An extremely rare suicide scene.
A 2020 case report by the forensic medicine team at Wakayama Medical University details the suicide of a 45-year-old Japanese man who attempted to take his own life using a homemade guillotine, only to be immediately caught in the spread of a nearby vehicle fire and suffer burn injuries.
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Image 2/Chest burns
Image 3/Head side cut surface
Image 4/Fast cut surface
Image 5/ Carotid artery (complete amputation)
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Guillotine Suicide: Why Is It Extremely Rare?
The very fact that a suicide involving a homemade device is treated as a case report in an academic journal underscores the extreme rarity of such incidents. Suicides involving complete decapitation via guillotine are virtually unprecedented in medical literature; a 2012 paper from the Czech Republic noted only one previously confirmed case of this nature. This report originated from the Department of Forensic Medicine at Wakayama Medical University—an institution responsible for conducting forensic autopsies within the prefecture that handles over 200 autopsies annually and frequently publishes case studies in international specialized journals.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has established guidelines on reporting suicide, warning that detailed accounts of suicide methods can trigger copycat acts—a phenomenon known as the “Werther effect”—and specialized organizations in Japan are actively working to disseminate these guidelines.
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