Crime and Clues

Knowing Whether Sharp Weapon Injuries Were Sustained During Life or After Death

Abstract

Differentiating incised wounds caused during life from those caused after the death can sometimes be difficult. A housewife with sharp weapon injuries was believed to have succumbed to multiple sharp weapon injuries. The injuries appeared and were considered to be ante mortem until a few weeks after the autopsy. These turned out to have been inflicted after her death. The case report highlights the difficulty in differentiating sharp weapon injuries sustained during life or immediately after the death. The report also explains the possibility of causing incisive injuries to someone who was already dead.

Key Words

Introduction

Incised wounds are sharp cut-like injuries, made by knives or broken glass etc. (1). The ability to examine sharp weapon injuries to opine as to whether they have been inflicted before or after the death is perhaps one of the most exciting features of Forensic Medicine. Since the appearance of the injuries in both the situations is almost similar and scene examination is not an integral part of autopsy in our setup (in India), it makes the task of the doctor a very difficult one. The object therefore is to explore whether one able to make a clear distinction between the two. Here is a case report in which a housewife with fatal sharp weapon injuries was found dead. For a couple of weeks after the autopsy neither the investigators nor the autopsy surgeon had reason to perceive the injuries as post mortem.

About The Case

The way the victim was found lying dead has been shown in the photograph. The daughter of the victim found her mother dead in the lobby of her ransacked house. She had come back within two hours of her leaving the house, and the killing reportedly occurred in the afternoon at a time when her mother was alone. The main door of the house was found open. No one saw the act. The disordered / scattered contents of the cupboards in two rooms suggested theft. According to autopsy the cause of death was the hemorrhage and shock as a result of sharp weapon injuries to blood vessels in the neck and limbs. The photograph explains the injuries.

Photographs of the Deceased and Some Observations Two photographs taken at the site were available for comments. No close ups of the injuries were available. However portions of injuries have been scanned, enlarged from the same photo and can be seen here also.

The deceased is noticed to have sustained sharp weapon injuries. One could notice a black thread around her neck. This was reportedly of silk and was unbreakable. An attempt to get details of the wounds by the computer scanning of the area in the provided photo did not help much. Hence it was improbable to look at the nature of the injuries, viz. edges, angles, depth, the way vessels and soft tissues underneath were cut etc. to be able to comment whether injuries were caused in one blow or if there were multiple hesitation cuts. However, they did not seem to be defense cuts.

Investigator's Doubt

Police sniffed asphyxia, use of knife / shaving blade, involvement of family members? There are a few points that were not convincing. Some wondered:

1. Those who want to murder would not normally inflict such injuries. Why killers didn't inflict stab injuries. Was it that the weapon was not of stabbing type?
2. Similarly the site chosen for the injuries, i.e. front of both wrists and on the neck. With the same weapon the killer could have stabbed her in her abdomen or chest. Does it indicate that the motive was not to kill but to maim her?
3. If she was a victim of homicide then there should have been marks of resistance. Defense cuts on her palms while grasping the weapon or on the back of her arms while warding off the attack were expected but were absent. Could it be that she was not in a position to have offered resistance. Was she unconscious or intoxicated at the time of sustaining these injuries?
4. Was it that she never wanted to offer resistance? Because the assailant was one of the family members. She too was fed up because of some family and personal reason and therefore she did not offer resistance.
5. The weapons were unknown. Assailants are still untraceable. A kitchen knife is reported to be missing. So could these injuries be as a result of kitchen knife. Do we altogether rule out use of kitchen knife? Is it the consequences of something as sharp as shaving blade?
6. Could the site where she was found be the place where she sustained the injuries and then died?
7. How could she sustain injuries all the injuries on the front of the body while lying down in this position?

The autopsy report describes a ligature mark and cut injuries. Length, width and location of the ligature mark have been mentioned. The opinion of cause of death that has been described in the report does not speak of strangulation. Was there no element of asphyxiation? She was wearing a thread around her neck. Could it be one strangled her while others caused these cuts.

