Postmortem or Perimortem Injury? Presentation of an incredible court case in which flames are the protagonists of a murder.

Abstract

Establishing the cause of death when analysing burnt human remains is limiting due to thermal degradation. The heat generated by high combustion degrades the bone structure, definitively hiding the perimortem trauma in most cases, which is crucial for solving a court case. In November 2019, a completely burnt corpse was found inside a car set on fire near a location in Reggio Calabria, Italy. The corpse was subsequently subjected to an initial radiodiagnostic examination and an anthropological/medico-legal investigation, in order to confirm the biological profile of the unidentified subject, define the cause of death and assess the presence of perimortal lesions through macroscopic analysis of skull fragments subjected to fleshing. The soft tissue fleshing of the burnt skull fragments allowed the reconstruction of a partial calotte. Macroscopic analysis of the consolidated shell identified in the left fronto-parietal region a clear linear fracture, perimortal in nature, compatible with blunt trauma. Autopsy examination revealed the presence of carbonaceous residues within the larynx and especially the trachea, confirming ante-mortem combustion.The results of the autopsy examination and the anthropological analysis allowed us to state that the net linear fracture, perimortal in nature, caused the subject a complex encephalic trauma, resulting in loss of consciousness and subsequent death due to carbon monoxide inhalation. This result not only confirms the malicious hypothesis, but reveals a deliberate burning of the victim in order to conceal the evidence necessary to solve the forensic case.