Unplanned Complex Suicide—A Consideration of Multiple Methods

Abstract

Detailed death investigations are mandatory to find out the exact cause and manner in non-natural deaths. In this reference, use of multiple methods in suicide poses a challenge for the investigators especially when the choice of methods to cause death is unplanned. There is an increased likelihood that doubts of homicide are raised in cases of unplanned complex suicides. A case of complex suicide is reported where the victim resorted to multiple methods to end his life, and what appeared to be an unplanned variant based on the death scene investigations. A meticulous crime scene examination, interviews of the victim's relatives and other witnesses, and a thorough autopsy are warranted to conclude on the cause and manner of death in all such cases.

Distinguishing between homicide and suicide knots and ligatures: A comparative analysis of case and survey data

“…Polson and other authors have described several neck ligature tying methods used in homicides and suicides [1–4,13–20,74–93]. With homicides, multiple neck wraps may be secured with a Half Hitch or no knots at all may be employed [16,18].…”

“…Homicides may be staged as suicides to divert guilt, while suicides can be disguised as homicides to implicate someone else [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][75][76][77][78][79]. Suicide may be performed in a variety of unique ways for reasons known only to the decedents [78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93].…”

Complex Suicide: A Case Series

“…Usually, the attempted or completed suicidal act involved a single method; however, there were situations where multiple methods were used simultaneously by the decedents to commit suicide. The term “complex suicide” refers to a suicidal incident where the individual uses more than one method (Ateriya et al, 2018; Blanco-Pampin et al, 1997; Cingolani & Tsakri, 2000; Eroglu et al, 2017; Padosch et al, 2003; Taff et al, 1998; Turk et al, 2004; Viel et al, 2009).…”

Planned complex suicide involving combined drug intoxication and femoral catheterization

“…When two or more lethal means are applied simultaneously, in order to prevent one of the methods from failing, suicide is considered to be planned. When several lethal means are applied successively, notably when the initial method failed or was too slow or too painful, the complex suicide is termed unplanned [5,6]. Lastly, complicated suicide, an exceptional situation defined as accidental death following the failure of the first operational method applied, must be differentiated from the two previous situations [7,8].…”