Fooling the Coroner

[Aliaiactaest]

My chosen method will look like a natural death. I've thought about printing out a few articles like "Warning Signs of a Heart Attack" and leaving them right by me so that at least the first impression will be of a natural death. Eventually, they will probably figure it out from a toxicology test. I've also left notes for my family. But who wants to be written up in the local paper as a suicide? This way, the initial impression will be a heart attack and only later will it be known what the true cause was. And that's beyond the period of interest for a local paper.

 

[AnnaJaspers]

Most local papers will not publish details re a suicide, at least in the US.

 

[eve2004]

The most they would say is « suddenly » which for a heart attack is quite true... and your family writes it so they probably wouldn't go into or even know the details.

I had to write my husband's obit within a few days of the death.

 

[Aliaiactaest]

Most local papers will not publish details re a suicide, at least in the US.

Is that the journalistic standard these days?

But even so, word will leak out and people will talk and speculate. Throw them off track for a week and by then it's all forgotten.

 

[TowerUpright]

If it involves a seed, PM me. Not a good way to go. Disclaimer: I am not Pro-Life.

 

[Lookingforabus]

My chosen method will look like a natural death. I've thought about printing out a few articles like "Warning Signs of a Heart Attack" and leaving them right by me so that at least the first impression will be of a natural death.

That makes it looks more suspicious. No one who actually dies of a heart attack has conveniently printed out internet articles about heart attacks on them when they die. Maybe think about what people who die of heart attacks *actually* do and have on them.

If tou want it to look like a heart attack, get medical treatment for a heart condition and have the appropriate meds in you and among your possessions when you die. You could set up an appointment with a cardiac specialist or department and have the appointment card on you when you die. Think about what commonly triggers heart attacks accidentally. Maybe drink an espresso and leave the empty cup nearby. And so on.

If you want to sell a lie, you're trying build a narrative, trying to tell a story. So think about how writers and storytellers and actors do it - they research, they learn background details and they know what story they want to tell before they start telling it... and then they practice and write drafts and revise their stories until they're satisfied with them. It's a lot of work.

Fortunately, coroners and medical examiners (and cops, for that matter) are overworked public employees who aren't actually that good at what they do anyway (if they were, they'd by working in the private sector for lots more money, rather than in a government job where the main benefit is that incompetent employees can't be fired). So, you don't need to be *that* good to fool them, but they're not completely braindead either, so you need to do at least a halfway decent job.

 

[eve2004]

People still print stuff to read????

 

[Lookingforabus]

People still print stuff to read????

People old enough to die of heart attacks probably do.

 

[Aliaiactaest]

That makes it looks more suspicious. No one who actually dies of a heart attack has conveniently printed out internet articles about heart attacks on them when they die. Maybe think about what people who die of heart attacks *actually* do and have on them.

True, but perhaps I was feeling uncomfortable, having trouble breathing, etc. Not saying it is a brilliant conception, but might just throw them off a bit.

 

[Lookingforabus]

True, but perhaps I was feeling uncomfortable, having trouble breathing, etc. Not saying it is a brilliant conception, but might just throw them off a bit.

Yeah, so think that through for a moment. Someone starts having a heart attack, and instead of calling 911, they go their computer, pull up an article on heart attacks, print it out, read it to some degree, and then fall over and die. That sound at all believable to you?

On another note, do you know how long it takes from the start of symptoms to incapacitation, unconciousness (or death) with heart attack? If you're going to lie about something you really do need to do your research, and know basic details about it. You just won't convince anyone you had a heart attack when you don't have a good idea what happens in one.

 

[Darkhaven]

They will probably dice you up to be sure, as they normally do in suicide cases.
I'm thinking of leaving a note explaining why and how i did it to increase the chances of them Not opening me up, but it's unlikely that they will discard the autopsie.

 

[Aliaiactaest]

Yeah, so think that through for a moment. Someone starts having a heart attack, and instead of calling 911, they go their computer, pull up an article on heart attacks, print it out, read it to some degree, and then fall over and die. That sound at all believable to you?

My understanding is that it can often start with a prolonged period of discomfort. I could be wrong, for sure. Just taking a stab in the dark.

 

[GinaIsReady]

My understanding is that it can often start with a prolonged period of discomfort. I could be wrong, for sure. Just taking a stab in the dark.

FWIW, I think it's quite a clever idea.

 

[Lookingforabus]

My understanding is that it can often start with a prolonged period of discomfort.

So think that through for a moment. What did you do the last time you had a prolonged period of discomfort? Did you jump onto your computer and print out articles on heart attacks? Is that a reasonable response to a prolonged period of discomfort that anyone's going to find believable?

