The body of a 15-years-old male was found in a forest, in the Centre of Italy, in a suburban area of Florence (Tuscany) at the beginning of October. The man was last seen alive at the end of August, 34 days before his body discovery. The body, fully clothed, was found lying on his left side in a wooded shady area (Figure 1(B)). A noose with short, curling black hairs still attached, suggesting the body may have fallen to the ground during decomposition, was present on the tree above the body. Clothes were covered by pupae and empty puparia of Diptera. The head was disarticulated and partially skeletonized and was found approximately 2 m far from the body. The part of the head lying on the floor was completely skeletonized, while the other side showed some dried soft tissues still attached. The body was almost completely skeletonized (Figure 2(B)): dried soft tissues were also present at the extremities of arms and legs. Radiographs disclosed the fracture of the right greater horn of the hyoid bone and no other bone fractures or evidence of blunt trauma or signs of gunshot injuries or knife wounds. A TBS of 31 and a TBShang of 32 were assigned. In the absence of evidence of trauma and other pathological findings, the cause of death was finally determined as suicidal hanging according to the scene findings and the hyoid bone fracture.
An overall mean temperature of (25.1 +- 2.7)  C (max. 30.0  C, min. 12.0  C) was recorded by the weather station of the Airport of Florence, 5.1 km far from the death scene, during the 34 days before the discovery of the body corresponding to 853 ADD. Temperature records are summarized in Figure 4. The skeletonized chest was largely colonized by Diptera larvae 1.8 mm in length. The insect community recovered at the drip zone and on the body was identified as specimens at different developmental stages belonging to Diptera and Hymenoptera as summarized in Table 1. Empty puparia of Chrysomya albiceps (Weidemann) were considered for the PMImin estimation. Several puparia of C. albiceps showed the characteristic circular emergence holes typical of a Nasonia vitripennis (Walker) parasitization. Unfortunately, also in this case, no ambient temperature correction was possible as no data loggers were placed on site. Based on the published developmental data, larvae of C. albiceps need at 25  C at least 8.1 days to reach the pupal stage and additional 13 days for the eclosion. Nasoniavitripennis emergence holes are evidence of an additional time interval needed for the parasitic wasp to complete the development ranging from a minimum of 14.8 days (at 25  C) to 22.5 days (at 20  C). Based on the above data, a PMImin of 15-22 days was estimated but the development times of fly species could be much longer than that according to the inappropriate utilization of fluctuating temperatures from weather station, without any retrospective correction, to studies providing development data at constant temperatures. In fact, pupae of Hermetia illucens (Linnaes) indicated a longer PMImin of about 30 days. Based on developmental data, H. illucens larvae need at least 31 days at 27.8  C to complete the development.