Colombian Necktie

A Colombian necktie (Spanish: corbata colombiana) is a brutal method of murder wherein the victim's throat would be slashed horizontally, with a knife or other sharp object, and his or her tongue would be pulled out through the open wound; this is not actually possible because the tongue is entirely in the mouth and is thus entirely above the neck. The myth may gain credibility because when one looks into a human mouth, the tongue seems to disappear into the inside of the throat. Anatomy textbooks, including the famous Gray's Anatomy, make clear, however, that the tongue is a roundish muscle anchored in the bottom of the mouth. See for example the schematics in Gray's, the Duke University Medical School, the Human Anatomy and Physiology blog, and a recent paper in Journal of Applied Physiology. See also Tongue.

Nevertheless, widespread belief in the phenomenon has had social effects as indicated in the remainder of this article.

The Colombian necktie is sometimes credited to drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. It was supposedly intended as a method of psychological warfare, meant to scare and intimidate.

During the trial of O. J. Simpson in 1994, an alternate murderer theory claimed hitmen murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The theory supposes that the hitmen were hired by drug dealers to whom Faye Resnick owed money.

Evidence was presented that a Colombian necktie, a variation where the executed are killed by a horizontal slash at the throat and the tongue is not drawn through the wound, is often employed by Colombian drug dealers. Judge Ito barred this admission of testimony.

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