Case: Murder after Rape
Decision No. 11181 (075-CR-2325)
Sensitive Information ahead.
A girl is called to a school in Haripur, Nigahpur on the false premise that she is needed for some work but does not return the night or the day after 2070–3–28, the day she was last seen by her family. A decomposed dead body was found on 2070-3-30, in Yagyabhumi Village Municipality, Maltol Community Forest, and east of the Chiraite River. Hung by a green shawl was the body of what seemed to be the bones of a woman aged 20, from Terai, clothed in red and green kurtha pair, her feet touching the ground.
Her faced seemed decomposed, reeking and with flies. Her eyes swollen, eaten by maggots, her tongue protruding, swollen neck with a ligature mark from the shawl, legs and arms swollen, entire body covered by bumps. Swollen stomach, stool coming out of her anus, blood and semen like liquid found at the entrance of her vagina.
The victim’s body was found by her grandparent when anxiously searching about the whereabouts of lost little 15 years old child, struck with the news of her body found hung on the branches of the halure tree. Upon further investigation a ghastly truth revealed, the victim who was 15 years was lured and trapped into visiting the rapist at Haripur Nigahpur situated School.
The accuse claimed that he and the young girl were previously in a love relationship and had called the girl on the pretense that they’d marry, he also claimed the victim had notified him about her being pregnant from their previous meetings. The rapist had invited her promising a marriage, however, took her to the Murgiya jungle where he himself and his friends and an uncle of his took turns in raping her.
The culprits decided to kill her on the spot by strangling her, the stool coming out of her anus was in fact released at that particular time. Onlookers in a tea stall reported seeing the accused drag the victim by her hand away from the school during school annual holidays and after a few moments found her being forcibly dragged by the other accused towards the crime scene and later the culprits had returned on a motorcycle.
In his defense the accused claimed he had been threatened lie before the police and his statements was in fact illegally extracted from him and is unlawful under the Section 9(2) of the evidence, 2031. He expressed that no forensic science expert was consulted regarding the cause of death which was disproved by the court dismissing his appeal to the Supreme Court.
Stimulated hanging and death by hanging is in fact different and is differentiated by different signs signifying the causes by which the person has deceased. In hanging there are minimal abrasions due to the ligature typically being soft and the pressure being gradual, but due to manual or homicidal strangulation being forceful in nature there are multiple abrasions and bruising often accompanied by fingernail marks.
Larynx fracture is seen often in strangulation, also sometimes resulting in fractures of the thyroid cartilage and cricoid cartilage. The carotid arteries are partially compressed not completely blocking due to uneven pressure, but in strangulation it’s fully compressed causing quicker loss of consciousness and much severe hemorrhages in the surrounding tissues.
The saliva dibbles unilaterally from the mouth in the opposite direction of the ligature knot and the face is pale in hanging but in strangulation petechial hemorrhage in the eyes and the skin due to venous obstruction is found. An internal mark differentiating between strangulation and hanging is that cervical vertebra fracture in C2 – C3 is found in hanging but strangulation is accompanied with hemorrhage in the muscles.
