Abstract
We had a forensic autopsy case in which drugs were detected in a cadaver that had been stored in a cold and wet condition for 5 years. The skin of the cadaver was hard, and the color was partly whitish or dark brown. Though the cadaver had transformed into adipocere in the wet and cold condition, QuEChERS extraction and LC-MS/MS revealed the presence of sulpiride and estazolam in the femoral muscle and bone marrow. The concentrations of sulpiride and estazolam in the femoral muscle were 10.6 ng/g and 39.9 ng/g, respectively. The result of a drug screening test led not only to the cause of death but also to the personal identification of the cadaver. The individual had a history of drug taking, which had been stored in his medical records at the hospital for a long time. The fact of taking sulpiride and estazolam at the same time was characteristic, and it was useful in identifying the cadaver in this case. The progress in analytical technology has made possible the detection of particle drugs from old or adipoceratous cadavers, but there have been no reports of particle drugs being detected in a cadaver that had been dead for 5 years and had transformed to adipocere, as in our present case. The analytical results by LC-MS/MS were certainly important for the diagnosis of the cause of death, and, moreover, they were useful for the purpose of personal identification.
