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

[mozartpc27]

I was originally going to post this under the Charles Ladner thread, but as I wrote I realized I drifted further and further away from a specific case and closer and closer to a more general discussion of the likelihood of a murder being successfully disguised as a suicide, so I decided to create a new thread for this discussion.

As I 've said, I want to discuss the likelihood of a murder being disguised as a suicide, something that UM would suggest happens with an alarming regularity. Anytime UM covers a case in which a death ruled a suicide is thought to be something else, I am immediately suspiscious (of Unsolved Mysteries).

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. A case in point being discussed right now is the Amy Billig case: if you believe the UM segment, Amy was a sweet, innocent girl just barely discovering the adult world who shockingly and without any ready explanation disappeared. However, when the whole truth is known (or even a more significant part of it --- compare UM's handling of Billig's case to American Justice's), it turns out Billig was already pretty well involved in the drug scene, and had connections and a willingness to party with strangers that would have gone a long way to explaining her disappearance. Billig is more attractive as a victim, and the case is more mysterious, if UM witholds this information, however, and so they do --- no doubt under the guise of "protecting the memory of the victim for the sake of the family."

I think that most of the "Was it suicide or was it murder?" cases involve a lot of neat editing and fact-selection by the Unsolved Mysteries crew to make the case for murder look more credible than it actually is. Suicide cases to me are almost all governed by a simple, fatal flaw: the assumption that faking a suicide is a simple and easy thing to do. Years of Agatha Christie and Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote have given people the impression that it is easy enough to fool the authorities (even if rank amateurs like Hercule Poirot, Perry Mason, and, heavens to Betsy, Jessica Fletcher are not fooled) into seeing a suicide where, in actuality, a murder has taken place. However, I think the simple fact of the matter is that it is extraoridnarily difficult to fake a suicide.

I would begin with just this observation: if it were so easy to fake suicide, why don't most murderers, especially ones who kill using guns, make some attempt to mock up a suicide scenario before leaving the crime scene? If one believes UM, the police are readily and easily fooled by such mock ups (or are so corrupt and/or lazy themselves that they are more than happy to look the other way when an easy explanation presents itself rather than do any real investigating), and so, if you have any time at all before leaving a murder scene, it would be statisitically stupid not to make the murder look like a suicide, because, according to the popular wisdom, you will more than likely be rewarded for your efforts! And yet, from what I can tell, there rarely are real cases in which a murder scene has been carefully altered to look like a suicide. If it is so likely to be successful, why aren't we reading about hundred of suicides every year in our newspapers, rather than hundreds of homicides?

The answer, of course, is that it is extremely difficult to dress a murder up as a suicide, and one is not very likely to fool anybody. When people are present at a crime scene, they usually leave physical evidence; when people use a gun to shoot themselves, it usually leaves tell-tale markings. When these things are absent, even rudimentary criminal procedure will quickly expose the truth. Anyone can collect a set of somewhat puzzling but often entirely irrelevant circumstances and conjure up the idea that an official scenario "isn't quite right." But the fact that certain elements of a person's final hours are not totally explained does not usually really constitute any serious challenge to the evaluation of how they died. I would think it to be statistically very unlikely that a suicide could be covered up as a murder; in cases where suicide is ruled, I would think it even more unlikely that someone could get inside a victim's home without leaving any evidence he was there, figure out a way to shoot someone, cut their arms, etc., in such a way that it looks like the person himself did it, and escape. I toss almost all of those out immediately as the necessarily grotesque fantasies of the victim's families.

