Although everyone agrees that only a small number of unexpected infant deaths are homicides, an autopsy may fail to distinguish between asphyxiation and natural causes like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The question is whether some investigators are too quick to call a death inexplicable. When a child dies, the investigation is often truncated or doesn't exist at all. In no other situation are the emotional stakes as high and the available information so sketchy. Rescue crews are likely to rush a SIDS victim to the hospital even when there is no chance of reviving the child.
Parents tend to clean up and hide the death scene immediately, often out of shock.
Ohio law requires doctors to autopsy the bodies of children under 2 years of age unless they were victims of a chronic illness, but individual coroners interpret the law differently. Only about 46 percent of children who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or an external cause underwent autopsies between 1993 and 1995. As of 1995, only 14 states required death investigations in cases involving small children or suspected SIDS, according to a federal guide to death-investigation systems. However, a few cases each year are regularly called SIDS despite the lack of a thorough autopsy, one of three key requirements in diagnosing the ailment. The original autopsy findings in the first two Borell deaths are classic examples of the problems encountered in explaining child deaths.