This is a case of needing to hide knowledge you shouldn't have. You know you're going to die of a "heart attack". People who actually do die of heart attacks don't know that going in, so they don't have articles about it printed out near their bodies. You need to provide evidence to allow that conclusion, but if you state it directly, it's an obvious lie, and the obvious conclusion is suicide.

I could be wrong, for sure. Just taking a stab in the dark.

Yes, exactly my point. You need to do your research, find out what actually happens in a heart attack, imagine what you (or most people) would do when having one, and then tell that story with the evidence you leave behind (including a plausible background story, such as what I mentioned in a previous post.)

If you just take a shot in the dark, you're gonna miss, so you might as save yourself the trouble and the pain and go out in an obvious suicide. Alternately, put the effort in to make your cover story believable.

 

[Aliaiactaest]

Lookingforabus I appreciate your comments, but understand this is really just a side issue. My assumption is they will eventually find the truth and this is just a red herring to throw them off the path for a while. The biggest to-do will be at the beginning, with police and ambulances at the house. (I live alone.) Wouldn't it be better if the initial words out of their mouths is that it is an unexplained death, seemingly of natural causes, possibly a heart attack? They won't know the truth until a week later when the toxicology test comes back, and by then the crowd had dissipated. If the police go to a home and find a body of a certain age (58), they won't necessarily first thing suicide if that is not the obvious mode of death. Am I missing something?

Also, for my family, perhaps to know that it is a death and suspect suicide and then find out for sure a week later might be easier than knowing it from the get-go.

 

[k75]

So I understand what you're going for here, but I really think it's just a waste of everyone's time. The truth is going to come out, and you're just making a lot of extra work for everyone.

Even if it's known that it's a suicide right off the bat, unless you do it in some horrendous or spectacular way, it's not going to make the news or anything.

Maybe there will be an obituary, but your family or friends write that. They aren't going to just come out and say how you died. I don't think I've ever seen an obituary that said a person committed suicide. It's always stuff like they died unexpectedly or we lost them suddenly or things like that.

And if people are going to talk, it'll make it even more gossip-worthy when your supposed accident or natural causes death turnes out to be suicide. So by doing this plan, you're basically guaranteeing that they'll want to talk about it as long as possible. "OMG did you hear about that guy who had a heart attack last week? Turns out he really killed himself!!!"

Also, for my family, perhaps to know that it is a death and suspect suicide and then find out for sure a week later might be easier than knowing it from the get-go.

I can guarantee this won't be the case. What will really happen is they will spend that week wondering and trying to adjust to one truth, and then later find out something else entirely happened, which will kind of reopen the wounds and make them have to restart the process and accept a completely different reality. In the end, it's likely to end up being more painful for them.

 

[Lookingforabus]

If the police go to a home and find a body of a certain age (58), they won't necessarily first thing suicide if that is not the obvious mode of death. Am I missing something?

They won't think suspicious death immediately, unless you do something that makes no sense and makes them suspicious... like printing out webpages about heart attacks.

Mind you, I'm not saying this whole thing of trying to make it look like a natural death for a little while is a good idea, but if you're going to do it, do it right, do it in a way that means it might preclude them from doing an investigation at all. It doesn't need to take a lot of work if you just want the story to hold up for a week, but the way you've suggested doing it is counter productive.

 

[ThatIsTheQuestion]

There's a lot of talk on this site about making suicide look like an accident or natural causes, but that's damn near impossible. Don't believe it just because you see it on TV.

The running and usually pretty immediate assumption among doctors and cops is that if it looks even the least bit like a suicide, it's a suicide. Not only is that the assumption, it's the truth. A possible suicide is rarely really a mysterious heart attack, it's almost never murder, and it's absolutely never accidental ingestion of two vials of sodium pentobarbital sent through the mail from a Mexican veterinary clinic. It's suicide. They'll take the time to do the autopsy, yes, but they're not going to spend three weeks scratching their heads over the dead guy with a history of severe bipolar disorder and multiple previous attempts.

The need to make a suicide look like something other than a suicide always makes me wonder whether maybe there isn't still something -- or someone -- worth sticking around for, at least for the moment. But that's just my 2 cents.

 

[Lookingforabus]

There's a lot of talk on this site about making suicide look like an accident or natural causes, but that's damn near impossible. Don't believe it just because you see it on TV.

The FEN folks pulled it off for decades, so it is possible. Inert gas, someone to haul off the gear and someone in poor health is all it really takes most of the time. I'm a fan of this article, about a guy who assisted the suicides of a number of famous Canadians, that were ruled natural causes until the article was posthumously published. It's definitely possible, and not even that hard ... as long as you have someone to help you out.

