Abstract

Background: In Legal investigations like in crimes resulting in fatalities or when unknown skeletal human remains are being recovered by investigating agencies, it is the forensic pathologist who is often asked to give his opinion regarding personal identification for the deceased. Stature is considered to be one of the most valuable parameter to determine the physical identity of an individual.

Aim and objective: To find out correlation between Head length and Head breadth with stature of the individual and to devise a linear regression equation to determine stature from Head length and Head Breadth.

Type of Study: Descriptive cross sectional study with analytical and comparative components. Place of Study: Department of forensic medicine and Toxicology Narayana Medical College, Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh State.

Material and Method: Present study comprised of total 300 young and healthy subjects in the age range 18–25 years, of Nellore region of south India. The subjects were studied for the following parameters: Stature, maximum head length and head breadth.. The measurements were tabulated and statistically analyzed.

Observation and Discussion: The Mean height of males was 166.3±5.92 and that of females is 154.9±5.53. Mean Head Length and Head Breath in males are 18.62±0.55, 13.62±0.52 and that in females are 17.77±0.44, 13.22±0.27. The Pearson correlation of stature with head length and head breadth in male is r = 0.315, r = 0.227 which is significant with p-value is 0.00043, 0.0026 and that in females are r = 0.276, 0.148 is significant with p-value is 0.00032, 0.03536 combined (Male and Female) r = 0.619, r = 0.431 is significant with p-value is 0.000001, 0.000001.

Conclusion: We conclude that the regression equations presented here can be used to estimate ante-mortem stature, with reasonable accuracy of unknown mutilated or dismembered human remains from Head Length and Head Breadth in medico-legal cases, particularly from Nellore district of State Andhra Pradesh.

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