Fall or homicide...? The imbroglio answered at autopsy...!

Abstract

Homicide is one of the most dreaded consequences of interpersonal conflicts, culminating in ending the life of a person. Cases involving attempts to camouflage homicidal incidents with the accidental ones are not entirely unknown in forensic medicine. Most of the time however, neither medical science nor the law gain expected success in either curbing or unearthing such incidents, so there remains a great possibility of perpetrators escaping a meticulously planned homicide that has been disguised either as a suicide or as an accidental death. In such cases, the role of a scrupulous autopsy is of paramount importance to surface the truth. A careful observation and interpretation of the injuries in dubious circumstances may occasionally reveal an entirely unprecedented story and thereby the cause and manner of death. A case related to a young adult male is herein presented who was initially brought dead to the emergency dept. with an alleged history of assault leading to a blow over his head. In the inquest papers, however, his acquaintances stated the injury to be sustained from an accidental fall in the street. At autopsy, a discrepant location and form of the scalp injury and the additional findings suggestive of manual strangulation and kicking and/or stomping resulted eventually into an opinion of homicide. The characteristic postmortem findings and attempted circumstantial and crime scene alterations by the possible perpetrators are highlighted. The results of a modeled wound-weapon profiling that was carried out later to link the alleged crime weapon with the injury profile, are shown.