Citation

Cingolani M, Tsakri D. Am. J. Forensic Med. Pathol. 2000; 21(3): 255-260.

Affiliation

Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Ancona, Ospedale Regionale, Italy. m.cingolani@popcsi.unian.it

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10990288

Abstract

Three cases of planned complex suicide in a 3-year period are reported. A 40-year-old man was found dead, in his garage, hanging by his neck, with a gunshot in the head from a pen gun. A 50-year-old man was found dead in the sea with a gunshot to his head. A third man was found in a field hanging by a tree and burned. The investigation of the scenes and the methods used pointed toward a suicidal etiology. The main difference between planned complex suicide and those cases defined in medicolegal literature as combined suicides lies in the complex mechanism used by the victim as a protection against the failure of one of the mechanisms.