NCJ Number
212922
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 51 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2006 Pages: 93-99
Date Published
January 2006
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This paper describes investigations of two fatal falls of adult females, one from a balcony and the other from a cliff.
Abstract
In one case, a young woman fell over the balcony rail of an apartment she shared with her male partner. On the afternoon of the fall, they had been drinking together in a bar, returning to their apartment around 6 p.m. The male partner claimed to have observed the fall from inside the apartment. According to him, she was leaning over the balcony with her hands on the rail. Shortly thereafter he saw her fall over the railing head first, apparently after losing her balance. This case was unique in that there was no need to investigate the trajectory of the fall. The woman's fingerprints on the balcony's handrail and a face print left by the woman on the outside of the glass panel below the handrail as she fell, indicated a low-speed launch and a confirmation of the partner's story. The fall was ruled an accident, with alcohol likely a contributing factor. In the second case, a 25-year-old woman was found at the bottom of a cliff some distance out from its base. An autopsy found no alcohol or other drug present in her system. Reasons for initially believing this was a suicide were the cliff's being a well-known suicide spot, the suicide of the woman's mother, and the woman's own previous suicide attempt; however, subsequent investigation indicated homicide, based on measurements of cliff height, the horizontal distance to impact, and available runup distance at the top of the cliff, in addition to measurements of possible run, jump, and throw speeds. 6 figures, 1 table, and 7 references