From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuxj!presley Newsgroups: net.suicide Title: Was It Suicide or Not? Article-I.D.: mhuxj.1093 Posted: Sat Jan 8 00:19:50 1983 Received: Sat Jan 8 07:26:51 1983 In the interest of getting something going on this group, the following interesting tidbit is from "Murder Ink": There are fashions in the means of suicide; the current vogue is jumping from high places. Myopic jumpers invariably remove their eyeglasses and put them in a pocket before jumping. The [NYC] Medical Examiner's Office considers traces of prescription glass in a suicide's face a sure tip-off that it was a murder. Similarly, stabbing suicides never stab themselves through their clothes, and most of them prefer to do their stabbing in the bathroom, facing the mirror. Characteristically, a woman will strip to the waist (sometimes leaving on her bra), then stab herself in the abdomen 25-30 times with a small knife until she passes out from loss of blood. Death from exsanguination follows. A man, on the other hand, pulls back his shirt, or removes it, then kills himself with a single thrust to the heart with a long-bladed knife. Variations from these two methods will make the medical examiner think closely about murder rather than suicide.