Suicide or Murder? The Answer Always Seems Obvious To Me!

[microeconomia]

Originally Posted by Corky Kneivel

All that being said, and even in spite of some of the comments made by the family themselves, I DO NOT think, not even for one nanosecond, that the following case ruled a suicide was actually a suicide. This particular segment was included on one of crystaldawn's CDs, I cannot remember which one right now, and featured NY/NJ young man found dead in the woods hanging from a tree with the ropes fashioned in an incredibly bizarre and complicated manner. Later on the official police dept. photographs of the death scene were dropped off at the young man's home for his mother to see. There were also several obvious investigative mistakes made and allegations of a cover-up of some sort. I readily acknowledge it seems pretty silly of me to be so adamant that this was indeed a "murder rigged to look suicidey" and yet not be able to recall the poor young man's name. Please forgive that I cannot remember his name but rather focus on the known facts involved in this case and I don't know how you can assert that this young man offed himself. True, the allegations of a cover-up and the death scene photos being anonymously delivered to his mother does not a murder make but those things, along with other factors, demand further attention and are indicative of "fishy goins on". If someone could remind me of the kid's name so I could commence a "search" or if someone could just link to any previous discussions I would appreciate it.

That's the Keith Warren's case, is on Crystaldawn's volume 3. And here is a link to some discussion in this forum:

www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=196442&highlight=keith+warren

[Thiussat]

I would think this is a common enough phenomenon from someone going through the kind of depression that ultimately leads to suicide: it is often of a bipolar sort (even if the person him/herself is not bipolar, per se), in that they will experience highs that are too high and lows that are too low. I wouldn't be surprised if many suicides followed a pattern similar to this: prolonged depression, followed by an apparent upswing that has signs of being a little out of control, followed by the suicide (a "bottoming out" after the high "flames out"). So, family members would see someone who seemed happy or was who was behaving in a positive way, especially as compared to a previous depressive state, who then suddenly decides to kill himself. Naturally enough, they would want to say "But so-and-so was so happy, he couldn't have committed suicide."

I know that you were not talking about the official diagnostic disease of "bipolar," but I feel a discussion of diseases like this is pertinent when discussing suicides in general.

I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I have a lot of intimate experience with and knowledge of Bi-polar disorder. I can tell you that anywhere from 1-5% of the general population (depending on the study) suffer from the disorder. We know from studies that the suicide rate amongst bi-polar people is huge when left untreated. Since most people who have the disease are unaware that they suffer from the disease, it is likely that a fairly good number of people who commit suicide are untreated bi-polars. Unipolar depression is also known to cause a fairly high rate of suicides, but not nearly as frequently as bi-polar disorder. For physiological reasons, bi-polar depression and unipolar depression are two different disorders and are classified as such by the DSM. Bi-polar depression seems to be a bit more pernicious to the individual suffering from it based on everything I have read.

My point in all this mumbo jumbo is that family members often say "he wouldn't have killed himself," but these people are largely unaware of chemical disorders like bi-polar, thus they don't understand it can strike anyone whether rich or poor, divorced or happily married, beautiful or ugly, white or black. Many people tend to look at the cause of suicide from a social aspect or a "character flaw" aspect more than they do from a biological one. This is the problem, and it explains why people, who ostensibly would never kill themselves, do, in fact, kill themselves.

I would wager that 90% of suicides are due to a chemical imbalance and some sort of either latent or known mental illness. There are social factors that can cause suicide (like Japanese college rejects jumping out of windows) but these are rare when compared to the physiological causes. There are also environmental causes, such as being a combat veteran. It has been shown that horrific events, such as those that cause PTSD, can actually alter a person's brain chemistry permanately, thus transforming a "normal" person into a mentally ill person. For example, look at the suicide rate amongst Iraqi war vets. The same thing happened after Vietnam. This is why someone who has PTSD can't just "shake it off." The event has become literally engrained in their phsyiology.

Again, unfortunate biological diseases like "bipolar" can hit anyone, and they usually first reveal themselves in people who are college aged. Bi-polar is widely known to effect very successful people whom many would think "this person has it all." Bi-polar is also highly heritable and often, upon investigation, can be clearly seen in the ancestors of any effected person (this is why shrinks always quiz you about your family history). Hemingway, for example, suffered from it and this explains his suicide, his father's suicide, and the suicides of other close family members of his.

I suppose what I am really trying to say is that a family member can have such a disorder and the rest of the family be oblivious to it. This is why awareness of such disorders (and education of the public that no one is immune) is important. The stigma associated with these disorders should be extirpated from society and insurance companies should be more cooperative in covering psychiatric costs. If this can happen, many more people will be treated since they will no longer fear "what other people would think" if they visited a psychiatrist.

