RESUMEN
Introduction: Time since death is an important topic that playsmajor role in forensic medicine. The accurate determinationof time since death is found to be helpful in medico legalinvestigation. Advancements in the methods for estimatingtime since death have enabled us to determine post-morteminterval more precisely. Since the 1850s, scientists have beenworking on different methods to determine post-morteminterval. Hence, the aim of the present study was to assess thetime since death using method of rigor mortis in the autopsiesdone at the mortuary of Osmania General Hospital.Materials and Methods: About 500 medico-legal autopsieswere selected where the exact time of death was known andthe body had been kept at prevailing room temperature. Agood quality digital hygrometer was used to note the dailyreadings of temperature and humidity. Presence or absence ofrigor mortis and its extent was noticed in both voluntary andinvoluntary muscles.Results: More unnatural deaths are in suspiciouscircumstances are occurring in males when compared tofemales. The average duration for onset of rigor mortis was 8hours and 39 minutes. The minimum duration in which rigormortis had begun to appear in the body was 1 hour and 35minutes while the longest maximum by which rigor mortishad not completely appeared in the body was 24 hours.Conclusion: Rigor mortis has been used for assessment oftime since death from long time. It is considered to be themost important and interesting method to estimate the timesince death.