Head injuries caused by hammer blows: A case report and literature review

Abstract

This paper reports a fatal assault with a hammer, with numerous strikes to the skull. The victim was a man in his 70 s with dementia. The suspect was the victim’s son, a man in his 50 s with schizophrenia. According to the son's testimony, he struck the father approximately 100 times with ‘murderous intent’ using a hammer. The son called 911, but the father was dead when the authorities arrived. The futon on which the victim’s head was lying as well as his clothes were soaked with a lot of blood. Numerous additional bloodstains were observed on the wall and furniture. The hammerhead was made of metal and had a square face with rounded corners at each end. At autopsy, many purple bruises, thought to be defensive wounds, were found on both forearms and hands. Dozens of scalp-contused lacerations, abrasions, and small open scalp wounds accompanied by abrasions were observed. There were no skull bone fractures or major intracranial injuries. We believe hemorrhage from multiple scalp wounds was the cause of death. Most previous reports of head injuries due to hammer blows focused on skull fractures and scarcely focused on scalp injuries. This is the first report of head injuries due to blows with a square-faced hammer with rounded corners. We report this case because evaluating the unique characteristics of the wounds on the victim, as well as accumulating information from similar cases, may help identify wounds caused by similar weapons in the future.