It's hard to diagnose someone retroactively, but I think most of the suicide controversies I have seen on UM were actually suicides. What caused these people to do it is beyond the scope of my knowledge or expertise. I think trained mental health professionals consider the diagnosis of dead people dubious, even though it has been done for the purpose of academic studies.

I concur that the Keith Warren case was murder.

Regards.

[unsolved88]

Originally Posted by mozartpc27

The first thing one always needs to remember with Unsolved Mysteries is that, as much as I adore the show, they are in business to make things seem as mysterious as possible. That means choosing to include or exclude pieces of relevant information based on how sympathetic or unsympathetic they tend to make the victim, and how much they do or do not tend to contradict official versions of events.

My sentiments exactly! Not only do they seem to pick and choose what facts and bit of informations to include in their segments based on how sympathetic they make the victim seem, they also sometimes include pieces of information which technically have nothing to do with the case itself. A perfect example of this is the case of Patsy Wright, the Texas woman who died in 1987 after taking a dose of cold medicine that had been laced with strychnine. At the end of the segment, they seemed to make a point to say that the paramedics who arrived on the scene found a tray table with two empty plates by Patsy's bed. Since it was unlikely that would have had dinner with her ex-husband (who by all accounts had been stalking her) or the boyfriend with whom she had just broken up, it was suggested that she could have dined with another person that night, presumably the person who tainted her cough syrup. As many people on this board who have discussed Patsy's case have noted, the whole plate observation was basically irrelevent and was made to look a lot more mysterious and sinister that it truly was. Personally, I've always thought that the explanation for the plates was quite simple. Patsy was probably eating something and went to the kitchen for seconds. Forgetting that she already had a plate in her room, she got a second one. Thus, after finishing her second helping, there were two empty plates on the tray table.

[RightOnDude]

... or she was really hungry?

[mozartpc27]

Or she had left her dish from the night before. I know plenty of people who aren't diligent about doing every dish every night.

[Drakken]

Returning on Dan Casalero's case, if he had indeed committed suicide, why would he, with such a known fear of blood-letting, slit his wrists? It's not like there is a lack of ways to commit suicide if he really, really wanted it. And much simpler. However, he did it 12 times, slashing on both his wrists... really odd for someone who would faint at the mere sight of blood.

I suffer from BPD, so suicidal tendencies did occur on and off in my life when I was young and untreated. I have thought of many ways to end my life or hurt myself, but I am afraid of heights. I can assure you that anything involving fall down somewhere to crash down on the ground was definitely NOT on my list of ways to commit suicide. Hell, I'd have prefered to commit hara-kiri alone in my room rather than fall down to the ground. Phobias override reason, it's a reflexive, uncontrollable reaction to feared stimuli. With this fear of blood, it would have taken a lot of mental preparation and pre-exposure to blood for Casolero to commit suicide in such a way. And Casolero's position when he was found suggest something slow to occur, almost ritualized.

I am not saying that he was definitely murdered to prevent him to speak on some dark conspiracy. All this mumbo-jumbo about the Octobus is conspiracy nutcase belief to me. However, Casolaro's "suicide" is very, very odd to me.

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by Drakken

Returning on Dan Casalero's case, if he had indeed committed suicide, why would he, with such a known fear of blood-letting, slit his wrists? It's not like there is a lack of ways to commit suicide if he really, really wanted it. And much simpler. However, he did it 12 times, slashing on both his wrists... really odd for someone who would faint at the mere sight of blood.

I suffer from BPD, so suicidal tendencies did occur on and off in my life when I was young and untreated. I have thought of many ways to end my life or hurt myself, but I am afraid of heights. I can assure you that anything involving fall down somewhere to crash down on the ground was definitely NOT on my list of ways to commit suicide. Hell, I'd have prefered to commit hara-kiri alone in my room rather than fall down to the ground. Phobias override reason, it's a reflexive, uncontrollable reaction to feared stimuli. With this fear of blood, it would have taken a lot of mental preparation and pre-exposure to blood for Casolero to commit suicide in such a way. And Casolero's position when he was found suggest something slow to occur, almost ritualized.

I am not saying that he was definitely murdered to prevent him to speak on some dark conspiracy. All this mumbo-jumbo about the Octobus is conspiracy nutcase belief to me. However, Casolaro's "suicide" is very, very odd to me.

Conversely, how would it be possible for people OTHER than Danny Casolero to restrain him long enough to slit his wrists, WITHOUT evidently causing a terrible mess (leaving water and blood all over the place) or leaving any other signs of a struggle? If Casolero was brought into the bathtub by murderers BEFORE his wrists were slit, then they would have had to slit his wrists AFTER forcing him into the tub. Which means Casolero didn't struggle, etc., while a bath was run, and then was able to be forced into a tub by people. Bathtubs in hotels, moreover, are not usually overly big, so in all probability we're talking about an ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM of three people who could have fit around the tub close enough to assist in any meaningful way in restraining him. Then, I gues, these people slit his wrists, and waited for him to die before leaving? If they didn't, and he had been assaulted against his will, surely he would have made some attempt to get out of the tub and get help? But even assuming they did wait for him to die before leaving, were they really able to so thoroughly control him that not ONLY did he not put up a struggle that would have resulted in obvious signs of a struggle (splashed water and blood), but he put up so little of a struggle that it didn't require much of a cleanup afterwards (a cleanup would have been obvious, either by the presence of bloody/sopping wet towels or a bunch of towels missing from the room)?

