Murder after torture by side-arm: a case report

Abstract

The authors present a case of a middle age man, who was found dead in his house. The examination of the crime scene and the forensic autopsy revealed several external injuries caused by a side-arm and a blunt instrument with different modalities. Autopsy revealed several external injuries due to a side-arm. The main wounds were superficial, mainly grouped in two different sites of the body: abdominal region and left leg. The fatal wound has caught up the heart through the thorax. A blunt injury was also found on the head. All the lesions had haemorrhagic infiltration; histology confirmed the vitality of all injuries. The interpretation of the medico-legal findings led to the hypothesis that the superficial wounds were inflicted to cause pain, while the only one, affecting the heart, was the final one. This hypothesis was confirmed by the reconstruction of the events in Court, where the suspects were sentenced for life imprisonment for inflicting lesions in order to gain information from the victim, and for murdering.