The ones that occur outside the victim's home leave a little more leeway, but most often claims of murder are not built on anything more than a couple of coincidences or unexplained but not necessarily alarming circumstances strung together with a flimsy narrative and little in the way of evidence. Take Charles Ladner as an example. His wallet was missing, one that was thought to have had as much as $100 in it. I would imagine that a wallet with $100 disappearing off a corpse is hardly an unusual occurrence --- I've heard EMTs accused of stealing a lot more than that. Also, a strange radio device was found a fair distance from the body (300 yards), some time after the suicide. Noone can tell when it was put there or what for sure it even does, or even if it was a complete and intact piece of equipment as it was discovered. Do these two things add up to "Ladner interrupted a drug deal or was out there to buy drugs, was cleverly murdered in such a way that suicide was a very distinct possibility, and his $100 taken"? No, not absent any physical evidence that someone else was not only there, but there on the night in question.

This is not to say a faked suicide is impossible. Just that it is extremely unlikely. Out of all the cases of a supposed murder-disguised-as-suicide that UM has covered, only 1 that I can recall offhand raises any serious questions for me (the one about the army guy who was a double agent for the US and supposedly electrocuted himself in a hotel room shortly before his secrets were about to be exposed). Even that, I'm only 30-70 on (70 favoring suicide).

[Thiussat]

I agree, Mozart. I think far too many people do not dissect the theories proposed by the families and investigative reporters who question the official rulings in certain cases.

I think there are three UM cases of suicide among teens or young adults occuring by gunshot that are disputed. There was the one where the young guy killed himself in his home and neighbors claimed they saw people outside of his home the night of his death etc.. His father then hired a PI who found blood in the house. Then you have the case of the young man who lived at home who killed himself in his bedroom. His mom claims to have seen his bedroom light flicker on and then off, then heard someone leave the house. Why would someone who wants to kill you come into your parent's house when they are HOME, and then shoot you? Why not go after the victim in a less conspicuous place? There is another case very similar to this one, where another guy killed himself in his parents home, but I don't recall much detail. I remember that case as being very similar to the case I just mentioned.

Another suicide controversy that I saw the other day, was the one where the long time cop was filling his patrol car with gas, and was found dead on top of a large rock a few yards away. He had one bullet through his head. What I found interesting is that the segment never said if the bullet was from his own gun, which was found laying next to his body. I assume it was since it was ruled suicide. If someone is coming to knock you off, why would they not bring their own gun? How come there was no evidence of footprints or a struggle in the area? The family said "oh he is not the type to kill himself." Yeah, they and thousands of other families say the same thing every year, yet it doesn't change the fact that they DID commit suicide. Suicidal people, by definition, are not rational, ergo they can kill themselves on a whim and at times like, for example, when they are filling their car with gas.

My point is, in all of these cases it is easy to pick holes in the theories of the parents or families. Most of the theories do not make sense. It is just a product of grieving families looking for any excuse not to accept that their loved one committed suicide. I can't say I blame them, but one cannot let emotions get in the way of facts and logic.

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by Thiussat

Another suicide controversy that I saw the other day, was the one where the long time cop was filling his patrol car with gas, and was found dead on top of a large rock a few yards away. He had one bullet through his head. What I found interesting is that the segment never said if the bullet was from his own gun, which was found laying next to his body. I assume it was since it was ruled suicide. If someone is coming to knock you off, why would they not bring their own gun? How come there was no evidence of footprints or a struggle in the area? The family said "oh he is not the type to kill himself." Yeah, they and thousands of other families say the same thing every year, yet it doesn't change the fact that they DID commit suicide. Suicidal people, by definition, are not rational, ergo they can kill themselves on a whim and at times like, for example, when they are filling their car with gas.

Your analysis of this case is dead-on. I just watched it myself a couple of days ago, thanks to crystaldawn's DVDs. In breaking this one down, you introduced the one thing I failed to address in my original post: UM likes to present families' professtations about how "so-and-so had no reason to committ suicide" or "I know in my heart that so-and-so did not committ suicide" or "if so-and-so was going to committ suicide, why did he do x, y, or z --- it doesn't make any sense!" as evidence against a suicide theory. These things, however, are not evidence. No one can ever know what someone is or is not capable of, and moreover no one can really fully know the mental state of another. Surely, some suicides are more surprising than others (in Kurt Cobain's case, for example, suicide was almost the expected outcome of his life, despite the UM segment, while many other are not nearly so outwardly suicidal or even depressive), but the personal testimony that someone "could never kill himself" is more or less empty.

