Suicidal gunshot to the nape from a small-bore rifle
Lüderwald, S.; Mützel, E.; Graw, M.; Eisenmenger, W.; Peschel, O.
Archiv für Kriminologie 221(1-2): 36-42
2008
ISSN/ISBN: 0003-9225 PMID: 18389862 Document Number: 617632
A 55-year-old man was found dead on the bed lying on his side in a pool of blood with a bullet entrance hole in the nape. Behind his body, a semi-automatic rifle Remington Nylon, cal. .22 LR, was detected. As the gunshot entrance site was rather unusual for suicide, a forensic autopsy was performed, which showed a contact shot to the nape with the bullet path running upward to the left frontal area. The man had been treated with citalopram for delusional depression, so that a suicidal act seemed plausible, and the autopsy and criminalistic findings were also compatible with this assumption. A remarkable fact of the present case is that a long firearm had been used. Reports on suicidal shots to the nape are comparatively rare in the medicolegal literature and usually refer to pistols or revolvers.