Two cases of fall from height turned out to be murder

& scene visit confirmed that it was a case of assault & PM disposal simulating fall from heightIam going to narrate only the history of the two cases that came for routine autopsy. But after Pm examination turned out to be homicide. 1) Body recovered from a 2nd platform in a panchayat water tank. History was he fell down from the tank. The nature of injuries & recovery of the body not from the ground but from the platform clearly indicated that it could be a case of homicide ,which turned out to be correct. H/O The person was aged 18-20 & used to occupy a position in the above platform for visualising females taking bath in the bathroom without roof attached toGovt quarters& he used to masturbate simultaneously. The peeping tom was reported to their respective husbands,. At first he was warned. But he repeated & was manhandled & killed by One JuniorEngineer,overseer & driver.
2) The wife manhandled her spouse( a drunkard) along with her two children for creating problems in the house daily . H/O was fall from height. Pm examination revealed the person couldnot sustain a fall as described in the request for postmortem examination. he had sustained contusion of neck ( a protected region)& depressed # of frontal & parietal bones with intracranail bleeding. Scene visit confirmed the findings during autopsy& three of them were arrested & tried in I additional Seesions court , TRICHUR.
dr. n.rajaram

A case of firearm injury depicted as heart attack by the police

This is a very interesting case where I have spent a very large span of time while during autopsy. This case was presented by the InvestigatingOfficer as a case of heart attack buried in the cemetery without informing the police. The relatives are having suspicion as to the cause of death. He also told that he got an injury on the back & outer aspect of chest on the left side while he was moved to the hospital in an auto rickshaw. The culprit for the causation of injury was a nail on the inner side of the rickshaw close to seat. I was deputed for this . Next morning I went the cemetery & to my surprise I saw two persons cleaning the decomposed dead body. I have attended a number of exhumations & in no such cleaning processes were noticed. The then ASssistant superintendantofPolice was watching all these & I shouted at him like anything & he replied that he did not know the consequences. After that I went near the dead body& noticed an oblique wound of rifled firearm injury on the left outer aspect of chest; produced by a revolver. ( No blackening,grease collar,& tattooing)No other injury was therein other parts of the body. With extreme caution, after noting the preliminaryfindings I searched for the presence of bullet. I was able to notice the wound of entry in the VII inter costal space with ricochet at the vii rib & wound getting terminated at the lower lobe of left lung. More than I litre of blood with blood clot was taken from the chest cavity. When the wound track ends in the substance of the lung; the bullet can get outof the body in the following ways.1) When he was alive if it gets in to the main bronchus he can cough it out.2) After death there is increase of intrathoracic & abdominal pressure due to decomposition& it can get out of the bodythrough mouth. 3) It can also get into the oesophagus by the person gulping it down while alive & track down to large intestine. 4) If it is getting into circulatory system by any means it can produce bullet embolism. I searched the body cavities, body parts by remembering all these possibilities but could not found any. I even searched inside the pit with my bare hands& the same was fruitless. I had the opportunity to examine the red& black check shirt worn by the deceased & could make out wound of entry corresponding to the external wound. Blackening was there, grease collar, burns effect & some quantity of power stripling. The wound track was taken from there along with ribs,soft tissues, lung etc for X-ray & found nothing except particles of sand. Discussion with the HOD revealed the fact that it is unwise to give an opinion as the deceased died of firearm injury sustained to chest involving the lung. Actually this was in my mind. The opinion given was the deceased died of penetrating injury sustained due to a projectile. In the meantime every description suits that of firearm injury. The greatest mistake committed by me was1) Not taking an X-ray of the body( A trial was made & no private hospital allowed it) 2) Giving the opinion as due to projectile. By this opinion I gave the police an opportunity to think in terms of bomb blast. Later on investigations assumed that i was good for nothing & did not to inter pert the finding correctly etc.in different levels in the police department. An year afterwards an shocking news came in the newspapers" DR.UMADETHAN & DR. GEORGE PAUL could recover a bullet from the decomposing left lung using metal detector. A turning point in the investigation!!!. I felt depressed & even cursed my inability. Later on while I went to give evidence at the THODUPUZHA seesions the ballistic expert Sri. JAMES made a sarcastic statement to me" The bullet recovered in the above case did not match with the suspect weapon". In other words the test bullet & crime bullet did not tally!!!. What does it mean. I didnot make any comment.The reader of this blog can guess.
Years after I was questioned by the CBI & I gave a very detailed statement explaining every thing happened with the case.At last the accused were arrested by CBI & trial was conducted at the CBI court EKM. I went there one day prior to my trial to have a discussion with the special PublicProsecutor & I was given an appointment only on the day of trial. Without any knowledge of firearms & without studying the case properly by thePublicProsecutor,the meeting ended in a big quarrel. He was prepared enough to say that the fault is mine for not recovering the bullet. Twice I was called into give evidence & do not know what had happened with the judgement.The thing that I know was 1) The wife & son of the deceased committed suicide. 2) In a Malayalam weekly recently Dr. umadethan proclaimed that because of his effort only the case was proved. He never mentioned that he was doing the II or the III autopsy & the first one was conducted at Medical college Trichur. I rang him & iformed him that what he did was wrong.Now Iam very happy to say that he deserved the credit.
dr.n.rajaram