And if they slit his wrists OUTSIDE the tub, ought there not have been either 1) massive blood stains somewhere in the room or 2) missing bed linens to account for the "missing" blood?

I don't think people appreciate how difficult it would be to stage a suicide by slitting an unwilling person's wrists. Especially if that unwilling person would have been sent flying into a heaving panic if someone tried to draw his blood without his consent.

[Drakken]

What if he was drugged or knocked out first, then his wrist slitted? We cannot know, sadly, as no autopsy was done.

Perhaps he was even killed first and the suicide staged? If his wrists were slit post-mortem no spurting of blood would occur because the heart would have stopped beating first. And obviously he wouldn't struggle to defend itself.

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by Drakken

What if he was drugged or knocked out first, then his wrist slitted? We cannot know, sadly, as no autopsy was done.

Perhaps he was even killed first and the suicide staged? If his wrists were slit post-mortem no spurting of blood would occur because the heart would have stopped beating first. And obviously he wouldn't struggle to defend itself.

No autopsy was done? That's a detail I didn't remember. It's fishy, because I thought any/all violent deaths were supposed to get autopsies. Nevertheless, I still don't really buy the murder theory with this guy. No evidence of it.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by mozartpc27

No autopsy was done? That's a detail I didn't remember. It's fishy, because I thought any/all violent deaths were supposed to get autopsies. Nevertheless, I still don't really buy the murder theory with this guy. No evidence of it.

He was delivered directly to a funeral home, and his relatives were warned two days after the body was found, and because he brother called the police.

EDIT: I rewatched the segment, and I admit I was wrong. Indeed, a complete autopsy was done when his case was reopen. However, they had found bruises on the arm and the head that weren't accounted for. Tips of three of his fingernails were also missing.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by mozartpc27

Nevertheless, I still don't really buy the murder theory with this guy. No evidence of it.

Have you ever seen someone with wrists slashed and a hand tendon cut try to wipe his own blood with towels from the bathroom floor? Because that's what the housekeeper had found in Casalero's room before the professional cleaning squad came to clean up the crime scene.

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by Drakken

Have you ever seen someone with wrists slashed and a hand tendon cut try to wipe his own blood with towels from the bathroom floor? Because that's what the housekeeper had found in Casalero's room before the professional cleaning squad came to clean up the crime scene.

An unnamed cleaning woman who didn't appear on camera, right? It's been awhile since I saw the segment, but that's what I recall.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by mozartpc27

An unnamed cleaning woman who didn't appear on camera, right? It's been awhile since I saw the segment, but that's what I recall.

Yep.

Unnamed or not, she remains a witness bringing in a piece of information. Plenty of unnamed John and Jane Doe have given credible information in other segments, why this one would be suddenly unreliable?

[mozartpc27]

So I'm looking over the Wikipedia article on Casolero. It turns out there was an autopsy, but the body itself was embalmed before toxicology tests could be performed. So, it's sort of a split difference there.

The housekeeper who originally found Casolero and testified about the attempts to clean up is on the record, so I concede the point, Drakken.

But isn't it just as likely that he cut himself before getting into the bath, then tried to mop up blood spurt before getting into the tub? Again, I just think this is an extraordinarily unlikely method of murder. Even lifting a full grown man into a tub ain't easy.

Additionally, a second autopsy was performed after the initial investigation fell under such scrutiny. With it, a toxicology test was performed, the results of which were the following:

"Toxicology analysis uncovered traces of several drugs in Casolaro's body (antidepressants, acetaminophen, and alcohol), but Frost insisted "[t]here was nothing present in any way that could have incapacitated him so he would have been incapable of struggling against an assailant, let alone been sufficient to kill him" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Casolaro, taken from an article originally appearing in the Village Voice).

Also, there was a suicide note found at the scene. Handwriting experts analyzed it against known samples of Casolero's handwriting, and deemed it to be his.

The truth is, the "inconsistencies" with respect to the suicide theory can easily be explained; if one assumes it to be murder, the elements of the story inconsistent with that conclusion are not so easily dismissed.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

I still think Casolaro was murdered. I know there's quite a few of you who believe that he committed suicide, but it doesn't seem to fit with his fears of blood. The bruises are also baffling... as are the towels which indicated an effort to clean up the scene. For the life of me, I cannot think of a reason why a suicidal person who is in the midst of ending his life would stop and clean up the blood.

But that's just me.