[Suicidal hanging or simulated suicide? Once again a case of Kobue: a spectacular case in the history of Japanese legal medicine].

The cause of death of a 45-year-old woman named Kobue Hiramatsu became an issue in a notable criminal trial called the Kobue-case. The woman and three young girls were found dead in Kobue's house at the end of June 1926. The bodies were decomposed. The three girls had been strangled, while Kobue was found suspended by a waist band tied to a lintel. An open noose had been arranged by winding the band twice around the lintel and tying the both ends. The ligature lay immediately under the chin. Her feet touched the tatami mat and between feet, there were a charcoal brazier and a cutting board. There were two abrasions, not parallel with each other, ont he front of her neck. One abrasion was under the ligature. The other was about 2 cm below the first and was accompanied by bruise. An expert diagnosed that the upper mark without the bruise was produced after death, while the lower abrsion was a ligature mark from strangulation, and that she was suspended for simulation of suicide after being strangled. A former lodger at her house was arrested, but he denied any guilt. The main issue at the trial was the nature of the lower mark and the mechanism by which the two marks were produced. The defendant was found innocent and acquitted based on the expert opinions that the lower mark was a hanging mark and the upper one was produced by the upward movement of the ligature when asphyxia-induced convulsion occurred during hanging. There was no unanimity on how the body weight affected the neck during hanging or what the posture of the body was when convulsion occurred. In the present paper, how Kobue hanged herself and what caused the ligature to move upward is discussed.