For MARCH 2000 issue

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION

WHAT IS COMBINED SUICIDE?

‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal

Suicide is much in news these days. Keeping our old tradition of informing the readers on the latest, this time I wish to inform our gentle readers about a relatively new term "combined suicide". Not many readers may be conversant with this term.

Combined suicide is a term, which was first used by Mueller almost 50 years back in 1953 in his publication Gerichtliche Medizin. This is a German name, which translated in English, means "Forensic Medicine". The term refers to a situation when a person uses two or more than two methods simultaneously to kill himself. Normally however a person uses only one method, say hanging, poisoning, or cut throat as a means of suicide. Very few cases of combined suicide have been reported in literature, so this term may not be very familiar to all. I will give you some examples of a "combined suicide" to make this term clearer to all.

Cases have been reported where a person has committed suicide by first ingesting a solution of strychnine ( a dangerous poison), and then drowning himself. Here if he had used either of the two methods for suicide, he might have in all probability succeeded. But in order to ensure his demise from this world, he used two different methods. This is a typical case of combined suicide.

Another case has occurred in which a person first ingested digitalis (a strong poison), and then cut his throat. This is also an example of combined suicide. There may be more than two methods employed. In one case, the suicide first ingested sulphuric acid (once again a deadly poison) first, then cut his wrists and throat and finally hanged himself!

Other cases of combined suicide are also there, but this time I am going to tell you about a special case of combined suicide, which occurred some years back. This is a special case, because in this case, I had to apply all my knowledge to exclude murder. Police was initially thinking in terms of murder, but proper forensic investigation proved that it was a case of “combined suicide”. Well, let us begin the story from the beginning.

The deceased, a man called Ramesh, was a male government servant, about 50 years old and single and lived with his mother in a rented house together with another family. One morning he woke up early and prepared food to earn merit by giving it to a Buddhist monk. Later in the morning his mother saw him going upstairs with an aluminum bowl. She probably thought that there was food in it, but it actually contained a very dangerous poison – caustic soda. Readers might recall that caustic soda is used to make soaps. He went to his room along with that bowl, and was not seen alive after that. After some time, a young boy went up to his room to call him for breakfast. The room was open, and Ramesh’s dead body was lying on the floor. There was blood all over the floor. Ramesh’s face and trunk were also smeared with blood. His mother fainted on seeing his body. The boy gave a scream. Several neighbors collected at the scene, and the police was called immediately.

The police saw the dead body of Ramesh, with a very large gaping wound in his neck. Any layman would have thought that this was a case of murder. It definitely appeared that someone had slit open the throat of Ramesh. The knife was actually found in Ramesh’s hand, but the police thought that the clever killer had placed the knife in Ramesh’s hand after killing him. This was to trick the police into thinking that the case was of suicide.

But interestingly I found a large brown stain around his mouth. This set me thinking. There was no way that this stain could appear around his mouth, until and unless he had drunk some poison. I asked the police to investigate more thoroughly. On investigation, it was found that Ramesh had bought a large amount of caustic soda only a few days back. When the shop keeper enquired why he wanted to buy caustic soda, he told him, that he wanted to make some soap at home. Ramesh had no history of illness before. He had no diseases whatsoever, so it was improbable that he had killed himself to end his agony. Nor was Ramesh having any economic problems. There was no attempt of any previous suicide as well. All these facts went against my theory of suicide, yet I stuck to my theory.

At the scene, I found some additional minute points, which I would like to tell my readers. For instance, Ramesh’s body was lying on the floor. The face and chest were blood stained. Blood splashes appeared around the body. The furniture of the room was undisturbed, which went against the police theory of homicide. Actually before any homicide, a scuffle generally ensues. People struggle, and during that struggle, the furniture may get overturned. This overturned furniture actually tells us that the case may be of homicide. There was no such indication here. There was a razor in the right hand of Ramesh with the sharp edge directed inwards. About two meters from the body, there was an aluminum bowl containing some grayish semi-solid material. This was actually the caustic soda, which was drunk by Ramesh. His mother had thought that the bowl contained food, but it actually had caustic soda. There was a circular brownish area around the mouth, as I already mentioned. There was also a gaping, incised, transverse wound on the front of the neck. This was undoubtedly produced by the knife which was found in Ramesh’s hand. The wound in the neck had cut his windpipe completely. Blood had entered his windpipe, and from there to the lungs. In fact Ramesh died because of choking due to his own blood. In the stomach, I found a lot of caustic soda. There is no way caustic soda can be given by a murderer to his victim. It is so corrosive, that the victim would immediately refuse to drink it. It can only be taken by a person with suicidal intent.

What actually happened was this. Ramesh first drank the solution of caustic soda. He expected a quick death by this act, but this did not happen. And he was experiencing terrible pain. This drove him to find another way to end his life. As the razor was near at hand, he used it as the second suicidal tool. The motive for his suicide was in doubt. Among the reasons suspected was his financial condition. Finally when his creditors started approaching the police for their payments, it indeed turned out that financially he was in bad shape.

Actually the concept of “combined suicide” helped me conclude that it was a case of suicide. Otherwise with a large gaping incised wound in the neck, it would have been very very difficult for the police to believe that it was not a case of murder. They would have thought that it was a case of murder. No doubt I could have shown the police the stain around the mouth, and the caustic soda in this stomach, but the police – and later the courts – would have always wanted to know, why a person would like to kill himself “twice”. Why he would first drink the poison and then cut his throat. And most probably they could have got away with the concept of murder. But I told them that “combined suicides” are not unknown and they do occur. Thus a case of suicide was labeled as such, and not erroneously as homicide. Undoubtedly this was because of the help of forensic science.

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(Dr. Anil Aggrawal, M.D. is a Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. His E-mail is dr_anil@hotmail.com, and his website is http://members.tripod.com/~Prof_Anil_Aggrawal/index.html)