This is the case of a 41-year-old male with a two-year history of depressed mood, for which he had refused psychological treatment. He committed suicide that resulted in complete decapitation.
Fig.1 A suicide that resulted in decapitation.
Suicidal hanging is generally associated with soft-tissue injuries only, and osseous lesions of the cervical spine are very unusual. Decapitation represents the most extreme type of those cervical injuries associated with hanging. It seems of excessive rarity whatever the circumstances of hanging – judicial or suicidal. In suicidal hangings, the occurrence of a decapitation is always the consequence of a drop of several meters, generally associated with a relatively thin ligature of poor stretchability.
Latest posts
The "burst head" effect from a shotgun refers to extreme cranial trauma caused by a close-range shotgun blast…
Incomplete skeletonization of a forearm due to post-mortem animal scavenging by a domestic German Shepherd. Skeletonization (synonym: skeletalization)…
USA. A case of simple asphyxia combined with external airway obstruction by a plastic bag, in a suicidal…
This photo depicts a standard “execution type” drug hit. The victim’s hands were secured behind his back. A…
