Citation

Demirci S, Dogan KH, Erkol Z, Gunaydin G. Am. J. Forensic Med. Pathol. 2009; 30(3): 276-279.

Affiliation

Department of Forensic Medicine, Meram Medical School, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey. sdemirci@selcuk.edu.tr

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/PAF.0b013e318187e050

PMID

19696586

Abstract

Suicide notes are commonly written on some materials, such as notebooks, papers, and mirrors. Additionally, suicide plans have been communicated in face-to-face conversations, by speaking on the telephone, recording on CDs or video cassettes, and sending messages through text messaging. In this article, 2 suicide death cases are presented in which suicide notes were written on the bodies of the victims. The first case, a 32-year-old man, was a university graduate and had been unemployed for years; he committed suicide in his house by hanging. On the external examination, it was seen that there were some words on the body written with a pen; specifically "DONKEY" was written on the forehead; coursing up-and-down along the chest, "HODJA" was on the right, "DO NOT" was on the sternal region, and "WASH" was on the left; and undecipherable handwritings were on both zygomatic regions. The second case, a 39-year-old woman, was a housewife who was being physically abused by her husband and committed suicide by ingesting an insecticide. It was observed that on the left leg, a note was written with a pen saying that she could not stand being beaten by her husband on account of the inheritance dispute between him and her elder brother; there was purple ecchymoses in the periphery of the right eye and in the right gluteal area. Since we have not found any reports of suicide notes written on the body in the literature, we present and discuss our cases herein.

Language: en