Moreover, as you suggested, suicide is the ultimate irrational act; therefore, family members who present someone doing something logically inconsistent with suicide just prior to killing himself is not evidence against suicide. In the case you refer to in the quoted passage above, I believe the family made a big deal about the fact that he borrowed a few bucks from his wife's purse so he could bring back yogurt for the family, and went so far as to ask everyone what they wanted. That sounds impressive, until you realize, as you pointed out, that he was very likely killed with his own gun (if he hadn't been, and the gun he was killed with was not found, I would hope the police would not be so stupid as to rule the death a suicide); then, his actions are quite consistent with someone who intends to kill himself, but doesn't want anyone (especially, perhaps, an insurance company), to be sure he killed himself. The guy was a mob-buster; it's easy enough to believe he was killed by some long-angry former wiseguy. People would be jumping over themselves to conclude he was killed by an ex-mobster if he set it up to look that way, and he knew it. He simply exploited people's predispositions.

[grasshopper]

Originally Posted by Thiussat

I think there are three UM cases of suicide among teens or young adults occuring by gunshot that are disputed..... Then you have the case of the young man who lived at home who killed himself in his bedroom. His mom claims to have seen his bedroom light flicker on and then off, then heard someone leave the house. Why would someone who wants to kill you come into your parent's house when they are HOME, and then shoot you? Why not go after the victim in a less conspicuous place?

Are you talking about the Tony Lombardi case? While I agree that in most cases the family just doesn't want to believe their loved one would do such a thing (and I can't blame them), I actually don't believe Lombardi was a suicide. It is easy for me to believe that he was already dead when his mother got home but that the person responsible hadn't had a chance to leave yet. Lombardi had been threatened and there are other factors that point to it having been a murder.

Why not go to a less conspicious place? Maybe he couldn't be lured to such a place or it's possible that the person thought they were smarter than the police and weren't worried about where they did it. That could be said for any case of murder, that the murdered thinks they are smart enough not to get caught regardless of how or where they commit the crime.

[purple rose]

So what about the Cindy James case (Scared to Death) on disc 2 of Bizarre Murders in the best of series?
I'm Cindy's sister, and so many people I have encountered (including family members) are torn as to what happened and whether she could be capable of killing herself or not. The evidence was inconclusive with the outcome of the 1990 inquest being "undetermined" as to how Cindy really died (murder or suicide?).
A person is capable of anything in their private world and we can't get in their brain to know for sure what they are thinking and why they might do something. My oldest brother is adamant that Cindy was murdered but other family members aren't sure and others think it could be suicide. I'd like to say that living with the not knowing has been really ****ty, and, on a personal level from experience, I don't think family members are always loath to believe a suicide has happened when it could be a murder. Some people just want the truth. If someone was murdered and it was made to look like a suicide, why would the killer make the evidence ambiguous? Why not just have the evidence of suicide--or is the killer wanting to internally gloat over the fact that they committed the perfect crime?

[The Third Man]

I would agree with your theory, mozartpc, save for this caveat: police departments are hardly infallible.

Take, for example, the Bob Woolmer case in Jamaica, discussed in http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/etick...y?page=woolmer. It's one of the most high-profile cases in Jamaican police history: a coach leading his national team in the biggest sporting event in the country's history dies in mysterious circumstances the morning after his team is upset. And, a month later, the police still are uncertain whether Woolmer was murdered, whether he died in an accident, whether he died of natural causes, or whether it could have been (an unlikely) suicide. If Woolmer was murdered, they're not certain whether he was strangled or poisoned; if he was poisoned, they're not sure what the poison was, or how it was administered. Right now the police are leaning towards murder, but there are no suspects.