REVENGE OF FRIEND IN NEED

Edgar Oswald man aged 53-58yrs ,bachelor,living alone in Malappuram district used to entertain his friends with liquor & in turn the friends used to a share a woman with him according to the need.
On afternoon A dead body was brought for autopsy from this area. The dead body & myself were entering the mortuary together. To my dismay I was profuse bleeding from the left eye of the victim. I enquired this with the IO & he told me that it is ant bite. I was not convinced. Anyway after initial preparation ,I made the general examination & looked for ante mortem injuries. I found some abrasions at different parts f the body; contusion in the form of boggy swelling over the back of head. Closer examination of the left eye revealed that the eye ball is almost completely scooped out except for a little attachment with the periorbital tissues.In addition to the above I noticed an incised wound at the outer angle of left eye& temple(1.5cm) with tailing outwards.This finding proved that a sharp weapon was used for this job.
Internally there was sub dural & subarchenoid hemorrhages. Viscera & blood preserved for chemical analysis prooved + ve for ethyl alcohol.opinion as to cause of death furnished as the deceased died of head injury & injury in the eye was also sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death.I felt that the eye injury could have been produced during the perimortem period .
Subsequent investigation revealed the following.
One day a teen age daughter of one of the accused went in search of her father into Oswald's house. He was not there,but oswald tried to molest this girl & out of fear she ran away & conveyed this to her father. Her father was waiting to get an opportunityto take revenge. One day they were enjoying together with drinks & woman. After that there occured a verbal combat followed by physical in which he sustained the head injury & out of rage he scooped out his eyeball. On seeing all the woman escaped from there in autorickshaw & the auto driver was made one witness. All these persons were arrested & the case came before Principal sessions Manjery. During trial all the witnesses including the prostitute became hostile ; because they got their visa to Gulf country. I was the only person for the dead. The prosecutor was also not interested.The accused were defended by Adv. Kunjirama menon & I had a tough time. In the re-examination I was forcing the PP to ask questions to counteract the defence's plea. The fate of the case was that all the accused were acquitted for want of evidence.

Prior to my court appearence while I was in my home at Velappaya; two persons belonging to CPM faction approahed me telling that I should say "YES"only to the questions put forward by the advocate;they didnot mention whether prosecution or defence. I just kicked them out in my own style.
dr.n.rajaram

An un detected case of ligature strangulation

This occurred in the year 1988-89. A body involved in pattambi policestation crime & recovered from a temple pond in pattambi taluk was brought for autopsy. The hands & feet were tied separately with coir rope.The manner in which the hands & feet were tied could not be tied by the person himself. There are instances in history where a person tied his hands & feet & jumped into water.Signs of submersion could be made out& the body was in a very early state of decomposition. Examination revealed an oblique ligature mark oblique&across the middle of thyroid cartilage& it was having a pattern to that of a rope(7-8cm) Underneath there was infiltration of left sublingual gland. The other neck structures were free of injuries. There were no other injuries on the body. Viscera & blood preserved turned out to be -ve for poisoning.
I used to discuss cases with my seniors at that time & also till my retirement & after that also. This particular case was presented before my HODat that time & my opinion " The pm findings were consistent with death due to ligature strangulation" was acceptable to him. Later on when the Investigating officer was not able to proove the case; the same HOD became hostile towards me. & he answered the questioner put forward by the investigating officer. It went to such an extend that he even proclaimed to tarnish my image. He gave a statement that Iam an inexperienced person & donot know anything. In a stage of decomposition the neck creases will be misinterpreted as ligature mark.At the end he quoted " possibility of death due to ligature strangulation cold not be ruled out." !!??
Later on the case was submitted before the Medico-legal advisor to kerala police & he stated that the ligature mark!! Whether patterned? Imay ask now. At the end of his statement he opined that theligature mark was there& it could have produced by the person tying a rope around the neck & the other end of the rope was tied around a granite stone & the person tied his hands & feet & jumped into water. Using a motor pump the police drained the water from the pond & they were not able to locate the rope,stone etc.
Till this date nothing is known about the case.
Iam in darkness with regard to the strange behaviour of my HOD. Now we are in good terms.
dr.n.rajaram

