Negligent homicide caused by exhaust gas escaping from a manipulated chimney

A chimney built and operated according to the instructions is supposed to ensure that the combustion gases coming from the fireplace can escape safely. If the operational reliability is impaired, this presents a risk of acute poisoning. The report deals with a negligently caused carbon monoxide poisoning of a married couple as a consequence of improper installation of a cover of the chimney opening. Various causes of fatal poisoning due to defective exhaust systems are discussed in connection with the presented case report.     

Late Victorian Poets

Who's a Pervert?

Jonathan Dollimore, Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault, Oxford University Press, £35.00 &; £9.95. Louise J. Kaplan, Female Perversions, Pandora, £17.00.

Border Zone Travellers

John B. Allcock and Antonia Young (eds), Black Lambs and Grey Falcons: Women Travellers in the Balkans, Bradford University Press, £11.00.

Canonising H.D.

Claire Buck, H.D. and Freud: Bisexuality and a Feminine Discourse, Harvester, £35.

Susan Stanford Friedman, Penelope's Web: Gender, Modernity, H.D.’s Fiction, Cambridge University Press, £37.50.

Susan Stanford Friedman and Rachel Blau DuPlessis (eds), Signets: Reading H.D., University of Wisconsin Press, £14.00

Lawrence Among the Women

Carol Siegel, Lawrence Among the Women: Wavering Boundaries in Women's Literary Traditions, University Press of Virginia, £19.95 or $29.95.     

Homicides in East Berlin from 1980 to 1989. Part I: victimology and phenomenology

At the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Humboldt-University in Berlin 8,580 autopsies were carried out in the period of analysis from 1980 to 1989 - including 139 homicides (= 1.6 %). The first part of this study deals with the victim-related analysis. Furthermore, the criminologically relevant aspects of the phenomenology of crime are described. Apart from the low frequency, the mainly short latency period and the low rate of homicides with removal of the victim are noteworthy.     

Fatal electric arc accidents due to high voltage

The frequency of electric arc accidents has been successfully reduced owing to preventive measures taken by the professional association. However, the risk of accidents has continued to exist in private setting. Three fatal electric arc accidents caused by high voltage are reported with reference to the autopsy findings.     

Traumatic heart rupture or infarct?

The movie genre "snuff" appeared in the late 70s and shows the allegedly real, often cruel killing of people. More recently, a growing number of short video clips have been distributed via the internet, which also belong into this category and were clearly recognized as fictional on the basis of technical details by two study groups at the 80th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Legal Medicine held in Interlaken from 25 to 29 September 2001 (Schyma/Seidl). By means of a brief review of film history the article shows that "snuff movies" originated from a certain prevailing trend, examples of which are the murder of the actress Sharon Tate by the group around Charles Manson, the development of B horror movies, a promotional campaign for a film which flopped in 1971 (renamed several times by the distribution company from "American Cannibal" to "Snuff" to "Big Snuff") and elements of urban legends. Retrospectively there are no clues that Snuff films--i.e. movies openly distributed and actually available to the public, which were not private documentations found by the police at the homes of killers during investigations of homicides (such as in the murder series of the couple Bernardo/Homolka)--show real killings.