to the hyoid bone that you see in the middle that has a fracture on the left horn, that the horseshoe bone with the horn in the back, and there is beneath it the adam s apple, thyroid cartilage and there are two fractures in that bone. that s an awful lot of force that does not happen in hanging suicidal hanging cases but can happen with forceful compression of the neck in manual strangulation or ligaature strangulation which is what looks like the autopsy showed looked like happened here because of the deep mark that the ligature had, it wasn t just from hanging for that reason the medical examiner on sunday put down the cause of death as