I don't know; based on the Woolmer case I can certainly see an incompetant police force (it goes without saying that the Jamaican police force is not a cutting-edge organization) in a lower-profile case writing off a difficult incident as a suicide, or more likely as "natural causes". I have a suspicion that if Bob Woolmer had been Bob Nobody cause of death would have been listed as "natural causes" and the matter would have been settled.

[Thiussat]

Take, for example, the Bob Woolmer case in Jamaica, discussed in http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/etick...y?page=woolmer. It's one of the most high-profile cases in Jamaican police history: a coach leading his national team in the biggest sporting event in the country's history dies in mysterious circumstances the morning after his team is upset. And, a month later, the police still are uncertain whether Woolmer was murdered, whether he died in an accident, whether he died of natural causes, or whether it could have been (an unlikely) suicide. If Woolmer was murdered, they're not certain whether he was strangled or poisoned; if he was poisoned, they're not sure what the poison was, or how it was administered. Right now the police are leaning towards murder, but there are no suspects.

This sounds like a an incompetent medical examiner. Was this guy autopsied by a witch doctor or something? How is it not possible to tell the difference between strangulation and poison? I suspect that the Jamaican authorities don't have very advanced toxicology testing systems and probably don't even have real doctors who practice pathology.

I don't know; based on the Woolmer case I can certainly see an incompetant police force (it goes without saying that the Jamaican police force is not a cutting-edge organization) in a lower-profile case writing off a difficult incident as a suicide, or more likely as "natural causes".

I agree. However, most of the suicide incidents I have seen on UM, the police seemed pretty competent and thorough. There are always cases where there is no certainty even with great police work. The best one can do in those situations is simply consider the most likely scenario the right one, whether it really is or not.

The only suicide controversy that I saw on UM that I think may POSSIBLY be murder is the one where the young man was killed in his house and his father later called in a PI who found blood in the house. There was also a neighbor who witnessed people outside of the house the night he died. The PI did a thorough job, though I am not sure if all of his conclusions were accurate. I lean toward suicide, but am probably 60/40 on it.

[The Third Man]

Originally Posted by Thiussat

This sounds like a an incompetent medical examiner. Was this guy autopsied by a witch doctor or something? How is it not possible to tell the difference between strangulation and poison? I suspect that the Jamaican authorities don't have very advanced toxicology testing systems and probably don't even have real doctors who practice pathology.

This case has just been awfully bungled from the get go, yes. But I don't doubt that in days past (which might cover the time period UM covers--remember some of the cases are 20-25 years old now), there were parts of the US that had pathology departments which were just as primitive.

I agree that nobody's quite sure exactly how Jamaica's police can mistake strangulation and poison. On the other hand, the strongest theory out there seems to be that Woolmer was poisoned then strangled, so I can see how some confusion might arise there.

[microeconomia]

Originally Posted by Thiussat

The only suicide controversy that I saw on UM that I think may POSSIBLY be murder is the one where the young man was killed in his house and his father later called in a PI who found blood in the house. There was also a neighbor who witnessed people outside of the house the night he died. The PI did a thorough job, though I am not sure if all of his conclusions were accurate. I lean toward suicide, but am probably 60/40 on it.

Are you refering to the Tommy Burket´s case, the case where his family claimed that he was a DEA informant?

[grasshopper]

Originally Posted by purple rose

So what about the Cindy James case (Scared to Death) on disc 2 of Bizarre Murders in the best of series?
I'm Cindy's sister, and so many people I have encountered (including family members) are torn as to what happened and whether she could be capable of killing herself or not. The evidence was inconclusive with the outcome of the 1990 inquest being "undetermined" as to how Cindy really died (murder or suicide?).
A person is capable of anything in their private world and we can't get in their brain to know for sure what they are thinking and why they might do something. My oldest brother is adamant that Cindy was murdered but other family members aren't sure and others think it could be suicide. I'd like to say that living with the not knowing has been really ****ty, and, on a personal level from experience, I don't think family members are always loath to believe a suicide has happened when it could be a murder. Some people just want the truth. If someone was murdered and it was made to look like a suicide, why would the killer make the evidence ambiguous? Why not just have the evidence of suicide--or is the killer wanting to internally gloat over the fact that they committed the perfect crime?

