Date Added
NOV 2002

In Great Britain, the majority of its 600-odd homicides every year are committed with knives - victims dying of stab wounds or complications arising from stab wounds. In the United States, murderous attacks with knives come second to those with guns. In both countries, the carrying of knives has become part of the gangland subculture, often regarded as much a young man's accessory as his comb and wallet. Unlike the situation with guns, legislation is powerless against knives. Although Britain has outlawed the manufacture import and sale of 'semi-automatic' knives like switch-blades and flick knives, the majority of stabbings are carried out with perfectly legal chef's knives. A vicious modern trend is the use of Stanley-type handyman knives.


It is entirely consistent with this cultural background that knives are 'contact' weapons - the victim and the attacker have to be within touching distance and it is almost impossible for the attacker to escape being soiled with his victim's blood. Thus most fatal stabbings are committed either in the home during a domestic dispute, or during brawls in public houses, clubs, street corners, football grounds, etc. where there is anyway an expectancy of interpersonal violence.


Knife wounds are classified either as incised wounds, where the edge of the blade makes cutting gashes to the body, often during a struggle and frequently on the arms of a victim trying to protect themselves; or stab wounds, where the point of the knife goes into the body followed by the length of the blade. While incised wounds tend to generate a great deal of blood, there will be little external hemorrhaging from stab wounds, the danger in this case being damage to internal organs, cause internal bleeding from which death will result. This presupposes that the wound has been inflicted in an area where it can cause this kind of damage - usually the chest or abdomen. Stab wounds need not, of course, to be inflicted with a knife, but with instruments such as a pair of scissors, a tool like a bradawl, even a sturdy hatpin.


Although in theory the shape of a stab wound should provide the pathologist with information about the weapon used, the interpretation of such injuries isn't very precise. For example; when a knife is pushed in the body there is a certain amount of stretching of the skin before it is pierced, so when the blade is withdrawn the skin will spring back naturally to the original position leaving a hole apparently smaller than the blade which caused it. Sometimes - though less frequently than fiction might have us believe - the type of knife can be determined by the shape of the wound. A knife with two sharp edges leaves a wound with two acute angles one at each end; a sheath-knife type of blade with one sharp edge will produce a wound with one acute angle cut and the other blunt. Visual appearances will be further complicated by the degree of rocking back and forth of the knife in the wound or by the twisting of the blade.

There is little likelihood of a fatal stabbing being accidental, and in those few unfortunate instances the cause will be obvious. However, it is not always easy to distinguish between stabbings with a suicidal and those with a homicidal intent. As a general rule the comparatively ready access to poisonous drugs these days has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of suicide by violent means, such as hanging and stabbing.


The site of the wound provides the clearest clue, because apart from the fact that the site has to be accessible, a suicide will generally choose to inflict their wound through the chest just over where they believe the heart to be; the other site is the stomach. Unlike homicidal stabbings, the suicide will usually strike once or occasionally twice, and it is common for clothing to be removed from the spot first. Thus when a body is found with multiple stab wounds, through the clothing, at various points on the body, homicide should be suspected.


After homicidal struggles involving knives it is common to find extensive cuts on the hands and arms of the victim where they have tried to grab the knife or fend it off - these will obviously not be present in cases of suicide.

Throat cutting is a class of incised wound which belongs more to the gaslight era of that quintessential cut throat, Jack The Ripper. It is still occasionally encountered, but as a homicide it has almost ritualistic qualities, and because of the difficulty of cutting the throat of a struggling person, it is usually carried out while the victim is helplessly bound or unconscious.


'Cutting ones own throat' is still a means of suicide, and can usually be recognised by the direction of the cut. If the subject is right handed, the cut will start quite high on the left side of the neck and slash down at an oblique angle across the voice box and visa versa for a left handed person. The number of slash marks is also significant because a suicide almost invariably makes one or two 'practice' cuts while summoning the courage for the final act. A homicidal throat cut is more forcibly and positively delivered, usually at the side of the neck. One point about suicidal throat cutting is that there is a temptation, while baring their neck, for the subject to throw back their head - a counter productive action which allows the main arteries to slip back and be protected by the windpipe. In such cases death will be by a combination of bleeding from the cut tissues and perhaps asphyxia if the blood clogs the windpipe. It is not unknown for a failed throat cut to achieve suicide by some other method immediately afterwards.

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