[An extreme case of undoing and posing in a case of murder-suicide. A forensic pathological approach to crime scene investigation]

  • Saskia S Guddat
  • Sarah Schalinski
  • Klaus Püschel
  • Michael Tsokos
  • Friedrich Schulz

Related Research units

Abstract

A 7-year-old boy was killed by his father by manual strangulation during a murder-suicide. After the killing of the son, the father showed typical "undoing" behaviour: He changed the boy's clothes and laid him down on the bed. Then he placed candles around his head, put pictures of the parents' wedding around him and a crucifix and a picture of the family into his hands. He broke off a rose in a vase next to the bed, lit the candles and took photographs of his dead son. Later he called his wife, threatened to kill the son and finally called the police to confess the murder and to announce his forthcoming suicide.

Bibliographical data

Original languageGerman
Article number1-2
ISSN0003-9225
Publication statusPublished - 2007
pubmed 17879703