murder

murder The act of murder is unique to humanity. While animals kill outside of their own species for food, and may fight, wound, or very occasionally kill within species for territory, it is only within mankind that one person — out of malice or rage, for gain or revenge — takes another person's life by violent means. Though most religions and cultures have gone out of their way to define murder as unnatural (the very use of the words ‘cold blooded’ denotes our need to see it as less than human), its continued presence within our history might, if we were more honest, suggest the opposite.

As a central element in the drama of human life, murder has always figured powerfully within culture, but it is only in the last hundred years or so that it has itself become a recognizable art form: the murder mystery. The timing is interesting. It is surely not coincidental that at the same time as medical advances were lengthening human life, writers were finding themselves more and more obsessed by stories about shortening it. Or that as science was chipping away at the notion of God, the murder mystery was busy perfecting itself as a form which, by definition, always answered certain key questions about the mysteries of life: why is it this person who dies rather than another? And — the biggest question of all — who did it? Murder, the most violent of human activities, became in some ways the most reassuring of reads.

Increasingly, science has been playing an ever more powerful role in solving murder, both real and fictional. Where once the art of detection was as much about intuition as about the careful consideration of evidence (the archetypes here are Miss Marple versus Sherlock Holmes), scientific and forensic advances are now the name of the game. DNA testing is just one of a whole series of breakthroughs that have made the laboratory as important as the scene of the crime and the corpse as communicative as any witnesses. While the question ‘why?’ may still be the preserve of the traditional detective, the ‘who?’ and the ‘how?’ are now being answered by men and women in white coats, and their fictional equivalents, a whole rash of hero/heroine pathologists, are becoming the new superstars of the genre. Through them the dead speak. Which, in its own way, is a kind of resurrection of the body. Maybe that explains why, while as a society we fret continually about rising levels of violent crime, culturally speaking we can't seem to get enough of a good murder.

By definition, a murder is a homicide (the killing of one human being by another) that is committed intentionally, or with malice aforethought. All legal codes classify it as a crime; where the element of intent exists and there are no extenuating circumstances, the penalty may be death or life imprisonment. It is thus important that doctors and legal investigators — those routinely confronted by cases of sudden and unexplained death — have some way to determine whether they are dealing with murder, suicide (self-murder), or an accident.

The problem of determining the cause of sudden or accidental death is one of the most important functions of forensic medicine, the application of medical knowledge to the service of the law and the administration of justice. It is a subject which draws upon a wide understanding of the medical, surgical, and scientific consequences of violent assault, poisoning, and other criminal offences against the person. In cases where the victim has died and a charge of murder may be brought, the law relies upon a detailed forensic examination of the corpse (and the crime scene) by trained experts. A careful medicolegal autopsy, performed by a forensic pathologist, can accurately reveal the sequence of events leading up to death, while forensic scientists are able to link the suspect to the victim on the strength of evidence from bloodstains, fibres, hairs, weapons, wounds, etc. Every contact between victim and murderer leaves a physical trace.

Forensic examinations were performed in medieval China and Europe, where surgeons noted the distinctions between fatal and non-fatal wounds, and those made before and after death; the depth, direction, and location of cutting wounds helped to distinguish between suicide and murder. The differences between burning, hanging, and submersion inflicted before and after death were known, but the principal symptoms and internal signs of poisoning were easily mistaken for those of disease. Despite the growing corpus of medical knowledge, however, courts relied for centuries on crude methods of establishing the guilt of accused murderers, who were subjected to trial by ordeal, or tortured to extract confessions. Cruentation — the supposed bleeding of the wounds of a corpse in the presence of the murderer — was popularly accepted as a proof of guilt until the nineteenth century.

Today, murder is assumed if a corpse shows injuries that raise suspicion or give obvious evidence of criminal violence, as in deaths from gunshot or stab wounds, burning, and bludgeoning. When an individual is battered to death, there will be a lot of blood at the scene and defensive wounds on the victim's arms. The instrument used will often leave a discernible pattern on the body. Murder by burning — which is rare — causes contraction of the muscles; the presence of soot or carbon monoxide in the lungs indicates that the victim was alive when the fire began. Stab wounds show the type of blade used and its length; extensive superficial wounding usually indicates suicide. Bullet wounds can indicate the distance and position from which a gun was fired, thus determining whether a death was murder or suicide. If a weapon is not found at the scene there is a strong presumption of murder, but sometimes the most severe wounds do not cause instantaneous death; suicides are occasionally able to walk some distance before collapsing.

When signs of mortal wounding are lacking, asphyxiation (resulting from inhalation of noxious fumes or smoke, drowning, hanging, smothering, or strangling) and poisoning are considered. Murder by strangulation is done with the hands or with a ligature (throttling). In both cases bodies exhibit blue lips and tiny haemorrhages on the face and eyes (petechiae). Victims strangled by hand have ‘fingertip’ bruises on the throat, and fractures of the hyoid bone of the voice box, while in throttling deaths the ligature is either present or will have left a distinctive groove on the neck. Self-throttling is possible, but self-strangulation by hand is not. Murder by hanging rarely occurs, but bodies are sometimes suspended after being murdered, to simulate suicidal hanging (which is common); when this is the case there will be other marks of violence on the corpse. Signs of vital reaction around the constriction mark on the neck indicate that the victim was alive when hanged. When neither is present, a medical opinion may be difficult to reach.

Drowning deaths are diagnosed by the presence of froth in the air passages, water in the stomach, and ballooning of the lungs; circumstantial evidence is required to distinguish between murder, suicide, and accident. The presence of microscopic algae (diatoms) in the circulatory system and internal organs can help to locate where the victim died, as they vary from place to place. No diatoms are found in the bodies of individuals murdered and then thrown into water. Smothering deaths leave few traces, but there may be evidence of pressure on the face and bloodstained froth from the nostrils; fibres found in the airways of the victim may prove that a specific soft object was used to prevent breathing. Deaths resulting from inhalation of irrespirable gases are usually suicides or accidents; circumstantial evidence may indicate murder. Lastly, only a small percentage of modern murderers use poison, which can be detected by chemical analysis (forensic toxicology).

If a murder victim remains unidentified, so does the murderer. But it is possible to gain a great deal of information from a dead body, or from parts thereof. When all that remains is a skeleton, its age, sex, height, and race can be determined. Bones will show evidence of physical deformities, right- or left-handedness, and sometimes diseases or other medical conditions. Teeth are nearly impossible to destroy, and are thus an ideal means of identification. When murder is suspected only after burial, it is possible to prove even after a number of years have elapsed. Some details will be lost (for example, putrefaction and time destroy all evidence of death from drowning), but cause of death can usually be determined following exhumation and forensic autopsy. In essence, dead men do tell tales.

Sarah Dunant

Katherine D. Watson

See also autopsy; drowning; poisoning; skeleton; strangulation; suffocation.