ABSTRACT
The suicide note, as I have argued, is of particular forensic interest and importance. In those cases dealing with wrongful death and suicide, the note can shed significant light on other forensic data, just as the other forensic data can shed significant light on the note. It is regrettable, however, that forensic study of suicide notes has been limited. Besides my own, there are only two other publications, to my knowledge, in the forensic literature (Duncan & Edland, 1974; Hanzlick & Ross, 1987). This, in some cases, has resulted in evidence presented to the court by police officers, coroners, psychologists, and so on that has no basis in science. For example, the following has been concluded: All suicide notes mean a suicide. Bill left a note. Therefore, Bill killed himself. This sounds like the classical illogical syllogism about Socrates that I discussed: All men are immortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is immortal. It is the first premise in both arguments that is wrong (see Chapter 1).
