Uxoricide: beaten to death

Intrafamiliar violence, especially gender-based within a couple, is a very frequent phenomenon, not dependent from age or social status, and adopts different forms of aggression,: from emotional to physical violence. It is most common in societies or age-groups were women are assigned an inferior economic, social, cultural and emotional position as compared to men. In our region – Northern part of Italy (Lombardy) - in the last years a high percentage of intrafamiliar murder were registered (2005: 44,4% North Italy; 13,9% Lombardy) On a march afternoon a 66 y.o. man called the first aid telling to have killed his ex-wife (separated couple). At the arrival, of rescuers and police, the 67 y.o. woman was found dead in the living room (3:00 p.m). The crime scene appears immediately well defined and limited to the living room itself, where, near a prepared table for two and a heater, a woman was lying prone in an ample blood pond partially coagulated, no weapons or knifes were found on place. On the near couch were a pair of female sunglasses and a handbag. On another couch-bed, on a leaflet the motivations of the aggression were shortly annotated and on other leaflets were annotated sums given in loan to his ex-wife. At the external examination on scene (4:00 p.m) the woman was completely dressed in a juvenile matter, with multiple blunt injuries on the face - vast ecchymosis on the forehead and around the left eye - and head – on the right parietal region were two skin discontinuations with exposition of the bony surface. Around the body were some teeth, fragmented and intact. Post-mortem changes: no rigor mortis, no livor mortis; corpse inner temperature: 36.2°C (environmental temperature of 20.9°C). At autopsy a relevant head trauma was confirmed with diffused subarachnoid haemorrhage and multiple facial bones (jaw-bones, nasal bone) and skull fractures (cap and base). Intense blood infiltration around the cervical spine, multiple rib fractures, blood infiltration at the heart’s great vessel emergency and at the lumbar spine (L1-L2) were found. Ruptured liver and right kidney, with limited hemoperitoneum were also present. The cause of death was indentified in multiple head, thoracic and abdominal visceral and bony injuries. The man shortly after the uxoricide explained what happened to the investigators, he had invited his ex-wife to dinner, but instead of a calm lunch in good company, the ex-wife had come only to ask some money and was in a hurry because a friend was waiting out in car to accompany her to a dancing. This situation is then evolved in an animate altercation with his ex-wife about her frequent money requests, he had then attacked and beaten her to death with fists and kicks on her head (1:30 p.m.). The crime scene and autopsy findings confirmed multiple blunt force injuries extended to head, thorax and abdominal region; the blood infiltrations and the small amount of intracavitary intraperitoneal bleeding had allowed to conclude for an initial head and facial trauma and a terminal thoracic and abdominal blunt trauma, with fists, kicks and trampling of the woman first knocked down to the ground and then hit lying on the floor. The multiple localization and the severity of injuries permit to consider this case as an overkill by lethal blunt force trauma (fists and kicks) perpetrated by a single offender. The isolation of one of the spouses after legal separation in a senile couple and the continue requests of money denying the request of friendliness proximity and tenderness can lead to extreme aggressive situations. In this case after legal separation, the unequal permanent conditions between man and woman with the husband confined alone at home and the wife open to new socialization and a second youth, can be identified as an adequate primer to a violent action also in a person, who was up to that moment, considered a quiet retired ex fireman