Death due to hypothermia can be difficult to diagnose. Typically, the diagnosis is based on circumstances that suggest hypothermia in combination with certain findings such as stress ulcerations in the gastric mucosa, frost erythema and well preserved microscopic morphology of pancreas. Different stress factors, e.g. cold temperature, increases synthesis of a family of proteins called heat shock proteins (HSP). HSP70 expression in podocytes in the kidney of fatal hypothermia victims has previously been observed. In this study, the pattern of HSP70 in autopsy samples from several organs was studied in deaths due to hypothermia and in deaths due to other causes of death in a cold environment and in room temperature using HSP70 immunohistochemistry. An association was found between fatal hypothermia and HSP70 expression in the myocardium and the kidney. The pattern of specific podocyte nuclei positivity in fatal hypothermia cases previously reported was confirmed. Positivity in cardiomyocyte nuclei showed a less strong association with hypothermia. For all other organs, certain types of cells were positive regardless of cold exposure or not. The same was true for the positivity in renal tubule epithelium. Cases that died in a cold environment but not of hypothermia did not show the typical glomerular staining pattern. In conclusion, specific staining of podocyte nuclei seems to be a reliable marker of hypothermia.