From all accounts, it appeared to be a clear cut case of suicidal hanging. But one small point caught the fancy of the police. The window was found open. Was it possible for someone to enter the room through the window at night, kill MangeRam by some other means such as by throttling ( putting pressure on the neck by hands), hang his body from the ceiling fan, and then leave the scene through the window? This possibility was perhaps far-fetched, but in view of the facts that MangeRam lived on the ground floor, and that he had generated many enemies by not repaying debts of several people, such a possibility could not be ruled out easily. Moreover it was also necessary to tell when exactly MangeRam had died, if only to satisfy the curiosity of his relatives. He had certainly died sometime between 9.00 PM on the 22nd and 6.00 AM on the 23rd, but nobody knew the exact time.

When the police handed me the body of MangeRam, I was asked to tell precisely these two points- Did MangeRam really die of hanging, and when had he died? Of course if I could tell any other additional information, the police would love it.

Hanging does leave its tell-tale signs on the dead body of the deceased. What the forensic expert does is to look for those points and then opine whether the person really died of hanging or not.

It is necessary to delve briefly into the mechanism of hanging before we could properly appreciate the tell-tale signs of hanging. Hanging is a mode of death in which a ligature is wound round the neck and the noose is then tightened, the constricting force being the weight of the body. This is an important fact to appreciate. In strangulation too, a ligature is wound round the neck, but the constricting force is not the weight of the body. in these cases, the noose is usually tightened by hands. Strangulation is usually employed by criminals to do away with their victims. While hanging is generally suicidal in nature, strangulation is usually homicidal, but cases in reverse are not unknown. Rarely but quite definitely, cases of suicidal strangulation and homicidal hangings are encountered.

It is reasonable for many people to assume that the cause of death in hanging is asphyxia ( exclusion of air from the lungs ). The noose is there on the neck, and through the neck pass the air passages, so this is a very reasonable assumption to be made. However only in a minority of cases of hanging does asphyxia really cause death. In a majority of cases the death is due to sudden stoppage of heart! In such cases the face of the victim appears very pale.

Why should the heart stop in a case of hanging? Actually there are certain sensitive structures sitting at the carotid arteries (the two arteries going up by the side of the neck, taking blood to the brain). These are called Carotid bodies. They are sensitive to pressure. Whenever they `sense' pressure, they cause heart to slow down. Nature `invented' these structures in a remarkable flash of ingenuity. If for some reason, the blood pressure of a person were to rise ( as in disease ), Carotid bodies would sense the increased pressure and slow down the heart. Slowing down the heart would reduce the blood pressure and tend to bring it back to normal. When the blood pressure is restored to normal, the Carotid bodies cease to get activated and the heart beat returns to normal.

The sensitivity of Carotid bodies differs in different people. In some people, especially women, the Carotid bodies are so sensitive to pressure that a mere touch on the neck would cause the heart to slow down or even stop. In fact, cases are on record, when the woman partner in a dancing sequence, suddenly dropped dead because the male partner had put his hand amorously around her neck!

Hanging puts tremendous pressure around the neck. This causes the Carotid bodies to interpret ( although falsely ) that there was an abnormal rise in blood pressure. The pressure is in fact so great that the heart is not only slowed down, it is actually stopped. Thus the wisdom of the body turns into a folly!

How do we know that the person did not die of shortness of breath, but of stoppage of heart? The tell-tale signs on the body of the deceased lead us to that. In cases of heart attack ( and any other cases of stoppage of heart), the face is usually pale, because the heart fails to supply blood properly to the various regions of the body. If the person were to die of asphyxia, the face would be congested i.e. the vessels in the region of the face would be full of blood. Because there is shortage of oxygen in the blood, the body compensates for it by sending more blood to all organs, and this accounts for the congestion of face. In cases of hanging quite a number of cases are seen where the face is pale, which tells us that the major cause of death in hanging is not asphyxia, but stoppage of heart.

Nevertheless asphyxia does occur in a small number of cases of hanging, because we do see congested faces in a small number of cases of hanging. When it does occur, it may be thought that hanging obstructs the air passages at the level of the wind-pipe. This is certainly the level at which the ligature is found tightened. But this is not so. In fact the obstruction occurs at a much higher level- at the level of the tongue. The pressure of the rope in fact lifts up the base of the tongue against the soft palate. This causes the air-passages to get blocked at the level of the tongue itself.

A peculiar and somewhat misunderstood form of hanging is Judicial hanging. This is the form of hanging employed by the jail officials to impart the Capital sentence to a criminal. It is generally thought that the mechanism of judicial hanging is the same as seen in suicidal hanging. This is not so. In suicidal hanging, as we have seen, the death is either due to stoppage of heart or due to lack of oxygen. Neither of these two mechanisms operates in the case of Judicial hanging. In Judicial hanging, the noose is wound round the neck in such a way, that the knot is either at the angle of the jaw or beneath the chin. Then the victim is made to fall through a trap door. The drop is usually about 8 to 10 feet, but this may be less or more depending on the weight of the victim. A lesser weight would call for a longer drop and vice-versa. The long drop and the peculiar position of the noose, breaks the joints of the neck and in the process the spinal cord in the region of the neck is crushed. Thus the victim meets an instantaneous death.

In cases of hanging a very peculiar thing that is seen is the ligature mark. This is a deep impression, made by the ligature material (such as the rope or the loin cloth with which the victim hangs himself ) and is seen on the neck. This mark tells many important things to the forensic pathologist. Among other things, this mark tells the position of the victim at the time of fixing the noose. Another important feature of the ligature mark of hanging is that it is not found completely around the neck. There is a little gap in the ligature mark at the suspension point. This is in sharp contrast with the ligature mark of strangulation which is seen all round the neck. This is one of the several ways in which we can make out whether the death was due to hanging or strangulation.

The ligature mark around MangeRam's neck was quite pronounced, which told me that he had indeed died as a result of hanging. This ruled out any foul play. His face was pale, which told me that his heart had stopped as a result of pressure on the neck.