Probabilities

The mention of ligature mark in the autopsy report and of sharp weapon injuries were the mainstay of the PM report. She was first asphyxiated and thereafter given sharp weapon injuries. This possibility gained roots on account of two assumptions. First how could the deceased suffer three sharp weapon injuries without there being any mark of resistance. An injury amounting to "Cutthroat injury" could be possible when she was either unconscious or overpowered. Second assumption was that those who want to murder would not normally inflict such injuries. Preferable and usual homicidal injuries in such situations are fatal stabs. With the same weapon the killer could have stabbed her say in her abdomen or chest. Probably the weapon was not of stabbing type?

The only objection to such possibility was the fact that the autopsy was silent about asphyxia. The constraint at this stage was the visibility of the neck area of the deceased. Could it be that the cutthroat injury overlay the thread like ligature mark or the remaining mark was so indistinct that it lacked notice both of police officer and of doctors?

Two pools of blood are seen in the photo. Absence of blood elsewhere i.e. in the kitchen, other rooms or in the courtyard conveys that she remained in one position and that was where she was being seen. Presence of pool of blood underlying the injury corroborates the assumption that the place of sustaining injuries and dying is one. Had she moved about in an injured state there would have been either evidence of trail of drops of blood? Presuming that there was no such evidence and police had taken precautions in observing the same during their first examination of the site it can be opined that she sustained injuries there. The deceased was attacked where she was found. Had it not been so then why there was no evidence of movement of the deceased before succumbing.

Examinations of the clothes seen in the photos and the undergarments excluded sexual activity.

Killer's Confession and Conclusions

Burglars entered the house when everyone except the deceased was away at work. Before starting the burglary they strangled her. Before fleeing with cash and goods, one of them hit her with a shaving blade.

The arrested assassins were beginners, juvenile and were as many as five. One of them was the immediate neighbor of the victim and was well conversant with the deceased. Their confession of the crime revealed that they entered the house from the main gate. No sooner had she opened the gate when one of them strangled her by the black silk thread around her neck. After burgling the house one of them feared that she might not be completely dead and might regain consciousness after they left the place. So he caused cuts by using a shaving blade while she was lying on the ground. The injuries were on front of both the wrists and also on the neck. These injuries, which were thus inflicted after her death, did not actually contribute towards the death. Since these did not contribute to the cause of death these were in fact artifacts. Until the time this confession was made, postmortem injuries thus looked like ante mortem cuts to investigators, relatives and to the autopsy surgeon. Nothing about the wounds on the body would create reasonable doubt of the injuries being created after death. Now after the disclosure of the killer the amount of blood underlying the injuries, the velocity at which blood left the body appeared to indicate that the injuries were postmortem. Blood seen in the photos is not in quantity, as one would normally expect here. These observations conform to the biological principles laid down in the literature (2). Incised wounds are caused even after the death of the victim (3). Knife wounds inflicted at the time of death or shortly thereafter have characteristics (4). Doubt in relation to postmortem incised wound has also been discussed in literature(5). Immunohistochemical detection of molecules involved in inflammatory reaction can be useful for the diagnosis of vitality in skin wounds is suggestive of the lab support in solving the difficulty (6,7,8).

References:

1. http://www.forensicmed.co.uk/incised_wounds.htm
2. Forensic Profilers - Cold Case, Forensic Science, Criminal profiling: http://www.freewebs.com/forensicprofilers/forensicinformation.htm
3. Justice Junction Judicial Injustice - OJ Simpson The Autopsy http://www.justicejunction.com/judicial_injustice_oj_autopsy_report_nbs.htm
4. http://www.erworld.com/mindsharp/mindviii_i.htm#_Toc510511045
5. http://www.readersread.com/excerpts/thesurgeon.htm
6. http://www1.elsevier.com/cdweb/journals/03790738/viewer.htt?iss=2-3&vol=97&viewtype=issue&tocorder=title
7. http://dreampharmaceuticals.com/ref-hemorrhage/hemorrhage-research-abs5.199.html .
8. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9871990&dopt=Abstract

Citation: Sharma & Sharma, "Knowing Whether Sharp Weapon Injuries Were Sustained During Life or After Death", Crime and Clues, http://www.crimeandclues.com/sharp_weapon_injuries.htm, original post 9/15/05.