A Case of Suicide Using a Home-Modified Gun

Italy. On March 7, 2002, State police officers of Trieste found the body of a 67-year-old man inside an apartment, with no signs of forced entry or of any attempts at defense by the victim. This was a dentist who had retired several years before, separated from his wife, was living alone, and suffering from depression. Objective examination of the crime scene and circumstantial evidence indicated a case of successful suicide after a series of failed attempts, as also stated in a suicide note left by the man himself.

Fig.1 The corpse of the man in the apartment.

In fact, after taking alcohol and sedatives, the man had first attempted to slash his wrists in the bath (after applying a local anesthetic with a mepivacaine hydrochloride base, which he still had available owing to having used it in his former profession), and then to cut his throat. He had then wounded himself in the abdomen with the knife and, finally, had fired a shot into the left hemithorax, using a dummy gun that had been modified to fire homemade bullets made out of small aluminum pins.

The body was found in a supine position on the bed, wearing only a dressing gown, with the anterior region of the chest exposed. He was still clutching with his right hand the dummy gun, a cylinder model Olympic 380, not unloaded. Near the body, there was also a serrated-edge pocket knife, open and with the blade covered in blood. Other blood-soaked knives and a razor blade were found in a container near the bed, which was also blood-stained.

Fig.2 The corpse of the man in the apartment.

Fig.3 The container near the bed with blood-soaked knives and a razor blade that was also blood-stained.

At external examination, the body presented many superficial cutting wounds, covered by scabs, at the level of the right cervical region and the ventral region of the left pulse. At the level of the left mesogastric region, there was a stab wound with a transverse slash, penetrating into the abdomen and involving, as observed at autopsy, only the serosa of the small curve of the stomach. In the left hemithorax, in the prechordal region, there was a roundish wound with an ecchymotic, excoriated margin and signs of singeing of the surrounding skin.

Fig.4 The superficial cutting wounds, covered by scabs, at the level of the ventral region of the left pulse.

Fig.5 The roundish wound in the prechordal region.

Internally, this lesion extended up to the inferior margin of the 6th rib, penetrating the pericardium from side to side and the heart near the point, where there was a wide breach with jagged margins, creating a communication between the 2 ventricular cavities, and then continued through the inferior lobe of the left lung and parietal pleura, ending in a small cavity in the paravertebral soft tissues at the level of the 10th rib. At the bottom of the cavity, a metal foreign body was extracted, consisting of a small aluminum pin, with an abraded point at one end, with no grooves, and with the flat base protruding outwards.

Fig.6 The lesion extended up to the inferior margin of the 6th rib, penetrating the pericardium from side to side and the heart.

Fig.7 The lesion penetrating side by side of the hearth.

Toxicology tests showed the presence of an anesthetic (only in the blood) and of benzodiazepine and ethanol (in the blood, urine, and gastric contents). The cause of death was the very severe cardiac lesions produced by the homemade bullet, fired from the modified blank cartridge dummy gun.

During examination of the scene, a blank cartridge dummy gun and a box with 50 blank Fiocchi 8-mm cartridges were found, as well as a transparent plastic bag containing 6 cylindrical small aluminum pins, flat base, and ogival point, exactly like the one found in the body at autopsy. The gun was a dummy pistol model Olympic 380, with a 5-cartridge revolving cylinder, that had been modified at home and then repainted to hide the modifications. This weapon normally fires blank cartridges and has a sealed barrel, with just a small exit vent for gas in the upper part. The firing chambers inside the cylinder are sealed, except for another small exit vent for gas.

Fig.8 The modified pistol model Olympic 380.

Fig.9 The cylinder of this home-modified gun.

The weapon had undergone a series of modifications; inside the cylinder of this home-modified gun, the gas vents in the anterior wall of the firing chamber had been widened to allow the passage of the small aluminum pins, used as bullets and housed beside the blank cartridges, so that they came out of the barrel flat side first, not the ogive side. All these workings had been sealed with red wax. The smooth barrel had been drilled, and an inner sheath had been changed with smooth brass to strengthen the barrel, which is not normally built to withstand such friction. The muzzle had been repainted, and the gas vent had been sealed with red wax to increase the inner pressure and fully exploit the force of the blank cartridge explosion.