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A case of suicide disguised as natural death
C Brandt-Casadevall1, T Krompecher, C Giroud
1Institut universitaire de Médecine légale, Bugnon 21, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
A case report describing the suicide of a physician classified initially as a natural death. Faced with the vehement protest of the family of the deceased the magistrate decided to request a 'preventive' forensic autopsy. Forensic investigations revealed the cause of death as being a pentobarbital intoxication and the circumstances favoured the hypothesis of a genuine suicide. This case illustrates that the tendency of magistrates to request or not an autopsy is related to their experience or intuition.