A case of smothering

This case occurred in the year 1985-86 period. A dead body was brought for Pm examination by 1500hrs on an holiday from Anchal police station limit. The deceased was a hunchback of short stature with multiple crescentic abrasions around the external orifices. He was edentulous. The stomach contents had a smell of ethyl alcohol.Dr. Sivasuthan,now professor at MC,Kottayam was also there with me. We had no doubt about the cause of death. But to confirm once again , myself sought the help of one Asst.professor living in the MC premises through telephone. For that I got a good dose of scolding from him for having disturbed his afternoon sleep / peace & tranquility. Moreover he reported the matter to then HOD. Next day The HOD tried to strip me completely in front of others by bombarding me with questions, but I withstood the above & gave my statement to the police that the person died of SMOTHERING. Later investigations revealed that my deduction was correct. A gist of what had happened is as
follows. The deceased & his friend took country liquor & after that both had a quarrel & scuffle & in that the denture worn by the deceased came out & (the same was recovered later by the police) the hunch back was smothered.
In cases of smothering if you are able to make out crescentic marks it is invariably followed by laceration & contusion of mucous membrane of mouth. If it is an infant or adult person the injuries may not be there.
The case was tried in pathanamthitta sessions court . At least for 4-5 times I appeared before the bench. The interesting fact is that there occurred mutual exchange of accused & witness due to political influence & I am not having any idea of what happened with the judgement till now

A simulated case of railway accident

This case also underwent autopsy at Medical college,Trichur. during 1989-90 period. A case under kodakara crime was brought for pm examination with an H/O railway accident. The injuries that I noticed donot match with the pattern of injury in railway accident,viz bilateral testicular contusions, cane marks spread over different parts of the body, abrasion caused by thorn, bilateral rib # at various levels, Contusion lips with laceration of mucosal aspects of lips,old healing subdural hematoma. More over the stomach was empty & the mucosa pale with a garlicky odour simulating zincphosphide. Chemical analysis turned out to be +ve for zincphosphide. Final opinion was given as the deceased died of zincphosphide poisoning & the injuries fond on the body except abraions & cane mark are independantly sufficient to cause death.
Investigation revealed the person belonging to Vadakara & he left the place telling that he is going to sabarimala. Prior to the day when the body was found near the railway track, he was seen wandering near the Aloor railway gate & he himself bought one fish from a vendor selling fish & was seen sqeezing the fish over the injuries on his mouth. He recived the injuries on the day prior to his presence at railway gate. Because of the old subdural hremorrhage he waas not oriented in space & time & he went to a house where preprations for a marriage was going on. Youngsters there manhandled him by his bizaare behaviour & sent him out.During the same night after he visited the raiway gate ,once again he went to the same house , the very same boys caught him & tied his hands over his back & made to walk along the railway tract& gave him good kicks over the gentials. The police were able to proove the manner of production of injuries except the manner in which he was poisoned. The persons involved were concerned with horticulture.The investigating officer even made a request that I should ommit the role of poisoning & include the fact that the deceased died of injuries sustained. I told him a very big NO.

When the case was heard in the court, the prosecution as well as defence didnot have anything to ask & the case was acquitted.

A case of ligature strangulation & perimortem burns

This case refers to a 80 yr old spinster was living alone under the viyyor police station limit. During 1989 one fine morning body of the above female was brought for pm examination. She was dressed in pure white clothes with smell of kerosene& was about to be moved for burial. The locals raised suspicion. Examination revealed ligature mark over the neck with superficial burns over the back. There was injury to neck structures in the form of contusion. One curious finding is that the portion of thyro-hyoid membrane with hyoid bone was missing. The soft tissues adherent to the thyroid cartilage was calcified & opening into the pharyngeal inlet was reduced to pinpoint size. Further inquiry revealed that she had carcinoma larynx & was operated upon.
Investigating officer narrated the events that occurred on that night. The deceased was living adjacent to her sister's house & everyday she would whisper to her sister that the latter should take care of her since she is not able to speak loud. The deceased had the habit of taking liquor every day. The errand of buying the liquor was carried out by an adolescent male with whom she used to share. On that night the boy tied to attack her with the intention having forceful sexual intercourse with her. The attempt was not successful & he killed her . During the struggle a kerosene lamp fell down & her back portion of the body got drenched in kerosene.
There was no injury to external genitalia & the hymen was intact. The vaginal smear & swab preserved for chemical Analysis to rule out spermatozoa & semen turned out to be -ve.

The Case was posted in the principal sessions court ,Trichur for trial.By that time the adolescent turned out to be a 60 yr old male at the time of giving evidence in the court during the 90's & the person was acquitted.
dr.n.rajaram