Citation

Ikeda N, Harada A, Suzuki T. Am. J. Forensic Med. Pathol. 1992; 13(4): 320-323.

Affiliation

Department of Forensic Medicine, Yamagata University School of Medicine, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8311067

Abstract

Stun guns are electric shock devices that are used by a number of law enforcement agencies to subdue violent offenders, but sometimes are discharged into human bodies as offensive weapons. We autopsied a 22-year-old woman who was strangled and had many stun-gun injuries on her head, chest, abdomen, arms, and legs. The stun-gun injuries consisted of many pairs of round erythemas with or without central paleness, some of which were accompanied by circumferential abrasions. To determine whether the electric shocks were administered before or after her death, we studied stun-gun injuries on pigs before and after death and found that the shocks after death did not mark the animal skin. Based on this experiment, all of the stun-gun injuries on the victim's body were concluded to have been inflicted before her death.