ASIS International (ASIS) Professional Certified Investigator Practice Exam

What body process begins about 2 hours after death?

1. Stiffening of muscles

2. Cooling of the body

3. Pooling of blood

4. Decay of tissues

The correct answer is: Pooling of blood

The process that typically begins about two hours after death is the pooling of blood, also known as livor mortis. After the heart stops beating, blood circulation ceases, and gravity causes the blood to settle in the lowest parts of the body, leading to a discoloration of the skin in those areas. This pooling can help investigators determine the position of the body at the time of death and can provide critical information in death investigations. The timeframe associated with livor mortis typically starts within the first couple of hours post-mortem, making it a key indicator of time since death. Understanding this process is essential for forensic experts as they work to reconstruct the events surrounding the death. Other processes such as muscle stiffening, body cooling, and tissue decay occur at different intervals and have distinct characteristics that are used to assess the post-mortem interval, but they do not begin as early as the pooling of blood does.