ABSTRACT
This chapter presents detailed psychological autopsies by Gregory Zilboorg and his team, of the 1930s epidemic of police suicide, provides an outline for the retrospective psychological investigative procedure, presents the findings, and makes suggestions for the prevention of such deaths. The concept of investigating deaths, which are uncertain as to mode of death—natural, accident, suicide, or homicide—is at least as old as the work of John Graunt of London in the 17th century. The findings of the psychological autopsies were most revealing about the psychological facts: A detailing of the lives of the ninety-three policemen, especially before their acceptance by the Police Department, may furnish significant clues of the act of suicide. The pain of the suicide becomes the pain of the survivor. Anguish, guilt, anger, sadness, shame, and anxiety are a sample of the pains. The sting of death is less sharp for the person who dies than it is for the bereaved survivor.
