Forensic Dentistry as a Morphological Exercise in the Medico-legal Investigation of Death

In one of the first scenes of the American thriller film “The Silence of the Lambs”, young FBI agent Clarice Starling is assigned to investigate the body of Buffalo Bill’s recently discovered victim. When Starling helps perform the autopsy, she manages to identify and extract the chrysalis of a death’s-head Hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos) from the victim’s mouth. Eventually, this finding was an important piece of evidence which lead to the capture of the serial killer. Less cinematographically, Wankhede (2000) reports four factual cases with the aim to underline that examination of the oral cavity, trachea, hands and all injuries is a vital part of post-mortem investigation. In the first one, a case of hanging, the suicide note was found in the oral cavity.