Skull fracture interpretation is a necessary component of forensic analysis and contributes to the determination of the cause and manner of injury or death. The research presented in this thesis makes use of an in situ porcine model and finite element analysis to examine the responses of the developing skull to blunt force impulse and quasi-static crushing trauma. Chapter 2 documents age effects on the mechanical properties of parietal bone and coronal suture in porcine infants and correlates the bending properties ofthe bone to existing human infant data. Chapter 3 documents skull fiacture on infant porcine specimens with respect to age and interface in an effort to identify fracture characteristics for a developing skull under known conditions. Chapter 4 uses a simplified cranial model and the finite element method to generate representative patterns ofprincipal stress and strain directions developed during quasi-static crushing injuries to the developing skull. The theoretical results were compared to four clinical cases ofknown childhood fatalities from crushing head injuries inflicted by vehicle tires. Chapter 5 uses a simplified porcine cranial model and the finite element method to predict experimentally documented fracture patterns developed during impact loading to the parietal bone. The material properties ofthe cranial model were taken from the previously obtained results from Chapter 2. The experimentally inflicted fractures to the cranium fi'om Chapter 3 were used for comparison with the theoretically developed principal stress and strain directions.