Molecular evaluation of victims of sudden death: a promising approach for excluding criminal responsibility

Sudden death constitutes one of the most frequent causes of death in adults. In order to look for genetic markers that could play a role in the sudden death in adults (SDA), the common deletions of 4977 bp in the mitochondrial DNA and variations in the apoB gene were studied. The correlation of mtDNA common deletion with SDA victims might offer a rapid and simple tool to provide additional information in complex SDA investigations