Suicidal strangulation with a lashing belt
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Suicidal strangulation with a lashing belt Elke Doberentz 1
&
Julian Geile 1 & Burkhard Madea 1
Accepted: 13 January 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Ligature strangulation causes death due to neck compression without suspension. However, suicidal ligature strangulation is rare. The suicide of a 32-year-old man is presented. After a dispute, the man was found outdoors with a lashing belt around his neck which had been pulled tight with a ratchet. Conjunctival petechiae were found, but hemorrhages in the soft tissues were not observed. The hyoid bone and larynx did not show fractures or hemorrhage. Other injuries as well as signs of defence were not observed. The differentiation between homicidal and suicidal ligature strangulation can be difficult and requires careful investigation and collaboration by police and forensic pathologists. Keywords Homicide . Ligature strangulation . Suicide . Lashing belt
Case report At the end of August, a 32-year-old man went missing after he had a dispute with his former girlfriend. Six days later, he was found dead sitting on a deer stand near a forest meadow. Around his neck was a blue grey lashing belt, which had been pulled tight with a ratchet located on the right side (Fig. 1). His back, shoulders and the right side of his head were leaning against the wooden wall of the deer stand. An empty backpack and a framed picture of him with his former girlfriend was found in the deer stand. At the autopsy, the man had a body weight of 79 kg and body length of 185 cm. The neck skin showed a circular, 3 cm to 4 cm wide and horizontal pale depression running over the larynx (Fig. 2). A dried reddishbrown abrasion, corresponding with the position of the ratchet was found (Fig. 3). His neck and face showed livores, especially above the strangulation mark and on the right side of the face. Petechiae were not found in
the facial skin, but the conjunctivae presented numerous petechiae (Fig. 4). Hemorrhages were not observed in the soft tissues of the neck, and the hyoid bone and larynx also did not show fractures or hemorrhage. The inside scalp was extensively dark red colored and cerebral edema (1700 g) was found. Pulmonary tissue showed acute emphysema (Fig. 5). Signs of fatty degeneration were observed in the liver.
* Elke Doberentz [email protected] 1
Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Bonn, Stiftsplatz 12, 53111 Bonn, Germany
Fig. 1 The body at the time of discovery showing the lashing belt around the neck
Forensic Sci Med Pathol
Fig. 2 A horizontal impressed strangulation mark with excoriation below the position of the metal ratchet was visible after the lashing belt was removed
Fig. 5 Acute pulmonary emphysema
Fig. 3 The lashing belt metal ratchet
Fig. 6 Strangulation mark, positive reaction of Aquaporin 3, 200x
Discussion
Fig. 4 Conjunctival petechiae, fly eggs and small maggots
Immuno-histochemical investigations presented an aquaporin-3-positive strangulation mark (Fig. 6) as a vit
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