Germany. During fire-fighting operations in a hotel apartment, the firemen found the decapitated body of a 40-year-old apartment occupant lying on the floor in a supine position. The deceased’s severed head was found in the toilet bowl, with blunt force injuries visible in the facial region. At the death scene, a handsaw and a hammer were found. At medicolegal autopsy, it was found that the neck was cut through sharply directly above the thyroid cartilage; the wound margins of the head and neck were clear-cut except for a small end in the dorsal region, leading to the assumption that the head had been cut off with a sharp tool. The spinal column was disconnected on the level of the fifth vertebra, with saw-tooth marks being visible in the margins, corresponding well to the handsaw found at the scene.
Fig.1 Severed head of the deceased in the toilet bowl.
The wounds exhibited no signs of vitality. Likewise, no vital signs were found in blunt force facial injuries localized in the vicinity of the left ear and in the root of the nose. They were irregularly shaped, and comminuted skull fractures were present underneath, with brain tissue being visible in the depth of the lesions. The morphology of the injuries suggested they had been inflicted using a hammerlike tool like the one found in the apartment. Autopsy also revealed signs of ligature strangling, as indicated by a bandlike strangling mark on the neck above the cutoff line of the head, with vital signs such as petechial hemorrhages of the conjunctivae and the mouth mucosa and facial cyanosis. Death was attributed to ligature strangling. Decapitation and blunt-force facial injuries could be identified as postmortem mutilation.
Fig.2 Ligature strangling mark on the neck above the cutoff line of the head.
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