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Affiliation
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School of Medicine, Level 3 Medical School North Building, The University of Adelaide, Frome Rd, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia. |
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Abstract
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Decapitation is an injury rarely encountered in civilian populations. For example, a study of medicolegal autopsies in South Australia (population at the time of approximately 1.5 million) over a 17 year period revealed only 20 cases. Of these, the majority (13; 65 %) were suicides often involving trains, with five deaths from vehicle crashes, and two from industrial accidents. Decapitations accounted for <1 % of all suicides. In situations where there has been an explosion there is a greater likelihood of decapitation. Despite recent internet coverage of terrorist activities in the Middle East, homicides involving decapitation are generally very rare, although judicial execution by decapitation has been the method used in countries such as France for centuries with devices such as the guillotine. Death from decapitation has been reported in infants when large dogs have focused their attacks on the craniofacial region.
Decapitation after death may be associated with a number of quite different scenarios. Animal predation, usually from dogs feeding, is one of the more commonly occurring events, particularly in elderly recluses who may not be found for some time. Domestic disarray at the death scene and spreading of putrefactive effusion fluid throughout a house may raise suspicions of homicide. Traumatic decapitation from rubbish compactors may occur in newborns abandoned in dumpster.
Postmortem mutilation may also be a strong indicator of homicide if there is no obvious explanation from a scene as to how injuries occurred. The reasons for postmortem decapitation are quite varied and may be as straightforward as an attempt to dispose of a body by reducing it to more manageable fragments and to render it less identifiable. Alternatively, cutting a body after death may be a manifestation of significant psychiatric illness in the perpetrator that may be associated with ritualistic and sexual activities. An extreme example was that of a 26-year-old man who stabbed his father to death and then skinned the decapitated head to make a mask for wearing. Ante and postmortem injuries can usually be distinguished by the absence of hemorrhage and vital reaction in injuries that have been inflicted after death, as in the current case.
The here reported case demonstrates an example of postmortem mutilation where the head was removed in an attempt to de-identify the body, or else where contempt for the victim had led the perpetrator to remove the head and discard it into a river. However, the absence of other areas of injuries inflicted postmortem and of ritualistic behavior makes de-identification a more likely motive. Although rare in most medicolegal practices the finding of unexplained decapitation raises a number of significant issues regarding the nature of the death and the mental status of the possible perpetrator.
Language: en |