Lethal hypothermia after firing a suicidal shot to the head in a car
Ortmann, J.; Doberentz, E.; Kernbach-Wighton, G.; Madea, B.
Archiv für Kriminologie 238(5-6): 188-197
2016
ISSN/ISBN: 0003-9225 PMID: 29465867 Document Number: 687453
In suicide cases involving an automobile, the car is mostly used as a tool/instrument for the suicide (intoxication by exhaust fumes, crash against solid objects such as a pylon). However, a car is uncommonly also used only as the location for a suicide. In the present case, a 70-year-old man had been found dead on the passenger seat of his car. According to witnesses, the car had not been parked there at the same time of the previous day. During that period, the weather had been dry, with temperatures ranging from -1⁰ C at night to +5⁰ C during the day. The man had shot himself with a small-caliber revolver (so-called bulldog-revolver) almost horizontally in the left temple (transtemporal shot through the frontal lobes). Obviously, the suicide had retained the capability to act at least for a short time, as the revolver was found under his left bottom. As morphological signs of prolonged agony some findings of hypothermia were observed (e. g. Wischnewski spots of the stomach).