I'm very sorry that you lost your sister. I haven't seen that episode of UM but from what I have read about her case on this site I don't see how she could have done those things herself. I realize that in my post I said that I agreed that in most cases the family just doesn't want to believe their loved one would do such a thing (and I can't blame them), but that is partly because I would not want to believe it if it were my family member. There are cases where it looks like suicide when it isn't. It does happen that people try to make it look like suicide and fail like that guy did when he killed the actress Adrienne Shelly. I hope you find out the truth about what happened to your sister.

[Thiussat]

Are you refering to the Tommy Burket´s case, the case where his family claimed that he was a DEA informant?

I don't recall anything about the DEA, but it could have been mentioned and I just have forgotten. I wish I could remember the guy's name, I have always been bad with that on this board so I apologize.

I remember that the young man worked for his father's business and had become some sort of manager. His father is the one who found him dead. His father hired the PI who used luminol to find quite a bit of blood in the house and on the TV set. There was a neighbor, who was an old lady, that admitted to being nosey and claimed she always watched the neighbors. She is certain she saw several men outside of the house on the night the man died. The police claim that she is mistaken and that she remembers a day prior to his death. The PI found a spent shell casing under the sofa cushion that the police did not find. The PI also showed that the trajectory of the bullet did not match the position the man was laying in. However, I always look at such trajectory analysis with skepticism because there are other cases where this sort of thing was shown, yet the cases were still almost certainly suicide. I would imagine it is hard to do trajectory analysis retroactively.

Due to the fact that the police missed a shell casing laying right under the body and the fact they are so quick to dismiss the witness, I look at their ruling with skepticism. However, I am not sure if I want to definitely say it was murder.

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by purple rose

So what about the Cindy James case (Scared to Death) on disc 2 of Bizarre Murders in the best of series?
I'm Cindy's sister, and so many people I have encountered (including family members) are torn as to what happened and whether she could be capable of killing herself or not. The evidence was inconclusive with the outcome of the 1990 inquest being "undetermined" as to how Cindy really died (murder or suicide?).

I remember this case well, and I am sorry you lost your sister in such a tragic way. You have my sincerest condolences. I'll try to answer your other points one by one.

Originally Posted by purple rose

A person is capable of anything in their private world and we can't get in their brain to know for sure what they are thinking and why they might do something. My oldest brother is adamant that Cindy was murdered but other family members aren't sure and others think it could be suicide. I'd like to say that living with the not knowing has been really ****ty, and, on a personal level from experience, I don't think family members are always loath to believe a suicide has happened when it could be a murder.

I can't imagine living with a close relative having died under such mysterious circumstances, with no final determination of what really happened. Again, you have my deepest sympathies. If I understand what you are saying in the second part of this segment of your post correctly, I understand too why family members are apt to believe a loved one was murdered, especially if there is evidence to support the notion. In the case of your sister, for example, there does appear to be enough evidence to cast "reasonable doubt" on any verdict of suicide, to use the American judicial standard, so I would totally understand a family member of hers believing she was murdered. Hers is not a typical case; she found not only injured and tied up, but also miles from her own home. The "was it murder or was it suicide?" cases I always find the least convincing are when someone is found dead, usually of a gunshot wound, inside his/her own home. Those are hard to swallow as anything other than suicides. Cindy's case is a difficult one to parse, because there is so much in the way of conflicting evidence.

Originally Posted by purple rose

Some people just want the truth. If someone was murdered and it was made to look like a suicide, why would the killer make the evidence ambiguous? Why not just have the evidence of suicide--or is the killer wanting to internally gloat over the fact that they committed the perfect crime?

