forensic entomology; forensic science; Marcel Leclercq; human remain; case study
Abstract :
[en] Doctor Marcel Leclercq was a pioneer in the field of forensic entomology. He has provided his knowledge of insect biology to many forensic cases, and most of them have found the way to publication. Most of the papers he has written were focused on individual cases, and despite the abundance of entomoforensic investigations he conducted, no synthesis has been published. This paper summarizes 36 years of forensic entomological investigations in temperate Europe, mainly in Belgium. Leclercq’s work includes 132 entomological cases involving 141 human corpses found in various death scenes. Under certain conditions, insect specimens found on death scene can provide information on when (postmortem interval estimation), where and how a person died. More or less one hundred insect species associated to a dead body have been identified by Marcel Leclercq.