Humane killers : particularités lésionnelles des blessures crâniennes par pistolet d'abattage

“Humane killers” or captive-bolt guns are used by butchers and veterinarians for slaughtering animals humanely. These weapons represent a metal tube consists of several elements screwed together. They require a charge of powder, which at its percussion, propels a cylinder outwardly to create a lesion on a target in contact. The authors propose here to present the case of a complex suicide by a captive-bolt gun. The autopsy revealed a cutaneous orifice of the right temporal region, a circular hole bone whose edges, on the outer table of the skull were regular, but the edges on the inner table were beveled. Injuries caused by slaughterer's guns show pathognomonic features, either on the skin, bone or parenchymal. They depend on technical characteristics of the weapon or its mode of use. Have knowledge of these lesions by the pathologist is important to allow a positive diagnosis or the elimination of a differential diagnosis (a special feature of these weapons is to reproduce at first sight a conventional distant gunshot wound).