Forensic remarks regarding 35 cases of complex suicides and 4 cases of complicated suicides investigated at the Institute of Legal Medicine of Brescia during the period 1983–2022

•“Complex suicides” means two or more methods of death are applied by the victim.•Two suicides methods may be planned in advance to prevent failure (planned).•A second suicide method may occur when the first one is not effective or too painful (unplanned).•In complicated suicides the chosen method fails and it’s followed by a secondary and unforeseen trauma.•Multiple lesions on the victim's body are not in themselves indicative of the intervention of third parties in death.