Well, I think the way I would answer this is by saying that if a person murders someone else and attempts to make it appear to be a suicide, that person is not trying to make the evidence ambiguous. I'm sure that if a murderer who is attempting to make his crime look like a suicide had his way, his "staging" of the suicide would be perfect and leave no doubt that the victim killed himself. The problem, of course, is that achieving this desired end is extremely difficult. I would expect that in any case where someone has been murdered but some effort was made to stage a suicide, there would be "ambiguous" evidence, because there would always be the superficial indications of a suicide planted by the murderer, and the deeper, "uncorrectable" details that would betray the true nature of what went on. In other words, "ambiguous" evidence in a murder-made-to-look-like-a-suicide is more than likely the rule, because of he very nature of what went on.

Iraq War Party suggested, and I think he's right, that the reverse is also (and I'm guessing much more often) true in a good number of suicides: some attempt is made by the person killing him or her self to make it appear that he/she was murdered. The "suicide clauses" in life insurance policies often provide ample motive to someone who wants to committ suicide to make some effort to disguise the nature of his death, but I would also suspect there are a fair number of people who on the one hand want to kill themselves but on the other hand for a variety of reasons --- shame, fear of bringing too much pain to their families, religious reasons, etc. --- wish to disguise their suicide as something else. I would think that the "ambiguous evidence" cases here are far more abundant than the other way around --- as I said in my original post, I think it is exceptionally difficult to disguise a murder as anything other than a murder, despite what people tend to believe because of movies and TV.

All this said, I'm not sure what to say about your sister, purple rose. As I said earlier, I think there really is evidence here supporting both suicide and murder theories, and not enough of one to definitively rule out the other. If I had to guess, I would lean towards murder, because of the difficulty level of committing the kind of suicide that the police are suggesting happened here. She evidently walked miles from her car with a full supply of drugs and some rope, found a sufficiently horrible place to be found, drugged herself, injured herself, then tied herself up. That sound slike an awful lot for one person to accomplish to me, but I would really want to see a more thorough psychological breakdown of Cindy than I currently have access to and police records of the phone calls and other harassment directed toward her before I rendered any definitive opinion.

Interestingly, there is an old movie called Midnight Lace starring Doris Day and Rex Harrison in which Doris Day plays a woman who is apparently being stalked by someone. The problem is, she is the only one who ever hears or sees this mysterious threat. Her husband tries to be supportive, but the police grow more and more suspiscious that she is either cracking up or is doing this for attention (he is some kind of businessman who has to be away for long stretches of time). The fact that no one, including, ultimately, her husband, seems to believe her is what principally drives her mad. This seems very similar to me to what happened to your sister.

[SPOILER for the film follows, if you care]

In the film, it turns out it is the husband who did it. I think he is arrested and she is rescued at the last minute, if I remember correctly.

[Corky Kneivel]

I agree with the central theme of this post. There have been several Unsolved Mysteries segments in which a family is adamant that there must have been sinister goings on with a loved one, but from an outsider's perspective, someone looking at the evidence with no emotional tie to the deceased, it is very clearly just a suicide.


You make a fantastic point that if this was such a common practice, the making of a murder to look like a suicide in such an accomplished way as to fool all of the professional investigative bodies involved, then national suicide rates would be much greater than they are now after factoring in all of the murders that were made to look like suicides. Forgive me; I misspoke in that last sentence. When I said "...fool all of the professional investigative bodies involved..." I should have said, "...fool all of the professional investigative bodies involved save for the one Private Investigator the family invariably hires who will, as long as the family continues to pay him well, continue to find "evidence" of murder."


