Comparison between prostitutes' and general women's homicides: The experience of the bureau of legal medicine of Milan and Hinterland over 26 years

Femicide in Ireland 2012-2023

INTRODUCTION

Femicide represents the dramatic end-point on a spectrum of violence against women and is an increasingly prevalent medico-legal issue. Whilst there is no definition of femicide in the Irish legal system, femicide can be understood as the gender based killing of women or girls.1 The pervasiveness of gender-based violence against women is a growing cause for concern with 2018 estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealing that 1 in 3 women have experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).2 Femicide remains poorly defined and underreported worldwide due to enduring stigmatisation, shame and a lack of official statistics addressing national femicide rates.

AIM

The aim of this study was to explore Irish cases of femicide, quantify the prevalence of femicide in Ireland and identify any emerging trends over a 12-year-period.

METHODS

All homicides referred to the Office of the State Pathologist (OSP) from 2012 to 2023 were reviewed and a total of 97 cases of femicide were ?identified and included in this study.

RESULTS

Femicide rates increased from 1 in 5 (19 %) homicides referred to the OSP in 2012-2020 to 3 in 10 from 2021 to 2023 (29 %). Domestic femicides accounted for 74 % of cases, with 41 % of women murdered in the home they shared with their killer. 56 % of women were killed by a current or former intimate partner and 20 % by a family member. Sharp force injuries were present in 75 % of femicides associated with a history of sexual violence. These cases had the highest average number of injuries per case (n = 30) and a significantly lower average age than that of the entire cohort (19 years versus 41 years).

CONCLUSION

The true scale of gender-based violence against women remains largely hidden due to a lack of focused official statistics and a clear definition of femicide. As populations become more diverse, and displacement secondary to environmental, or humanitarian crises becomes more common, it is essential that official data is collected in order to understand and ultimately prevent gender-based violence in this vulnerable cohort.

Postmortem forensic toxicology cases: A retrospective review from Milan, Italy

We are presenting a study on 136 cases performed in a 2-year period (2018-2019) at the Bureau of Legal Medicine of the University of Milan for which toxicological analyses were requested and we are making a detailed interpretation of clinical records and discussing toxicological results from each case included in the study. Total number of autopsies was 1323 and in 10.3% of the cases, toxicological analyses were requested to obtain further information. Analyses were assessed with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry system and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry analyses. Additionally, Blood Alcohol Concentration and detection of volatile substances were obtained with Head Space-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry system. From these analyses, 101 cases out of 136 provided positive results (74.3%). Main substances detected were cocaine, diazepam, morphine, and ethanol. The most representative profiles of individuals that emerged from this study were: a Caucasian male, age 41-50, that died for cocaine acute intoxication or was killed; a Caucasian male or female with a range-of-age of 31-50 deceased for simple suicide caused by acute intoxication or by complex suicide caused by acute intoxication and suffocation; and finally, a Caucasian male with a range-of-age 21-40 that died in a car accident without any toxicological evidence. From the results, acute intoxication at the time of death was confirmed in 54 cases and in 57 cases the toxicological analyses helped in the determination of the cause and manner of death. From this study, the importance of toxicological data among forensic sciences is confirmed.