After reading this chapter you will be able to:

• Identify the four ways by which people may die (manner of death) and their relative frequency.
• Identify three factors that must be considered in determining manner of death.
• Identify the major patterns and characteristics of homicides.
• Describe the fundamental questions that guide a homicide investigation.
• Discuss the importance of motive in identifying a homicide perpetrator.
• Identify and discuss various methods of determining postmortem interval (PMI) and explain why establishing PMI may be of importance in a homicide investigation.
• Identify the typical human decomposition pattern and discuss factors that may lead to deviations from this pattern.
• Discuss why serial homicides present major challenges to investigators.
• Discuss task forces as an investigative response to serial homicides (and certain other crimes).
• Evaluate the effectiveness of cold case squads and identify the difficulties in investigating cold homicides.