Application of the Injury Scales in Homicides

Abstract

Injury scales have two main applications on homicide investigations, namely, to evaluate the severity of the victims’ injuries and to identify the profiles of the offenders. However, few studies have examined the quality of the various injury scales in serving the two purposes. In this study, homicides from Shanghai and Wuhan, China (n = 439) have been used to examine nine injury scales. The results showed that seven out of the nine scales were useful. Compared to one-to-one homicides, offenders who killed two or more people tended to inflict more fatal injuries and made fewer number of attacks on the victims’ heads and necks. Among all homicide cases, victims of stranger homicides tended to have fewer total number of wounds, as well as less severity of wounds on the heads, necks, and faces compared to those of intimate partner homicides. As to one-to-one homicides, only the severity of wounds on the face could assist to distinguish stranger homicides from intimate partner homicides. When a male victim died in a one-to-one homicide, the high number of total wounds along with the high number and severity of wounds on the head and neck could indicate that the offender was a female.