpad Vass, the king of decomp at the Body Farm.

http://www.sgm.ac.uk/pubs/micro_today/pdf/110108.pdf