Naked and hidden – Hypothermia or crime?
Whilst investigating and researching missing person cases, www.footprintsinthewilderness.com.au have found that to maintain an open-mind it is best to employ one word at the investigative thinking top-of-mind, ‘Maybe!’
When examining a case and trying to answer the question ‘What am I looking at?’ the key is to treat every thought as a ‘Maybe’. We look at all the information and evidence and eventually come up with a hypothesis, even that should be looked at as a ‘Maybe’. If after doubting our hypothesis and trying to prove it wrong the science and evidence says that, beyond reasonable doubt, it is correct, then it probably is. So, what can confuse us in the first place?
Let us look at the discovery of a body, an event
where the circumstances of death are unknown, tucked under a bush, deeply imbedded in the brush, and naked or partially clothed, not necessarily with the clothes in the immediate vicinity. A closer examination of the body may reveal scratch marks or other superficial injuries not unusual when the deceased is a crime victim, but is that what it is?
In the circumstances described in the paragraph above, which is the death of another human, investigators should automatically treat this incident or event as a major investigation, with the likelihood of it developing into a crime being a real possibility or probability. However, it may not be a crime, and unless a thorough investigation is conducted any conclusion is likely to be based on an assumption, and a conclusion based on an assumption is not a conclusion.
What is an alternative as to why the body is naked injured and hidden away in the bush?
Paradoxical Undressing
Paradoxical undressing is one of those strange things that an investigator can come across, more especially in the depths of winter, when the temperature drops down to a level that tickles the human body into shutdown, commonly known as hypothermia.
Search and Rescue specialists and associated medical professionals well understand the term ‘Paradoxical Undressing’ and its sibling phenomenon ‘Terminal Burrowing’, which
occur almost exclusively in situations where the outside environmental temperature is below 10 Celsius, or in the case of prolonged emersion in water, below 20 Celsius.
In non-criminal missing person cases, where victims have been found in a cold environment, deceased or alive, the absence of clothing is not entirely unusual. In simple medical terms it has been explained as the failure of the muscles in the blood vessel walls (Vasoconstriction). The vascular system of a tired and disoriented missing person, suffering from exposure to cold temperatures (Hypothermia) fail, which causes warm blood to ‘hot flush’ from the core of the body to the extremities. This sensation, in turn, causes the missing person to feel as though they are ‘burning up’, hence the removal of clothes.[i]
Terminal burrowing
What sometimes follows paradoxical undressing is ‘terminal burrowing’, which is where
the victim/missing person engages in what has been described as a primitive survival
response in cold environments triggered by the brain, similar to hibernating.
Often, in order to burrow down under logs, or deep into the roots of trees, below rocks or brush, the naked victim will have deep abrasions, cuts and bruises.
‘Terminal burrowing’ similarly to ‘Paradoxical Undressing’ is not just restricted to wilderness or bush areas, and can occur just as tragically in urban houses and apartment blocks, perhaps where the victim is old, partially immobile and/or has limited or no heating.
Study of Interest
Interestingly from an Australian perspective, the University of Adelaide conducted a study of Hypothermia deaths in South Australia (an Australian state, not known for snow-capped mountains and a vast wooded winter wilderness). The study by the School of Medical Sciences, examined forensic cases of hypothermia from 2006-2011 in both South Australia and Sweden. The results showed that South Australia had a rate of 3.9 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with Sweden’s 3.3 deaths per 100,000 people.[ii]
The circumstantial contrasts between the South Australian and Swedish data included that most of the deaths in South Australia related to elderly women in their homes, living alone, often with underlying illnesses and little contact with others. Whereas the Swedish deaths mostly related to middle-aged males, commonly under the influence of alcohol, dying outdoors with their bodies often recovered from snow drifts.
The South Australian study is raised, both as an item of general interest, and noting that in investigating these types of deaths an investigator may come across paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing, where a naked victim may be found tucked up under a heavy item of furniture or buried deep amongst a pile of belongings, and the explanation upon proper investigation may not be crime, or then again ‘Maybe’ it is.
Written by Valentine Smith APM (Co-founder of Footprints in the Wilderness)
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