The typical homicide that wasn't

Police investigators and medical examiners have much to offer each other at the death scene by virtue of their different but complementary points of view. Occasionally, one may see what the other does not, thereby facilitating the investigation. We report the case of a 14-year-old boy who died of an intermediate range gunshot wound of the head. First thought by police investigators to be a homicidal death, a constellation of findings delineated by a cooperative investigation substantiated the allegations of the victim's acquaintances that the wound was accidentally self-inflicted. The authors feel this unusual case to be instructive in its reaffirmation of a basic but oft-forgotten foundation of medicolegal death investigation, that of the mutually beneficial effects of a cooperative effort between medical* and law enforcement officials.