Artefact in forensic medicine: non-missile penetrating injury

Gunshot wounds are well characterised in forensic textbooks and atypical or unusual ballistic characteristics feature regularly in forensic literature. Forensic practitioners receive continuing education in recognising a variety of gunshot wounds which are created by bullet missiles. Awareness of a non-missile penetrating injury mimicking a gunshot wound is also relevant to forensic medical examiners or others who are likely to attend a scene of death. In this case, which involved self-stabbing with a metal nail, a homicidal firearm death investigation was instigated because of a misinterpretation by crime scene investigators.