Abstract / Summary
Abstract The dismembered body of a 27-year-old man was found in a cesspit on a farm where he had lived with his father and his sister. At autopsy of the body with severed limbs and transected torso, an exploded beehive firecracker was found deeply stuck in the oral cavity. There were numerous petechiae in the mucosa of the eyes and in the skin of the face as well as signs of heat-induced trauma in the oral mucosa and acute pulmonary hyperinflation. Cause of death was asphyxiation. The 62-year-old father was charged with murder. According to his statement in court, his drunk son had attempted to provoke him by playing right-wing extremist music at high volume, putting on a steel helmet, and placing a firework in his mouth which he then lit himself after the father had left the room. The father claimed that, in order to spare his daughter the sight of her deceased brother, he had sawed up the body of his son by hand and disposed it in the cesspit. As the father’s version could not be disproved, he was acquitted.