A case of high fall and complete decapitation: cruel murder or suicide? an autopsy report and a review of the literature

Decapitation is the severance of the head from the body. Generally, cases of decapitation are considered as homicidal, as there are very few cases of accidental and suicidal decapitation in the world. In homicides, decapitation could be the cause of death as well the result of a postmortem body dismemberment or mutilation in order, for example, to dispose of the body.Accidental and suicidal decapitation is usually associated with hanging, rail injury, vehicle-assisted ligature suicide and car crashes. This paper is the first report of decapitation after a suicidal high fall, the diagnosis for which was made thanks to a systematic collection of the victim's medical history and death scene findings and to a thorough autoptic and toxicological analyses.Moreover, this paper reported the pathologic features that, according to the literature, can be useful to distinguish a suicide from an homicidal mode of death: in fact, in cases of decapitation, the most crucial part of a forensic pathologist work is determining whether the death was a homicide, an accident, or a suicide, and if it occurred post-mortem or ante-mortem.