Homicide-Suicide of an Older Couple Involving Complex Suicide: An Unusual Case

Homicide-suicide is defined by a homicide committed by someone who subsequently commits suicide. “Dyadic death” term has been also used for these deaths as these incidents often involve a pair of persons. Homicidesuicides usually involve a male perpetrator, who commits one or more homicides and then commits suicide. They generally occur within a family and may involve children. There is a love or spousal relationship between the victim and perpetrator in most cases. Three types of homicide-suicides have been classified; familial, spousal/consortial, and extrafamilial types. They have different sub-classifications defined by age of individuals and relationship. Homicide-suicides in older couples were interpreted as dyadic deaths, dual suicide pacts, or homicide-suicides with altruistic motives which are attributed to the perpetrator. *Corresponding author: Dogan KH, Associate Professor of Forensic Medicine, MD, PhD, Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey, Tel: +90 332 2243874, Fax: +90 332 2243874, E-mail: [email protected] Dogan KH1*, Demirci S2 and Gulmen MK3 Homicide-suicides are defined as events where a perpetrator kills one or more victims before taking their own life. “Dyadic death” term is also used for these incidents. Homicide-suicides usually involve a male perpetrator who commits homicide/s and then commits suicide. They normally occur within a family context. Children may be involved, but in most cases between the perpetrator and victim, there is a spousal or love relationship. The incidence of murder-suicide was found to be 0.2 to 0.3 per 100.000, in a review of the literature [1]. While the reported data show that homicide-suicide happens around the world, it also demonstrates the complications involved in prevention and the rarity of homicidesuicides. Citation: Dogan KH, Demirci S, Gulmen MK (2014) Homicide-Suicide of an Older Couple Involving Complex Suicide: An Unusual Case. SAJ Forensic Sci 1: 103 Volume 1 | Issue 1 Homicide-suicide; Dyadic death; Forensic; Death Volume 1 | Issue 1 www.scholarena.com Case Report Open Access SAJ Forensic Science www.scholarena.com Introduction We present a homicide-suicide of an older couple involving a complex suicide. A 77-year-old retired man, who lived with his 72-year-old wife, was described as hot tempered by his relatives. On the incident day, his wife reported to her neighbors that he was acting strangely, and she was worried. Later that evening, he killed his wife by hitting her on the head with an iron bar. He then killed himself by cutting his abdominal region and by hanging himself. A detailed death scene investigation and autopsies of the couple were performed. The case presented is unique because it involves both homicide-suicide and complex suicide which is defined as using more than one method to induce death. In addition, a homicide-suicide case involving complex suicide has not been reported in the literature before. Article history: Received: 04 July 2014 Accepted: 24 July 2014 Published: 28 May 2015