Determination of time of death belongs to the most difficult and also the most
important issues for the medical examiners, especially those who deal with
violent death. Besides the most frequently evaluated postmortal changes it is
sometimes possible to perform the evaluation on the basis of less frequently
observed findings. One of such findings is for example the fungal multiplication
on the body or in the very close vicinity. Knowledge of moulds as well as
information about their speed of growth should contribute to confirmation or
negation of some information gained during police investigation. In this case
report authors describe the macroscopically visible fungal intracardiac
multiplication in heart chambers and aorta in an almost totally carbonised body
which was missing for only ten days. Based on the molecular examination it was
detected that the body belonged to the 64-year-old man who was repeatedly
hospitalised in psychiatry for depression with suicidal tendencies. The last
hospitalisation was six weeks before death and there was no organic disability.
The cause of fire was a naked flame. The cause of death was burn injury or
asphyxia. The almost total carbonisation did not allow to perform toxicological
investigation. By histological investigation we found the presence of wide long
non-septate moulds growing in the heart muscle, which belonged to the order
Mucor. Since there was no obvious inflammatory response, we suppose their growth
started on the congealed blood after death.