I probably looks like nothing’s there because the picture is so big and the lines are so small, but if you click on it, you’ll be able to see it better. The red lines are the smaller streets. The blue line is for medium streets (well, there’s only one for now). The green is for major streets and the yellow is the railroad.

So, as you can see, the layout, at least as far as the roads are concerned, has not changed much. There a some places where I deleted some roads or added some, but overall, it’s the same basic town. Just for comparative purposes, here is the actual map that I stitched together from Bing maps:

Anyways, the next time you see this map, I’ll have most of the general aspects done (i.e., the roads brushes, some colorization). Lemme know what you think!

Believe it or not, figuring out  the time of death for a dead body isn’t an exact science, nor is there one thing an investigator can observe to give a truly accurate time. Rather, it’s only through a collection of many observations that can provide insight into the time of death.

Rigor Mortis

Rigor mortis occurs within 1-3 hours of death and is characterized by a stiffness of the body. While the process is not totally understood, we know that it starts with the smaller muscle groups and works it’s way up to the bigger ones. It starts at the jaw, moves to the elbows and then to the knees and then, and only then, is a body considered to be in full rigor. The chemical process of rigor mortis is irreversible.

Livor Mortis

Livor mortis normally occurs within 8-10 hours after death and is characterized by a discoloration of the body. This is due to the gravitational settling of the blood, which is no longer being pumped through the body by the heart. While this discoloration might be almost immediately apparent (within 20 minutes – 1 hour), the intensity of the discoloration greatly increases within that 8-10 hours I mentioned earlier. The formation of livor mortis may be hindered when pressure is applied to a certain area. For example, if a body is lying on its back, pale areas may be present on the shoulders, the buttocks and the calves.

Algor Mortis

Algor Mortis is a cooling down of the body. Normally, at least in ideal conditions (a 70 – 75°F environment), the body’s temperature equalizes itself with it’s environment within the first 10-12 hours after death. Obviously every dead body isn’t going to turn up in the ideal environment, so other variables have to be taken into consideration. Location temperature is definitely one thing to consider, but body fat and clothing type are other things. Body fat and heavy clothing store heat longer and therefore cause the body to cool at a different rate. Another thing that sometimes leads to erroneous algor mortis calculations is that it’s almost always assumed that the person’s temperature was the typical 98.6°F when death occurred, but several other factors could be in play here as well: fever, drug use, physical exertion or pretty much anything else you can think of that would raise someone’s body temperature, or even cool it down. The proper use of algor moris in determining time of death relies heavily on realizing it’s limitations and taking into account other observations.

Gastric Contents

In other words, what someone ate. If a body was found in the evening and only had breakfast type food in the stomach, a reasonable conclusion would be that they died in the morning or very early afternoon. If the time of the person’s last meal is known, looking at the stomach contents and digestion tracts would enable investigators to narrow time of death because of the rate of digestion, however it should be noted that persons under duress, physically or mentally, may have slower digestion rates. Another important aspect of this to consider would be in finding out where the food in the stomach came from. It could be that the person ate something that is particular to a specific restraunt, which may help nail down when and where the last meal was consumed and with whom.

Crime Scene Investigation

This is where the life stages of certain insects are helpful. An entomologist may be brought in to study these insects because presumably, they have a predictable rate of life and death themselves. Plant biologists are helpful here as well because they can analyze specimens found on the clothing and gastric tracts just to name a few. They look at at twigs, leaves, roots, pollen, fungi, algae, etc. to determine if the body had been moved and it’s origin. Things not associated with the body can also be used to determine time of death such as mail and newspaper pick up, the lights or television on, the sort of food that was being prepared, etc., etc.

Decomposition plays a huge role in all this as well, but since there is so much information to convey on that one area, I will do it in next week’s post.

For those of you who missed the last mystery I posted, I will give you another chance to win 2 hours of my time in helping you set up a WordPress blog either on WordPress.com or your own domain – or even still, if you already have one of those, I’ll help you optimize it – by solving a mystery using the “How To Determine Time of Death” posts when I finish them. I’m doing this to create some interest in the NF book I’m currently working on that has to do with that very thing. So, until next time, happy killing! Fictionally that is…

Today, I’d like to talk a little bit about Urban Exploration. It’s sort of a passion of mine, though I don’t get to do it as much as I would like. Actually, I hadn’t thought about it in several years until Xandra James pointed me in the direction of this blog on Facebook a couple of days ago featuring some really cool photo essays on abandoned and decaying buildings.

But, before I get ahead of myself, let me explain a little about this hobby. Urban Exploration is, well, the exploration of normally unseen or off-limits locations. The idea is to go into these places and document findings via photos or video. Most Urban Explorers research their area of choice to put what they see and what they show afterwards in some sort of historical context. In fact, in the blog I mentioned above, Explorer/Photographer Richard Nickle, Jr, has documented some eerie places, such as the Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island in the Bronx in which you can see the words “Help me, I’m being held against my will” scratched into the wall. The hospital was once an insane asylum which is probably when those words were put to the wall.

For me, the thrill of wandering through places like these is trying to imagine the place’s history and why it was abandoned in the first place. I’m sure that my imagination comes up with histories far more sinister than the reality, but still, it’s very fun for me. I’ve only been to two such places, but have only documented one, which I’d like to share with you now.

This house is situated in Pikeville, North Carolina and can be seen on your left after you turn onto Nahunta Road from NC Highway 581. I wasn’t able to find any information on the house, as far as who owned it, why it was left to rot or even how old it was, but it had been a curiosity for me as I had to drive past it everyday going to and from work. I actually took a bunch of pictures this day, but for some reason, I only kept nine. Most all of them feature my oldest daughter, as she just had to be in the pictures, but I think they actually turned out really great. I did Photoshop some of them for enhancement purposes, but I think you’ll come away with the same awe as I did.

This is the view we were met with when we pulled up into the driveway.

The front of the house. It sort of reminds me of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the house Ed Gein might have lived in.

This is the view of the backyard from a first story window in what appears to have been the living room or family room.

My daughter on the steps leading up to the second floor.

My daughter looking out a window on the second floor. That rusted hunk of metal in the background appears to have been a discarded wood burning stove.

Looking at my daughter through a hole in one of the second floor bedrooms. As you can see, there is a lot of debris on the floor below, including a window that’s been pushed out.

This is the barn/garage/shed that’s to the left of the house in the aerial shot.

This was inside another one of the small buildings off to the left of the house, which showed some signs of recent use, and not the legal kind.

This is my daughter standing on the back porch of the house and as you can see, a lot of debris has just been piled up. I assure you that my daughter is way happier in real life than she looks in the picture. I think she was tired of being there at this point, which was fine because we left right after I took this one.

My daughter and I had a lot of fun taking these pictures and talking about the people who may have lived there. I don’t know what happened to the dozens of other photos that I took this day, but these were among the best. I was also learning the newest Photoshop program at the time, as is evident in the many visual effects I threw on these pictures.

In case you wanted to know, all of these photos were taken with a Canon Rebel T1i.

If you are thinking about taking a hobby such as this, please make sure you put safety first. Some of the buildings you’re likely to encounter may have hazards such as weak floors, asbestos, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, exposed electrical wires, etc. Also, be sure you have permission to enter these places in the first place, else you could face arrest for trespassing. Most importantly, however, take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints.

Hopefully, I can take this hobby up again, once I find some places to go. Do any of you guys have any experience with Urban Exploration? If so, where did you visit?