ZAKARIA ERZINCLIOGLU: 'There are many paths to the truth," Zakaria Erzinclioglu, Britain's leading forensic entomologist, was fond of saying.
For Erzinclioglu, who helped solve more than 200 murders over the past quarter-century, the path to the truth was paved with flies and maggots. Erzinclioglu, whose application of insect biology to the investigation of crimes earned him an international reputation, died aged 50 of a heart attack on September 26th in England, although his death was not immediately reported in the London media.
In simple language, the self-described "maggotologist" described the scientific basis for his expertise in his book Maggots, Murder and Men: Memories and Reflections of a Forensic Entomologist.
"When a body begins to decompose, it releases volatile compounds with particular chemical compositions. These are the odours that attract a fly to a corpse." Once the odours disappear, typically within a few weeks of death "whether the body is buried or not", flies ignore the corpse, he wrote. By calculating the age of the flies and the fly larvae found on the body, a forensic entomologist can determine with a high degree of confidence when the person died.
The enormous number and variety of insects - Britain boasts 5,000 fly species - can also can help investigators trace a body's movements. If an insect found only indoors or in one region shows up on a body discovered in another area, for example, forensic entomologists can conclude "the body had been lying somewhere else, buried and exhumed," he said.
Flies also will be attracted to wounds. And, according to Erzinclioglu, "even if the wound has been eaten away and there is nothing to see when the body is found, the evidence of maggots can hint at a possible cause of death."
Erzinclioglu received his first call from the police in the early 1970s seeking somebody who was familiar with maggots. The Hungarian-born Erzinclioglu, affectionately called Dr Zak by police and others who had difficulty pronouncing his name, averaged a dozen calls a year from police detectives seeking his expertise.
The better-known crimes Erzinclioglu helped solve include that of Robert "Smelly Bob" Black, who was convicted in 1994 of murdering and raping three young girls.
By studying the developmental stage of the maggots found in the body of a young woman, Erzinclioglu was able to estimate the day she died. With that information, police investigators turned their attention to a male friend of the victim's who later confessed to stabbing her 57 times.
Born in Hungary in 1951 to parents of Turkish origin, Erzinclioglu grew up in Egypt, Sudan and England, where he contracted polio, which caused him to develop a limp. After earning a degree in applied zoology from Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1975, he worked from 1976 to 1981 for the Zoological Society of London as a compiler for The Zoological Record. He then studied for his doctorate at Durham, writing his thesis on blowfly eggs and larvae and their development.
In 1984, he moved to Cambridge University, where he worked in the zoology department and wrote about blowflies for The Naturalist's Handbooks series. He later was appointed director of a new forensic research centre at Durham University. He is survived by his wife, Sharon, a son and two daughters.
Zakaria Erzinclioglu: born 1951, died September 2002.