Examining injurious chest stabbings from various aspects II.

Abstract

The chest stab injury is a clear sign that the injured person himself/herself or somebody else tried to take the injured person’s life. In these cases, forensic professionals often arrive at a criminal scene that has been previously altered for some reason, usually with the intention of helping when facilitating the urgent patient care or with sinful intent when disguising the act. Based on the data recorded in the report, the crime scene investigators should pay close attention to the act-related changes of the crime scene and provide reasonable explanations. When examining the crime scene, it always has been started off with the presupposition of the criminal act, looking for evidence of it, or grups of evidence against it. In case of a doubt between suicide and criminal acts, it is a professional failure to make the classification of the case dependent on the future outcome of the expert report, since the progress of time can even defeat the success of the investigation. In my two-part paper – starting with the theoretical background that is followed by the descriptive analysis of the cases – I intend to present aspects related to this initial analytical-evaluative work, in order to give awareness to the work of criminal investigators beside the undeniably necessary but easy-to-wear routine; and for the other actors in the judiciary, my intention is to shed light on the responsibilities of those who apply the law at the crime scene.