Homicide of an aggressive adolescent boy with right temporal lesion: a case report

The case is reported of a 14-year-old male who killed an 8-year-old child following an alleged insult. The subject had been known to be aggressive throughout his school career. He had suffered one nocturnal seizure at the age of 13, but he never was amnesic for any of his fights. There was a history of possible hypoxic birth trauma. Neuropsychiatric investigation revealed developmental lags in speech and other psychosocial skills and, on computer tomography, a circumscribed lesion (cystic defect) lateral to the right nucleus amygdalae.