Introduction

Forensic odontology is defined as the proper handling, examination of dental evidence, evaluation of dental evidence, presented in the interest of justice. The word forensic is derived from the Latin “forensic” which means “before the forum” from ancient Rome, while “odontology” is the study of the tooth and other orofacial structures (Cordner and Tidball-Binz, 2017).

There are various methods of personal identification in forensic odontology. Teeth are commonly found hard tissue used for evaluation. In absence of teeth, the alveolar bone could be considered as a second option.

Alveolar bone is a peculiar part of both upper and lower jaw bone i.e., maxillary and mandibular bone that supports the teeth. It forms as the teeth erupt and after the tooth is lost. The Alveolar Bone comprises an of-outer cortical plate and cancellous bone (Suchetha et al., 2017).

History

As described by Chidambaram Ramasamy (2014), the list of famous forensic cases worldwide (49 – 2013 AD) in which alveolar bone had been applied as a diagnostic tool. In the year 1820, the first case of a dentist as a professional witness was observed in Glasgow, Scotland. Rd. Pattison and two Glasgow medical students were held accountable for the desecration of the already buried grave of Mrs. McAlister. They were inculpated for disinterring the corpse and carried it to College Street Medical School to dissect for teaching. For identification, Mrs McAlister’s husband presented the artificial teeth worn by his late wife, which were later fitted into the denture by Dr. James Alexander and was considered an important authentication in the court (Pattison, 1910).

The Parkman – Webster case was the first case solved by forensic odontology accepted by the United States court in the year 1849, where Dr Parkman, a professor at Harvard University, was murdered in 1849. John White Webster, who was a chemistry professor, and his colleague, was then speculated. On investigation, remains of the mandibular bone and artificial teeth were found, following which, the dentures were recognized by the dentist who had prepared the dentures three years prior to the death of Dr. Parkman. Further, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin was identified using alveolar bone. On 1865, April 14, John Wilkes Booth absconded following President Lincoln’s assassination. After 12 days, he was killed by Union soldier; even after that, the rumours of his escape persisted. To prove his death, the abnormal jaw and gold restorations were obtained after disinterring Wilke’s body, and the parts were subsequently identified by the dentist who had constructed the restorations prior to his extermination (Senn et al., 2013)

The forensic recognition of Adolf Hitler was evaluated in 1945 after his suicide along with his wife on April 30, 1945, in Berlin. Hitler’s skull fragments, pieces of the maxilla and mandible, along with a nine-unit’s bridge were reclaimed from the Kremlin archives and were compared with those submitted by Hitler’s dentist Hugo Blaschke. On Nov 10th 1944, Hitler was treated for a maxillary molar tooth infection. On obtaining Hitler’s dental records, the construction of anterior bridges and the presence of periodontal problems settled his identity. The Queen Hatshepsut Mummy Mystery of 1458 BC was also noted and evaluated by DNA analysis of alveolar bone. The mummy was identified in the year 2007. Hatshepsut was the 5th pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Following her death in 1458 BC, Tomosis III destroyed all the monuments, defaced tombs and removed her references. During excavation, Howard Carter, who was a British archaeologist, found the tomb but her mummy could not be tracked. In 1903, after an investigation, two mummies were discovered, one of which belonged to Hatshepsut’s nurse, Sitre. The unnamed, damaged, mysterious mummy was identified using a molar tooth, and DNA analysis, to be Queen Hatshepsut.

The Carla Terry Murder case was solved by ‘Lucis’- an image processing software using alveolar bone. On January 28th 1991, Carla Terry’s body was wrapped partially in a garbage bag and was abandoned in Hartford Connecticut. Two prominent thumb marks on the victim’s neck were found, on which, the investigators concluded that her carotid artery was pressed and her breast was bit until she lost consciousness. A card retrieved by the police from Terry’s pocket became a suspect, but the medical examiner could not compare the bite marks with Swinton’s. In 1998, the cold case was proposed to Dr Gus Karazulas, Chief Forensic Odontologist, Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Lab who devoted years to link the suspect’s bite marks with the victims using a new patented image processing software called ‘Lucis’, which amplified the bite mark which ultimately could find out fifteen points matched with Swinton’s teeth and so, in March 2001, the suspect was declared guilty (Ramasamy, 2014).

Various biological structures in the human body are manoeuvred for the identification of the deceased, to evaluate ‘the big fours of person identification’ namely Age, Sex, Stature, and Race. Alveolar bone is also a vital structure of the body to identify the deceased human by assessment of the structures employing the framework viz. by Morphological means, radiological means, histological means, molecular means and digital means.