# Suicide or Homicide?



## Nomad (Sep 2, 2011)

Interesting Conclusion



> After a seven-week investigation, authorities concluded that Zahau, 32, bound her own hands and feet and hung herself naked off a second-floor balcony of Shacknais Coronado mansion, said Sheriff Bill Gore.



Evidence of foul play aside... how is this even physically possible?  To bind yourself hand and foot and then hang yourself?  And why naked?  It seems like there are much easier ways to go, unless she was trying to make it look like a homicide to get back at someone?

Regardless, there's definitely *something* fishy going on here.


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## jks9199 (Sep 2, 2011)

Without seeing the knots and the scene, and before I read the article...

1. Prepare binding for hands, set up so that once in place, you can tighten it by either using a prepared hook to finish or your teeth.  
2. Prepare noose, loop around head. 
3. Bind feet.
4. Bind hands.
5. Hop/waddle/roll to balcony.
6. Final leap over balcony.

How's it possible for a person to hang themselves inside a locked closet, within a locked room?  (Hint, no ice involved.  2nd hint, NSFW: autoerotic asphyxia)

The rest of it here, now that I've glanced at the article?  A forensic psychologist could probably have a field day.  Things like guilt over the death of the boy's injuries, internal stress within the family...


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## Bill Mattocks (Sep 2, 2011)

Nomad said:


> Interesting Conclusion
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In the town I lived in, the lady who lived across the street from us committed suicide.  Her husband had left her a year before she turned 50.  She bought a large freezer and had it installed in her garage.  She bought a sleeping bag.  She somehow managed to bind her hands and feet with duct tape, and to put duct tape over her mouth.  She got into the sleeping bag, wiggled into the freezer, and dropped the door on herself.  The cops did think it was a homicide for awhile.  But her ex-husband was out of state, and she had purchased all the supplies herself.  It was a very sad thing indeed, but it was suicide.  Why she did it like that, I cannot say.


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## Nomad (Sep 2, 2011)

I think in cases like these, presuming that the right people did their jobs well and that they were indeed suicides (not just homicides without evidence of such), then it's pretty obvious that the perpetrators (for now, we'll leave out the autoerotic asphyxiation, since that's more death by stupidity than intention) had something more in mind than just dying.

Like dying and ruining someone else's life (eg. husband, ex-, etc) by making it fairly likely that they'd take the blame.


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## Em MacIntosh (Sep 2, 2011)

Use piano string, tie 200lbs to your feet, crazy-glue your palms under your chin and then jump from a significant height.  When you land it'll look like you pulled your own head off.


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## Nomad (Sep 6, 2011)

More information on the forensics and such that lead to their conclusion...

Still a very very bizarre case.


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## NSRTKD (Sep 6, 2011)

Em MacIntosh said:


> Use piano string, tie 200lbs to your feet, crazy-glue your palms under your chin and then jump from a significant height. When you land it'll look like you pulled your own head off.



..... I know that's not funny, and I'm trying not to laugh...... but WOW is that creative.


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## MA-Caver (Sep 6, 2011)

The video of the woman tying herself up is interesting. This caught my eye and the statement related to it. 


> The nudity
> 
> Gore cited a Georgetown University  study showing that, while rare, people have committed suicide while  naked. Psychiatrists interpret some of these deaths as desperate,  self-abasing apologies.
> Bremner doesn&#8217;t buy it: &#8220;There would only be a handful of naked  suicides, and it would not be women. _There are just certain things that  the kinder, gentler sex just won&#8217;t do.&#8221;_
> ...


Awfully presumptuous for a criminal investigator isn't it? 
Man or woman, people are capable of just about EVERYTHING!


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