Time of death with liver temperature

I’ve been watching CSI and some other crime shows for quite a while. Deducing the time of death of the victim is an important part of identifying the murderer. What I’ve always wondered was, why did they use the liver temperature? I can understand using the victim’s body temperature to estimate when she was killed. But why specifically the liver?

It turns out that the liver is a core organ of the human body. The liver has to be maintained within a narrow range of temperature for it to function optimally. This also means it’s more accurate for backward deduction. I wrote a short article about it in the October issue of Singularity, which you can download for free, or you can read it at Scribd.