Would the police really give out autopsy details

March 29, 2008 11:00 AM

MysteryNovelFactFilter: I'm reading a mystery novel and the protagonist triumphantly announced she knew who did it because a) the victim broke his neck after a long fall and b) the police revealed this info to her. Is this actually possible?

So, I'm reading a mystery novel and the protagonist, a hard-hitting investigative reporter with a penchant for expensive shoes has just announced she knows who the killer is because the victim, who broke his neck, did so after falling out of a tree, not stumbling and accidentally breaking his neck. She says that the police revealed this info to her. If it matters, the book is set in the US, in the L.A. area.

IANAD but doesn't it seem impossible to tell if someone broke their neck after falling five feet or twenty from an autopsy?

And also, since when do the police give out autopsy information to random reporters?

Mostly asking so I don't sound like a total idiot when I review it on Goodreads, but still seems like a reasonable question.

posted by arnicae to grab bag (11 comments total)

Five feet is nothing at all, you'd have to be really unlucky to break your neck on a 5-foot drop, and you'd have to land right on your head, so your legs/arms would probably be fine. At twenty feet, however, there will be serious injuries all over the place.
posted by Jairus at 11:09 AM on March 29, 2008

i doubt they could figure the distances very accurately, but you would surely have more extensive injuries if you had a long fall rather than a short one. so the broken neck might look the same either way, but would be a) less likely from a short fall, and b) be accompanied by other injuries in a pattern consistent with a long fall.

as for what the police would tell a reporter...that depends. it might have been off the record.
posted by thinkingwoman at 11:09 AM on March 29, 2008

Having read a lot of mystery novels, it's also possible that the protagonist is an ex-cop herself, or she was married to one, or she hangs out in cop bars, or she once gave a grizzled old cop the very piece of inside information that allowed him to make the big case, and now he owes her one. There are plenty of other possibilities, natch.
posted by box at 11:37 AM on March 29, 2008

IANADE, but I'd imagine that a competent pathologist could tell by experience from the amount of bone damage/crushing/splintering, the sort of force which was required to do such damage, and as such, knowing the weight of the victim, could estimate the distance (up to a point at which the victim would have been travelling at terminal velocity) from which they fell, based on gravitational acceleration...
posted by benzo8 at 12:14 PM on March 29, 2008

all true, I guess I'm not suspending disbelief enough. (:
posted by arnicae at 12:19 PM on March 29, 2008

It seems to me that the angle one would hit the ground from tripping and falling would be very different. That portion passes my smell test.

Autopsy records can be made public, and more to the point, a cop can tell anyone anything they want in private. So there's no reason to doubt that either. However, if the amount of detail in the novel is as sketchy as you present it:

"Oh my god! How did you learn that?"

"Oh, the police told me."

"Oh."

Then it would probably bug me as well.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:23 PM on March 29, 2008

Turn the question around and ask why the police wouldn't reveal that information. Is an autopsy report inherently private? It would be discoverable by the defense in any eventual prosecution, and if it was entered into evidence in a trial would become public record at that point if it wasn't already, no? Now, they might not have to go out of their way to analyze the autopsy report and help a reporter out by summarizing it for them, but if the document was something the reporter could request as a public record / freedom of information thing, there might not be a reason for them to keep the info private.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:24 PM on March 29, 2008

Oh, and for a real-life case involving medical examiners fighting over what type of injuries a fall produces, look into the Michael Peterson case (no, not that Peterson case). There was an excellent but biased documentary called The Staircase made about it.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:25 PM on March 29, 2008

Just popping in to second that The Staircase is a great documentary--riveting, even.
posted by box at 12:36 PM on March 29, 2008

I recall from the Dale Earnhardt media circus that autopsies are public information. At least in that jurisdiction which googling reveals to be Florida. The family sought to have the pictures protected. I don't remember how that worked out. A little more googling reveals quickly and definitively that uh... this issue is too complex for me. Still, my impression is that in a majority of states, autopsy records are open.
posted by stuart_s at 12:47 PM on March 29, 2008

Maybe the police have information not relevant to the autopsy, like bark in his shoelaces.
posted by dhartung at 2:26 PM on March 29, 2008