Suicide by more than 90 stab wounds including perforation of the skull

Abstract

A man committed suicide in his bathroom using a small pocket knife. At the autopsy a total of 92 stab wounds on the forehead, in both temples, the anterior aspect of the neck, the back of the neck, the chest and the sides of the trunk were found. In addition, repeated stabbing had caused a large soft tissue defect on the forehead. The frontal bone showed 3 perforations but no brain injury was present and two ribs were severed in the bony part, one of which carried a star-like pattern from repeated stabbing. No major vessels were injured and the cause of death was exsanguination after a considerable survival time. The large number of stab wounds, the perforation of bone and some injury sites, especially the head and back of the neck, are extraordinary findings in suicides which were probably favoured by insufficient anatomical knowledge and the use of a short-bladed knife. A psychiatric history could not be verified.

Differentiation of serrated and non-serrated blades from stab marks in bone

“…Successful analysis and interpretation can provide important contextual information regarding the instant of trauma, such as the position of the victim in relation to the attacker, the handedness of the attacker, whether the wound was caused by suicide or homicide etc. [for example 2,4,5,6,7]. Furthermore, the motion of the sharp object can be ascertained depending on whether a cut (the incision is wider than it is deep) or stab (the incision is deeper than it is wide) mark is left [see 8 for trauma definitions].…”

“…Previous work has focussed on interpreting sharp-force trauma from bone in order to make statements about the context of death in both forensic and archaeological contexts. Such work includes the definition of kerf dimensions and properties [9,10], the differentiation of cutmark origin [9,10,11,12,13,14], the impact of other taphonomic processes on cutmark preservation [15,16], patterns of butchery and dismemberment [10,17,18,19] and describing the details of the trauma incident itself [1,2,4,5,6,7,20,21]. Although research has demonstrated that it is possible to distinguish the class of sharp object used from the mark left behind, it is difficult to be any more precise than that.…”

Unusual case of self-inflicted thoracic knife wounds with five knives embedded in the left thoracic cavity

“…Suicide by stabbing is rare constituting only 1.6-3% of suicides [6,7]. However, several reports have been published describing suicides or suicide attempts by using various sharp instruments.…”

Death by hanging while watching violent pornographic videos on the Internet—suicide or accidental autoerotic death?

“…Like in other forms of violence, it may occasionally be difficult, however, to differentiate between accidental death and suicide [6,7,10,15], especially if suicide also seems imaginable under the circumstances of the case. The possibility of a homicide simulating an autoerotic situation at the scene must also be kept in mind [8,9].…”