Of course I feel empathy for these poor families who have lost their loved on in such a puzzling fashion. I can also totally understand that the human need for "an answer" to why their loved one is dead is an undeniably strong emotion. The strength of those emotions, I think, often leads these families, and their unbearable sense of loss for their beloved family member, to pick and choose random innocuous statements and events, occurring anywhere up to a couple of years before the death of said family member, and try and tie together those statements and events into some sort of bizarre murder conspiracy. Not only is it a murder conspiracy, but somehow this conspiracy always leads to these people choosing to make the murder look like a suicide. When you hear these families talk they very often say things like, "I think he/she saw something they shouldn't have" or "He/she heard something they weren't supposed to" and that they were "going to turn them in". I think it helps these families with their coping to invent these scenarios in which their loved one was some sort of whistle blower who was silenced just before they could do some very bad people some sort of damage. Again, I have all the empathy in the world for anyone who has lost a family member in such a way as to leave you with so many unanswered questions so I don't want to seem like I'm belittling these people as simpletons or that I think they're being intentionally deceptive. It just strikes me as highly unlikely that there are so many mysterious, nefarious, murderous cabals out there.


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.


Some of the cases I can remember thinking were obvious suicides are:
Justin Burgwinkel
Danny Casolaro
Charles Ladner
The kid found in his living room sitting straight up in the chair
The kid from Florida who disappeared about 20 years ago right after(?) he graduated and his car was found in a junk yard in Georgia a couple months later


Sorry, there are more...but I can't think of them right now.

[DarkDante]

^ Danny Casolaro has to have been a hit of some sort. He had too many people who wanted him dead and there is no logical reason for him to kill himself. Norman Ladner could've been a suicide but I'm not 100% convinced on that matter. The problem I have in general with the gist of this post is it disregards the knowledge of the loved ones as far as the state of mind of the individual who killed themselves.

As a psychologist I'll grant you that nobody can actually know whats going on inside someone's mind 24 hours a day, but usually when someone commits suicide there are some definite signs. People usually don't display all of the signs but usually upon reflection the loved ones can identify at least one or two they displayed. Casolaro is an obvious murder in my mind due to the fact that the man had no reason (that we know of to be suicidal) and without our implicit knowledge of his state of mind at the time it is an assasination of his character to make a blanket ruling of suicide against him (or anyone else for that matter).

Some of you do bring up some compelling points that indeed "the making of a murder to look like a suicide in such an accomplished way as to fool all of the professional investigative bodies involved" would be a very hard task indeed. However in a lot of these cases (Tommy Burkett, Dan Casolaro) something was bungled. In Casolaro's case the first thing that springs to mind is his fear of blood.

As someone who shares Casolaro's fear of blood (We both are hestiant to go to doctors for vaccinations or blood work) I will tell you I'd rather drink strychnine or hang myself from a beam before I'd ever slit my own wrists in an attempt to kill myself. For someone who has a phobia regarding seeing their own blood or being deliberately made to bleed, slitting one's wrists is simply a near impossible action to take. In my own experience you would suffer a panic attack of some sort long before you ever had the razor blade cut deep enough into your skin.

Its also important to remember that Casolaro's brother was a doctor and he wouldn't even allow him to ***** his finger for a simple blood test. Casolaro's brother knew this and was astounded at the way his brother died. That along with the evidence brought to light about what Casolaro was up to at the time of his murder and his missing briefcase of documents leads me to believe that Casolaro was murdered.

[mozartpc27]

Originally Posted by DarkDante

^ Danny Casolaro has to have been a hit of some sort. He had too many people who wanted him dead and there is no logical reason for him to kill himself. Norman Ladner could've been a suicide but I'm not 100% convinced on that matter. The problem I have in general with the gist of this post is it disregards the knowledge of the loved ones as far as the state of mind of the individual who killed themselves. As a psychologist I'll grant you that nobody can actually know whats going on inside someone's mind 24 hours a day, but usually when someone commits suicide there are some definite signs. People usually don't display all of the signs but usually upon reflection the loved ones can identify at least one or two they displayed.

