Homicide with multiple gunshot wounds in the skull and carbonisation

Introduction: The finding of a severe burned body sets immediately various forensic matters to law enforcement agents. Primary step is to determine if there are elements to suspect a crime and manage consequently an adequate step by step scene and body on site investigation, to protect and preserve, not only, human remains for the next forensic and anthropological examinations to answer the classic Who, Where, When, What, How, Why questions related to that death. Methods: 20.6.07 – 2.00 P.M. in a woodland clearing a car set in fire was signalled to the fire brigade. At their arrival on the scene the car (Alfa 145) was completely destroyed and only small flames were present in the motor vain and a human adult corpse was lying prone on the completely fold-down back seat. The driver’s door was left opened and all glasses and rubber parts were dissolved by fire. The car number plates were still readable. In the vicinity of the car there were no evidence of suspect containers; under the car a cotton sheet with, an almost visible floral drawing, was found and collected. The examination of the back portion of the body, beyond the severely burned parts, don’t revealed any strange element to head and torso, with entire exposal of the skull and partial of the chest, with complete absence of the skin and calcination of distal limbs. Prior to the transfer of the corpse outside the car, for completing the external examination, a plastic sheet was slept under the body, just to avoid the handling of the corpse moving it outside the car from the luggage van. In the skull, at the forehead a clear, regular circle hole was visible and no other handling of the corpse was done and a protective wrapping of the body was prepared using a luggage packaging film foil. The death scene was limited to a rural opened-air area and all human remains were inside the car. The severe fire-damages, of the car itself containing a charred body inside, had forced us to relocate the car in a protected milieu, without losing fragments, just to allow a second more deep searching/collecting phase of bone fragments and metal remains. Therefore the car was completely wrapped and gently transferred in a covered place. Results: Radiology/Autopsy/Anthropology findings: multiple gunshot signs in the skull without sign of fire inhalation. Identification was confirmed by DNA comparison with samples coming from the two children of the suspect, husband of the car’s owner. The person was C.C. – born 27.2.67 and murdered by a double cranio-cerebral gunshots, that was covered up by a fire, probably initiated by an accelerant; no identifiable bullet’s fragments were found. Conclusions: This case shows how coordinated and comprehensive procedures on site and in section and laboratory phases could assure good results in death investigation.