Text-book of forensic medicine and toxicology

by R. J. M. Buchanan

Accidental strangulation may occur when a cord suspending a weight on the back and passing across the chest slips and encircles or compresses the neck.

Falling out of bed, with entanglement in the clothes or nightdress, may cause strangling by tightening of the neck-band round the neck.

Homicidal strangling is as common as homicidal hanging is rare. It is difficult to hang a man, but easy to strangle him, because consciousness is rapidly lost, and the victim is unable to offer any resistance once the cord is tightened round the neck. In homicidal strangling the murderer generally uses a great deal more violence than is necessary, and so there is found after death much more local injury in such cases.

Severe local injuries, such as fracture of the laryngeal cartilages or hyoid bone, denote homicide, as they are rarely noticed in suicidal strangulation.

There may also be signs of general violence about the face, neck, chest, or other parts of the body. The position of the knot affords no material help, as the murderer may tie it in any position, but more than one knot, especially if in different positions, points to homicide. It must be remembered that finger-nails or other marks in the vicinity of the ligature may be present in cases of suicides, from the slipping of the cord or the determined attempts of the suicide to carry out the act, or plucking at the cord involuntarily. When a person is first strangled, then hung, there would be two marks—one probably horizontal, the other slanting.

Suicidal strangulation is rare. The knot is generally adjusted at the front or side of the neck, the cord may encircle the neck several times. Injuries to the deep structures of the neck are absent. Signs of general violence are not necessarily present.

If there be two marks upon the neck, one due to an attempt at strangulation, the other to suspension, in a suicide, the first would be the less marked, the latter more pronounced, whereas in homicide the strangulation mark would be most distinct.

THROTTLING

Throttling is strangling by means of the hand or hands alone, and is due to constant pressure of the fingers upon the throat. Very little pressure is required to occlude the glottis; it can be done with slight pressure of the thumb and forefinger on the side of the thyroid cartilage.

The impression of the fingers and thumb upon the throat have characteristic marks. They are usually to be seen on both sides of the throat. The thumb mark is on one side, and the marks of the fingers, separated from one another or clustered together, are on the other, the thumb mark being the highest. When grasped from the front by the right hand, the thumb mark will be on the right side of the throat. If the victim be throttled by the two hands at the same time, as when on the ground, the thumb marks are on the same side. If the assailant be left-handed, and has used this hand to grip the throat, the thumb mark will be on the left side of the victim. The finger marks are one above the other. The marks may appear as ecchymoses if the examination be made soon after death; if later, they may appear and feel like parchment, and of a brownish colour. Crescentic marks of finger-nails may be present, also other scratches in the vicinity. Other marks of general violence may be present, and should the victim have fallen to the ground, the head may be injured. Much blood is effused in the tissues of the neck and the laryngeal cartilages, and the hyoid may be found fractured; the carotids may escape injury, but not always.