Significance of Knife Tip Injuries as Hesitation Marks

Eun Sil Jang; SangHan Lee

doi:10.7580/kjlm.2019.43.1.7

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Jang and Lee: Significance of Knife Tip Injuries as Hesitation Marks

Original Article

Korean Journal of Legal Medicine 2019; 43(1): 7-15.

Published online: 28 February 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2019.43.1.7

Significance of Knife Tip Injuries as Hesitation Marks

Eun Sil Jang¹, SangHan Lee²

¹Graduate School of Forensic and Investigative Science, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea.

²Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea.

Correspondence to SangHan Lee. Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, 680 Gukchaebosang-ro, Jung-gu, Daegu 41944, Korea. Tel: +82-53-420-4887, Fax: +82-53-422-4712, sanghan1@knu.ac.kr

Received 30 January 2019 Revised 22 February 2019 Accepted 25 February 2019

The Korean Society for Legal Medicine

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Hesitation wounds are tentative, superficial incised wounds around the fatal wound(s). This study aimed to investigate the frequency and characteristic features of hesitation wounds including ordinary incised wounds and knife tip injuries as hesitation marks from the autopsy cases of suicides using sharp force instruments. The subjects were 478 cases out of 3,131 suicide cases autopsied at the Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University in Daegu, from August, 2001 to 2013. 48 cases (approximately 10%) were suicides using sharp force instruments. In 27 cases (56.3%), the sharp force was successfully applied causing suicide; 17 cases (35.4%) were so called complex suicide cases, in which two or more different methods including sharp force injury were used; and the 4 remaining cases were suicides caused by other reasons. Overall hesitation wounds had a high frequency of 33/48 cases (68.8%). The frequency of cases in which knife tip injuries were found was lower, appearing in 13/33 cases (39.3%). The most preferred sites of knife tip injuries were the abdomen (9 cases), neck (4 cases), chest (3 cases), and face (1 case) in these 13 cases, including several overlapped cases. The average number of knife tip injuries was 14.6. A total of 88.2% of knife tip injuries was found near the incised hesitation wounds or fatal wounds. In conclusion, knife tip injuries may be a significant factor in identifying hesitation wounds, and they should be precisely examined and evaluated during autopsies to determine the manner of death.

Keywords: Sharp force injury, Hesitation wound, Knife tip injury, Suicide, Complex suicide

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

There are 4-5 knife tip injuries including 2 incised wounds and obvious 4 stab wounds in the neck.

Fig. 2

There are numerous knife tip injuries adjacent to the multiple parallel stab wounds around the umbilicus.

Fig. 3

There are more than 15 knife tip injuries in the abdomen in hanging case.

Fig. 4

There are 4-5 knife tip injuries in the right palpebrae in case of schizophrenia patient.

Table 1

Distribution of wrist scars, hesitation wounds, fatal sharp force injuries and the cause of death in 48 autopsy cases of suicide with sharp force injuries from August 2001 to December 2013 in Daegu and Kyungpook Province near Daegu

Abd, abdomen; Sharp force, sharp force injury.

^a)Underlying disease.

Table 2

Total number of sharp force injuries in 48 autopsy cases of suicide with sharp force injuries from August 2001 to December 2013 in Daegu and Kyungpook Province near Daegu

Table 3

Complex suicide cases among 48 autopsy cases of suicide with sharp force injuries from August 2001 to December 2013 in Daegu and Kyungpook Province near Daegu

Table 4

Comparison of hesitation wounds among 48 autopsy cases of suicide with sharp force injuries from August 2001 to December 2013 in Daegu and Kyungpook Province near Daegu

Notes

^{Conflicts of Interest} No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

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ORCID iDs: SangHan Lee
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0390-3494
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