As I’ve mentioned a few times on here, when I decided to finally start writing up the murder mystery I’d been thinking about, I started watching all my favorite detective procedurals as research. Fun research. 😉 But research, nonetheless.
One particular show gave me an idea for one of the murders that occurs within the book – one of the fake overdoses. I was watching an episode of Rizzoli and Isles, specifically episode nine of the third season titled “Hometown Glory.” In the episode, a young woman is dead by what looks like an overdose, specifically from crack. Maura (the show’s medical examiner) notes that the woman’s lips are burned from the crack pipe. For some reason, this detail caught my attention.
Next thing I knew, I was watching a video on YouTube called Antemortem vs Postmortem Burns – Forensic Medicine (FMT) – I wanted to know if you could tell the difference between a burn to the skin that happened before death or after death – and, according to this video (by a medical practitioner), it is.
Enter: woman’s death.
Because she appeared to be an overdose, the details of the burn on her lips were overlooked. Moz, however, notices.
I then fell down a rabbit hole of articles all about antemortem (occurring before death) and postmortem (occurring after death) burns and the effects on skin. Writing sure is a weird job sometimes. 🙂
Ami Maxine 