****warning - discussing graphic autopsy results*****
hmm...I can't come to any conclusions unless I see the wording on the report, rather than what's been paraphrased by the mother/her attorney.
Strangest aspect of the statement is the
'jaw bone sawed out', for sure, which is why I'd love to see the full autopsy report. I'm guessing this is the second pathologist describing what the first pathologist had done; removing the jaws from his skull in order to facilitate a dental identification, if possible. For the mother, I'm sure this sounds really barbaric and horrible, but I'm guessing that the first pathologist had a good reason to go this route. While I'm training to do autopsies currently but have not done any yet, I'm guessing when the body is obviously decomposed to the point that an open-casket funeral/showing the family the body is not possible, they can take some liberties with how they choose to remove tissues/bones because they don't have to make the body 'presentable' at the end. Also wondering if they wanted to clean soft tissue from the jaw bone if that was getting in the way of dental ID? In that case, makes sense that they removed it.
I
am surprised that being in the water no longer than Aug 24 - Sept 4 so severely degraded his organs, but it's not unheard of, especially considering warm weather (averages in Peru IL were between 80F - 69F around that time) + his body was apparently infested by maggots.
Maggots release digestive enzymes that accelerate tissue decomp and, as is stated, 'liquifies'. I don't find the lack of discernable organs suspicious, but it is unfortunate because it limits what can be determined, forensically.
And it might make you cringe to think about it, but I've seen it in case studies...fishes/turtles
will target the penis and eyeballs (as well as fingers, toes, facial features etc) before other tissues. They are soft, accessible parts of the body with thin skin that can be punctured easier than i.e. thigh skin.
The bit about his missing teeth is also a bit weird (I'm sure we've all followed cases where the skeleton has all teeth intact and that allows a dental identification!) but since it was specifically the front teeth missing, I'm guessing he might have hit something while in the water that knocked his teeth out when they were already loosening due to the soft tissues parts of the periodontium (what holds teeth into the jaw bone) degrading away.