Quick-and-dirty answer from a doctor without formal pathology training ...

a) Almost certainly yes, for both time periods, depending on how long post-mortem the beheading occurred.

b) Only in the sense of "bled out in a couple of minutes", versus "bled to death over hours to days"; I don't think you could get more precision than that.

Of course, the limitation is the effort put in. If there is a common-sense explanation (the deceased was decapitated in a witnessed industrial accident), then it is highly unlikely that any autopsy would be actively looking for evidence that the beheading happened post-mortem. Heck, there may well not be a formal autopsy at all. (Autopsies nowadays are FAR less frequent than they used to be.)

Cheers!

Ken

********************************
Kenneth Barns MB BS BSc FACRRM (Emergency)

GP and Clinical Director, UQ HealthCare Ipswich

Senior Medical Officer / Rural Generalist (Emergency), Beaudesert Hospital

Senior Lecturer (Medicine in Society), Rural Clinical School, University of Queensland

email: xxxxxx@gmail.com (preferred contact)

Mobile: +61 4 5957 2825 / 04 5957 2825

Fax (work): +61 7 3381 1809 / 07 3381 1809

On 3 July 2018 at 04:28, David Shaw <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

...but I know someone here will know the answers, unlike Google.

I am trying to write a scenario for either Call or Trail of Cthulhu where the PCs are investigating a series of grizzly murders. My questions are, with modern forensics and with 1920/30's forensics, would it be possible to tell

a) if a body was beheaded pre- or post-mortem and

b) if someone bleeds to death, how quickly they did so?

Many thanks,

David Shaw

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