Double Hanging with Single Ligature: An Unusual Method in Suicide Pact

Abstract

A married casual labor couple was found hanging in their makeshift bedroom with each end of a single chunni (a cloth worn around the neck by Indian women) spread across an iron bar below the roof. They left their two children, daughter, and son of 4 and 3 yrs age, respectively, with their grandmother living separately nearby, and went to attend cremation of one of their relatives. They returned late in the evening and found hanging in their bedroom next morning by neighbors.

Distinguishing between homicide and suicide knots and ligatures: A comparative analysis of case and survey data

“…Polson and other authors have described several neck ligature tying methods used in homicides and suicides [1–4,13–20,74–93]. With homicides, multiple neck wraps may be secured with a Half Hitch or no knots at all may be employed [16,18].…”

“…Several other unusual suicide ligature configurations have been reported in the literature. One documented case involved a couple sharing the opposite ends of the same neck ligature to hang themselves, using each other as a counterbalance weight [82]. Another suicide bound his hands behind his back with the added weight of books, presumably to prevent escape [80].…”

“…Homicides may be staged as suicides to divert guilt, while suicides can be disguised as homicides to implicate someone else [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][75][76][77][78][79]. Suicide may be performed in a variety of unique ways for reasons known only to the decedents [78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93].…”

Commentary on: Behera C, Rautjl R, Kumar R, Pooniya S, Sharma P, Gupta SK. Double hanging with single ligature: an unusual method in suicide pact. J Forensic Sci 2017;62(1):265–6.

“…We read with great interest the case report by Behera et al on a double suicide by hanging with one single ligature [1]. As the authors discuss, the case presented is unique in the sense that a common ligature was used by the couple to complete the process of hanging which has not been cited earlier in the literature.…”

Der Doppelsuizid – Teil 2: rechtsmedizinische und kriminalistische Aspekte

“…Bezogen auf alle obduzierten Suizidfälle entspricht dies ca. 1,8 %, was vergleichbar ist mit den in der Literatur angegebenen Häufigkeiten von 0,0007-4,0 % an allen Suiziden [3,5,10,11,17,18,23,26,27,34,36,42,43], wobei Japan die höchsten Doppelsuizidraten aufweist [14,17,34]. Dabei ist jedoch zu berücksichtigen, dass häufig vermeintliche "eindeutige" Einzelsuizide keiner gerichtlichen Leichenöffnung durch die Ermittlungsbehörden zugeführt werden, während Doppelsuizide eher obduziert werden, sodass ein entsprechendes Dunkelfeld im Vergleich zu Einzelsuiziden geringer sein dürfte.…”