Analysis of Parricide and Filicide in Korea / 대한법의학회지

Parricide, the crime of murdering a parent, accounts for about 5% of all homicides. Filicide is the crime of murdering one's own child. This study aimed to review demographic features and criminal characteristics of individuals who committed parricide and filicide in Republic of Korea (ROK). This study is based on data from the Korea Police Crime Analysis System, from 2006~2013. We assessed the diverse characteristics of both victims and perpetrators. Over the selected period, 381 parents were killed by their children and 230 children were killed by parents in the ROK. Parricides caused by schizophrenic murders accounted for 39.6% of all cases. Moreover, approximately 44.4% of the perpetrators attempted suicide following the maternal filicide. In our findings, psychiatric illness was a very important predictor in parricide, and these further suggest that young mothers with severe mental illness require careful monitoring by mental health support service.

A New Technique of Fingerprints Restoration in Putrefied and Dried Fingers; Rehydration / 대한법의학회지

Fingerprints remain the most important methodology of personal identification in the field of scene investigation despite of outstanding current DNA typing technique. Restoration of fingerprints may be, however, difficult or impossible in cases of severely putrefied or dried bodies. Several methods have been used in fingerprints recovery but they are somewhat easy and costly. We introduce a new practical method that is reconditioning of friction ridge skin with rehydration, which can obtain a good quality for comparison and identification via the automated fingerprint identification system. We think this method is easy to use and could contribute to restoring fingerprints of dead bodies with severe postmortem change.