Of course, staging it on your own is trickier (and riskier - less reliable methods and less significant overdoses), but it's been done. The stigma around suicide means that cops, coroners and medical examiners prefer to find another explanation, and that they basically need convincing evidence to say "suicide" instead of "accident"/"death by misadventure"/"indeterminate". Of course, someone with a bunch of suicide risk factors found at the end of the rope or with a massive overdose or with a gun in the hand and a hole in the head is pretty convincing evidence that it is what it looks like.

The need to make a suicide look like something other than a suicide always makes me wonder whether maybe there isn't still something -- or someone -- worth sticking around for, at least for the moment. But that's just my 2 cents.

Not necessarily. Sparing loved ones pain or shame or blame is a popular motivation for an "accidental" death, as are financial motivations around life insurance and bills from the government.

 

[Liveandlearnagain]

You're not likely to fool a person whose job it is, every day for decades, to determine the cause of death.

You've been formulating your plan for a little while, while the coroner, he or she has been an expert at this for likely their entire career.

You're likely to just confuse your family and friends further.

 

[Lookingforabus]

You're not likely to fool a person whose job it is, every day for decades, to determine the cause of death.

You've been formulating your plan for a little while, while the coroner, he or she has been an expert at this for likely their entire career.

I just gotta say it again, these people are total hacks, most of the time (if not all the time). That bullshit about them being experts might play well on TV, but by and large, they're just not.

In the US, they don't even have be actual doctors, and are often elected during election cycles with the other politicians who have no discernable skills or value as human beings. And the ones who do have medical degrees and licenses get paid half (or less) what doctors in a hospital make... so the only people who take those jobs are people who can't get hired at a hospital. Where I live, for example, starting pay for a fresh medical doctor generalist at the biggest health network in town is $200,000 a year (and they're always hiring, because there's a chronic shortage of doctors). Our medical examiners start out at less than $80,000. (It's even worse in other parts of the country I'm familiar with.) They aren't experts, they're the doctors who graduated at the bottom of their class and can't be trusted with patients who are alive.

Most people with a brain and internet access could do a cause of death analysis if they have the right equipment. If you've got a lethal amount of something in your blood, a toxicology screen will find it. If you have ligature marks on your neck, a hole in your head, a sliced open artery or massive blunt force trauma, cause of death is obvious.

If there's no obvious cause of death, they'll shrug, chalk it up to natural causes and move on, which is exactly how FEN (and others) have been using inert gas asphyxiation for decades and leaving a trail of "natural causes" deaths that were actually suicides - nothing obvious in the autopsy, nothing obvious at the scene, and an older individual, so must be natural causes. Incidentally, this is the same reason that elder suicides are so underreported - when someone old and sick dies, most of the time, coroners and medical examiners aren't even bothered to run a tox screen to find a fatal OD.

You're likely to just confuse your family and friends further.

This is true, but it's not because the people examining the body are good at what they do, but because it's really hard for someone to remove evidence after death, so suicides tend to be obvious.

 

[SelfHatingAspie]

But who wants to be written up in the local paper as a suicide?

Do newspapers even report on suicides? Other than high profile celebrity ones, of course.

About the only time a non-celebrity suicide is reported in the media here in Australia is if it involves someone that is very young (usually pre-teen) or if a body of a missing person is found and foul play is not suspected. In the latter case, the phrases "no suspicious circumstances" and "Police are preparing a report for the Coroner" are the key words that actually mean suicide.

 

[epic]

Making it look like a natural death sounds quite clever.What method are you planning to use ?

 

[Rocksandsand]

For what it's worth, I second
@Lookingforabus - these guys are overworked hacks. Do your research... maybe even go to an emergency department the day before and complain about chest pain. It will create a trail at guide the coroner to a different conclusion at least for a while.

 

[Lookingforabus]

Do newspapers even report on suicides? Other than high profile celebrity ones, of course.

Depends where you live. I live in a major metro area, and the local papers seem to report a significant fraction of the suicides in the city. Seems to depend on what else is going on in the news that day, whether it was public (like a guy jumping off an interstate) or noticed (a bunch of EMTs in hazmat suits pulling a guy out of his home after two weeks of decomp) or particularly "interesting"/unusual/useful for politics (opioid crisis, ZOMG!!!1).

In a lot of smaller cities and more rural areas with a newspaper, yeah, every single suicide is reported for the judgemental, gossipy twits to digest.

This all might depend on the country, but I can definitely see wanting to avoid that media attention. Going back 2 or 3 generations to the small town farming community my ancestors hail from, there were (and still are) a surprisingly high number of unlikely, gruesome, fatal, single person farming "accidents". Breaks my heart that these guys would rather grind themselves up in a thresher than die quick and clean, just to avoid the posthumous shaming and judgement of their community.