But I think part of the point here, Dante, is that family members, for obvious reasons, would intensely prefer not to believe that their son/daughter/brother/sister/mother/father etc. was capable of committing suicide. As such, they are likely to focus on the things in the person's personality that would argue against suicide, and downplay in their minds the things that would indicate the person was a possible suicide. The point that Iraq War Party made about judging the state of mind of a family member seems to me to be particularly apropos:

Originally Posted by IraqWarParty

Many people before suicide start acting happy as they know they no longer will deal with the life they despise. This is why the family always say "but he or she were so happy and would be uncharacteristic to commit suicide."

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."

Originally Posted by DarkDante

Casolaro is an obvious murder in my mind due to the fact that the man had no reason (that we know of to be suicidal) and without our implicit knowledge of his state of mind at the time it is an assasination of his character to make a blanket ruling of suicide against him (or anyone else for that matter).

I believe that Casolaro had recently been diagnosed with MS. That's a pretty devastating diagnosis, especially for a young man who seemed to think pretty highly of himself in certain ways and who clearly took pride in his personal appearance, etc. (he seems to have thought himself something of a looker, judging from the photographs the segment showed of him). Granted, most people diagnosed with MS don't go and kill themselves, but it's possible that Danny might, especially if he had some idea that the story he was working on was not much of a story at all, after all. This brings me to my second point, which is that, from what I understand, Danny Casolaro was a problematic figure. This site does a pretty nice job of explaining Casolaro's strengths and weaknesses as a "journalist" - he was so obsessed with a vast conspiracy that, in his mind, kept getting larger and larger, covering more and more of the world's events, that it became an almost impossible thing to actually argue was happening. Could one shadowy organization really be responsible for events as far flung as the Inslaw bankruptcy/break up and the Kenedy assasination? Casolaro had trusted one source, in particular, for several years, only to find that person more of a threat to him and more of a loose canon than any supposed "organization." Casolaro had a pretty well-documented obsessive streak, and if even he started to suspect that the vast "conspiracy" he had invested ALL of his money and time into for three years or more would never amount to anything substantial, that, combined with recent news about his inevitably deteriorating health, could have easily driven the man to suicide, I would think.

Originally Posted by DarkDante

Some of you do bring up some compelling points that indeed "the making of a murder to look like a suicide in such an accomplished way as to fool all of the professional investigative bodies involved" would be a very hard task indeed. However in a lot of these cases (Tommy Burkett, Dan Casolaro) something was bungled. In Casolaro's case the first thing that springs to mind is his fear of blood.

As someone who shares Casolaro's fear of blood (We both are hestiant to go to doctors for vaccinations or blood work) I will tell you I'd rather drink strychnine or hang myself from a beam before I'd ever slit my own wrists in an attempt to kill myself. For someone who has a phobia regarding seeing their own blood or being deliberately made to bleed, slitting one's wrists is simply a near impossible action to take. In my own experience you would suffer a panic attack of some sort long before you ever had the razor blade cut deep enough into your skin.

Its also important to remember that Casolaro's brother was a doctor and he wouldn't even allow him to ***** his finger for a simple blood test. Casolaro's brother knew this and was astounded at the way his brother died. That along with the evidence brought to light about what Casolaro was up to at the time of his murder and his missing briefcase of documents leads me to believe that Casolaro was murdered.

I'll admit this is compelling, but two things: 1) if Dany Casolaro had reached a point where he was depressed enough about his failed investigation and failing health, perhaps, as a final act of self-loathing, he would have deliberately chosen this most hated method of suicide as a way of punishing himself. Or, in an effort to lead people to think he had been murdered, perhaps he deliberately chose this most unlikely method, after destroying all the papers relevant to his investigation. 2) What no one can answer to my satisfaction is how even two men would have managed to get Casolaro into the tub with slit wrists. People act like it's not so hard to imagine wrestling a panicking and resisting 40-something man into a tub to slit his wrists and leave him for dead. This is no easy thing --- I think it would be damn near impossible to stage a suicide of this kind. The signs of a struggle and his resistance would be everywhere, and not nearly as subtle as the ones cited by the family.