A scrubber used as a crime weapon: Killing of the 86-year-old husband by the coeval wife

Abstract

A case of domestic violence is reported, in which an 86-year-old wife killed her coeval demented husband by inflicting multiple blunt force injuries. A scrubber was used as the weapon. Decisive evidence for the identification of the murder weapon was provided by the numerous grouped, roundish, small patchy excoriations as well as the grouped, small patchy hematomas, which could be correlated with the bristles of a scrubber. The cause of death was exsanguination into the soft tissues. Fat embolism was excluded by histological examination. Due to the wife’s diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease and therefore diminished accountability, the court ordered confinement in a psychiatric hospital.