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February 22, 2026February 22, 2026

Freezing to Death

On February 12, Brianna Mohr, a healthy and athletic 21-year-old hiker was found on an Adirondack mountain after freezing to death. Officials have released few details about the tragedy other than confirmation of the cause of death — hypothermia — after an autopsy by a forensic pathologist. Here’s a comment someone left online about this…

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December 29, 2025December 28, 2025

AI in Medicolegal Death Investigation

Are coroners and medical examiners already using artificial intelligence (AI) in their medicolegal death investigations? For what purposes? How will AI affect the work of coroners? It’s time to ask these questions. In 2022, a scientific paper claimed that “the traditional way of doing an autopsy and framing an opinion has a lot of limitations…

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December 2, 2025December 6, 2025

Remembering Michael P. Rellahan, our local newspaperman

On November 8, 2018, while I was Chester County (PA)’s Coroner, we held a memorial ceremony, perhaps the first ever, for fifty-two unclaimed persons whose cremains had resided in the coroner’s office for years. I’ve written before about the sad issue of bodies left unclaimed, but on that day in 2018 we celebrated the lives…

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Christina VandePol is a writer, physician, and former coroner. She has authored articles on medicolegal death investigation and its intersection with public health, medicine, and justice.

Recent Posts

  • The Coroner’s Silence: A Book Review
  • Obituaries: Obsolete or Evolving?
  • Kratom: Panacea or Peril?
  • Freezing to Death
  • AI in Medicolegal Death Investigation

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