i have autopsy experience, limited forensic experience, and no experience with death from chloroform, so i cant offer expert opinion but im definitely interested. did a quick medical journal search just to get some scientific background on such cases...
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x) something i would hope (and have to assume....) they ruled out is that during her 11 years of being buried, groundwater contaminated with substances such as chloroform leeched into her remains. chloroform used to be used often in embalming (has since largely been replaced with safer alternatives), but in a large graveyard, I have no doubt that chloroform-embalmed bodies would be present and release those chemicals into the surroundings.
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x) -chloroform kills (acutely) primarily by causing depression of the central nervous system. chronic exposure causes damage to various organs.
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x) -chloroform concentrations known to be diagnostic in the blood, brain, fat, and liver of victims. when exhumed it's very possible some brain/liver was still available for testing.
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x) -case in which ingestion of chloroform was initially ruled out bc no tissue damage to esophagus/stomach, and the ruling was later changed due to high levels found within stomach contents(i found that this is describing the case of
yvonne davidson). so, especially with a 11 year gap before exhumation, it might be very hard to tell ingestion vs inhalation.
-inhalation would kill much faster than ingestion (multiple hours); what is the known timeline here?
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x) -seems like inhalation homicides are more commonly reported than ingestion, which makes sense because it would act much faster
i'm having trouble finding many reported cases of ACCIDENTAL death due to choroform;
here is a case of a child breathing in chloroform from old refridgerant and
here is a case of chloroform being used during autoerotic asphyxia which is thusly ruled as accident. there are a
couple documented cases of other pool chemicals like chlorine causing death usually due to improper chemical mixing and improper ventilation, but i cannot find ANY cases of death due to pool chemicals producing actual chloroform. chlorine + organic nitrogen-containing compounds (from human sources like sweat) within pool water can technically? produce chloroform (
x) (
x) (
x) but i cannot find any evidence of pool chloroform causing acute damage or symptoms, and instead the fear is its longterm carcinogenic/teratogenic effect.
TLDR; if the MEO is confident that this is not due to contaminated cemetery groundwater exposure then i agree that statistically this is probably a homicide due to forced inhalation. if she truly had coffee-ground emesis (i.e. indicating bleeding from upper GI tract that sits in the stomach) that may indicate an ingestion event (i cannot find cases of coffee ground emesis from drowning alone or from CPR), but given the hours-long period between ingestion of chlomoform -> actual death and the symptoms in between, i have a tough time seeing that situation being a homicide that no one else in the house would notice.
