A dismembered corpse of a 75-year-old male, with an alleged history of missing for the past three days as per an inquest report, was received for autopsy in the mortuary of a tertiary care hospital in South India. Police interrogation with the wife and son revealed that the deceased was murdered and his body was cut into multiple pieces, packed in a sack, and thrown in a waterlogged dump yard.
Fig.1 The mutilated and dismembered body parts arranged anatomically.
On examination, the dead body was mutilated and chopped into eight pieces, separated as the right arm, right forearm with the right hand, left upper limb, decapitated head, torso, left lower limb, right thigh, and right leg with the right foot. The mutilated body parts were arranged based on complexion, contour, built, morphological structure, and anatomical alignment.
Fig.2 The postmortem dismembered body parts of the lower limbs.
It was a moderately built male body wearing no clothes and in a state of decomposition, with a whitish soft adipocere formation all over the body. Body parts were emitting a rancid, foul smell. The soft tissues at the cut ends were soft and greasy. On further examination, there were three stab wounds present on the left side of the chest and abdomen extending to the thoracic and abdominal cavity deep, which was of ante-mortem in nature. All internal organs showed decomposition changes. Toxicological analysis of viscera ruled out poisoning and other intoxication. The cause of death was opined as hemorrhage and shock resulting from a stab injury to the chest and abdomen caused by a single-edged sharp cutting weapon having a pointed tip, and the time since death was two to three days.
Fig.3 Three stab wounds and their features are conserved due to adipocere formation on the left side of the anterior chest and abdominal wall.
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