How can an investigator determine if a body has been moved, simply by studying it?

Answer 1

Blood pooling under the skin in the body (subcutaneous blood clotting) is very specific for the position of the body when the person died. If moved (even if ony a few feet) the body would have to be put in the exact same position.

Answer 2

I don't know all the ways, but here are a few I do know.

Let's say a person is lying on his or her back, but the fatal injury is to their back, like they were shot in the back, they've been moved. If you're shot in the back, you'll pitch forward, or possibly to the side, but you would NOT be lying flat on your back.

There are some positions that are not common for people who have been killed. If a person's limbs are spread in a particularly awkward way, it's likely they have been moved. Also, if a person looks kind of taken care of (say they're lying face up with their hands crossed over their chest, or resting on their stomach), it's likely they've been moved, but with a different motive.

Things like blood splatter, fibers, or other forensics can sometimes tell whether a body has been moved, too. If a person suffers a blunt force trauma to the head, but there is no blood splattering on the walls, it's possible they've been moved to a different location. Using certain chemicals, lasers, and flouroscent lighting, blood that has been cleaned up can be shown, so if there were drag marks in blood leading to the victim, but they were cleaned up and showed only using special measures, the body was obviously moved.

If an injury would have had a fatal wound that would have bled, but there's no pooling of the blood or evidence of it at all at the scene, the body was moved, since the person would have already been dead when it was moved (after you die, you don't continue to bleed out because your heart is no longer pumping blood through your body).

Modern science has done wonders for forensics and crime fighting. Say you have a victim who has been injured and in that wound are bits of dirt and gravel, that debris can be evaluated and tell (a lot of times) where the body had been after the injury. For example (for a REALLY easy case), if you have dirt in a wound and that dirt has been identified as having chemicals used in farming, but your victim is found in a school gym, then you know your body has been moved.

I watch too much Law and Order.

Answer 3

Blood settles on the bottom of a body. That's one way. If
the dark blue areas from blood settling are on the side or top, that
proves it was moved.