Medico-Legal Update
  • Year: 2019
  • Volume: 19
  • Issue: 1

A Rare Case of Suicide by Multiple Gunshot Wounds to the Head

  • Author:
  • Filippo Milano1, Michele Treglia1, Anna Mancuso1, Stefania Urso1,, Gian Luca Marella2
  • Total Page Count: 5
  • Page Number: 99 to 103

1Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

2Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

*Corresponding Authors: Dr. ssa Stefania Urso, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy Email: stefania.urso18@gmail.com

Online published on 28 February, 2019.

Abstract

Firearm injuries represent a significant topic of forensic pathology. The literature in this regard is innumerable, and can seem to have extensively covered the topic of this paper. However, the biological reality and the unpredictability of the concrete cases, continue and will always continue to present unusual circumstances that are worth examining for forensic pathologists. In this case report, we performed a comparative analysis between a particular case and the scientific literature. The case in question concerns suicide by single-shot short firearm, in which the subject shot himself three times on two sides of the head, without affecting the brain during its self-suppressive intent. Cases similar to this are always cause for reasonable doubt, which can only be solved with the contribution of forensic pathology and in-depth research.

Keywords

Forensic science, multiple gunshot wounds to the head, suicide, ability to act, firearms, suicide, gunshot injury