155 Case Report: Fatal Abdominal Stabbing: A Confusing Picture in Diferentiating Homicide and Suicide Jaber Gharehdaghi 1 , Masoud Ghadipasha 1 , Mohammadjavad Hedayatshodeh 1 , Fardin Fallah 1* 1. Legal Medicine Research Center, Legal Medicine Organization, Tehran, Iran. * Corresponding Author: Fardin Fallah, PhD. Address: Legal Medicine Research Center, Legal Medicine Organization, Tehran, Iran. Tel: +98 (21) 55983260 E-mail: fardin.fallah@gmail.com Background: Diferentiating between homicide and suicide can be difcult and even impossible. In this report, we presented a fatal sabbing injury, which made a challenge in the verifcation of the manner of death. Case Report: A 45-year-old man was found dead in his workplace with a knife beside him. His mouth was closed with a scarf, his clothes were intact, and no evidence of a sruggle was observed in the scene invesigation. There was a vertical sab wound on the midline of the victim’s belly and his intesines were tangled out of the wound. In the autopsy, no defense wound was found. There was blood in the abdominal cavity and retroperitoneal region and several perforations were observed in the intesine and liver along the superfcial wound. Painful death and torturous extraction of visceral organs resembled homicide, but nothing indicative of hosility and homicide was found by the forensic exploration and police invesigation. Finally, the manner of death was assigned as suicide and the cause of death was a hemorrhagic shock as a result of sharp force injuries. Conclusion: This case represents a bizarre suicide, which is rare and highly suspicious of homicide. In such myserious cases, the evidence of autopsy and crime scene and police invesigation should be regarded to make a decision. A B S T R A C T Keywords: Abdomen, Homicide, Injury, Stab wound, Suicide Article info: Received: 03 Jan 2019 Firs Revision: 26 Jan 2019 Accepted: 13 May 2019 Published: 01 Jul 2019 1. Introduction uicide is a global public health problem with considerable mortality [1]. In the feld of forensic medicine and criminol- ogy, disinguishing between homicide and suicide can become a challenge [2, 3]. Sharp force injuries are one of the con- fusing pictures for diferentiation between suicide and homicide; in some cases, the diferentiation is even im- possible [3], and misclassifcation may also happen [4]. Studies show that sabbing injuries are commonly used for homicide, but few reports of suicide by this method have been reported that are usually associated with psy- chological problems of suicide attempter [5, 6]. In this report, we presented a fatal abdominal sabbing injury with bizarre presentation that made a challenge in disinguishing between suicide and homicide. S Citation: Gharehdaghi J, Ghadipasha M, Hedayatshodeh M, Fallah F. Fatal Abdominal Stabbing: A Confusing Picture in Diferentiating Homicide and Suicide. International Journal of Medical Toxicology and Forensic Medicine. 2019; 9(3):155-158. http://dx.doi.org/10.32598/Toxicology.9.3.155 : http://dx.doi.org/10.32598/Toxicology.9.3.155 Use your device to scan and read the artcle online Summer 2019, Volume 9, Number 3