Death and Decomposition is a 2-hour online course built for patrol officers, deputies, detectives, and investigators who respond to death scenes. Whether you have worked one death call or a hundred, understanding what happens to a body after death gives you a foundation for every investigation you touch.

Most patrol officers respond to deaths before a detective is ever assigned. What you observe, document, and preserve in those first minutes matters. This course gives you the science to make those decisions correctly.

What You Will Cover

Lividity

How livor mortis forms, what it tells you about body position and movement after death, and how to identify fixed versus unfixed lividity at the scene.

Rigor Mortis

The stages of rigor, what affects its progression, and how to use it as an investigative tool rather than a trivia fact.

Decomposition and Advanced Decay

The four stages of decomposition from fresh through dry decay, what each stage looks like, what affects the rate of progression, and how insect activity and environmental factors change your read of the scene.

Time of Death

How investigators estimate postmortem interval using lividity, rigor, and decomposition together. What the estimates can and cannot tell you and how to document your observations to support the pathologist's findings.

Upon completion, students receive a certificate of completion. This course pairs directly with RTI's Homicide and Death Investigations course for officers who want to build full investigative depth.

Who This Course Is For

Death and Decomposition is appropriate for patrol officers, deputies, and first responders who encounter death scenes before a detective arrives, as well as investigators who want a focused refresher on postmortem changes. No prior death investigation experience is required.

Why It Matters at the Patrol Level

Patrol officers make the first calls at a death scene. Whether the death looks natural, accidental, or suspicious, your initial observations drive what happens next. Lividity that does not match the body's position, rigor that is inconsistent with the reported time of death, or decomposition that does not fit the environmental conditions are all indicators that can redirect an investigation from routine to homicide. Missing them is not an option.

This course covers the biology of postmortem change in plain language, connected directly to what you will see at a scene and how to document it. Every death should be worked as suspicious until the facts say otherwise. This course helps you know what facts to look for.

The Science Behind the Scene

Lividity, rigor, and decomposition are not independent observations. They interact, and the combination tells a story. This course covers how to read that story accurately and how to explain your observations to a detective, medical examiner, or prosecutor in a way that holds up.

Course Format

2 hours of online video instruction. Self-paced. Certificate of completion issued upon finishing the course. Idaho POST-certified.

Most law enforcement training exists because someone needed to fill a POST requirement. You've sat through that training. You know exactly what it looks like.

RTI courses are built by working investigators who got tired of watching officers fail in the field because their training never matched reality. Every module is grounded in current forensic science, tested against real case outcomes, and built to hold up in court, not just in a classroom.

No rubber-stamp certificates. No recycled slide decks from a decade ago. No instructors whose only qualification is that they once attended the course they're now teaching.

If you do the work, you'll leave with skills you can use on your next shift.
That's the standard RTI trains to.

Who should take this course?

Patrol officers, deputies, and first responders who respond to death scenes before a detective is assigned. Also appropriate for investigators who want a focused refresher on postmortem change.

Is this course POST-certified?

Yes. The course is Idaho POST-certified.

How does this course connect to the Homicide and Death Investigations course?

Death and Decomposition covers the biology of postmortem change at a focused, patrol-level depth. RTI's Homicide and Death Investigations course builds the full investigative framework on top of that foundation, covering scene documentation, manner of death, autopsy, and case development. The two courses work together.

How long does the course take?

2 hours of online video instruction. Self-paced, so you can complete it on your own schedule.

Is a certificate issued upon completion?

Yes. Students receive a certificate of completion at the end of the course.