Women’s Suicides
1897
A 59-year-old woman committed suicide by poisoning herself. She had been sad for a while before hand. A green substance was found near her later identified as Paris green. 189706_117
AP 25 April 08
1898
A 26-year-old white woman committed suicide by setting herself on fire. She had a fight with her husband when he came home late again. At the end of the fight, she said she was going to do away with herself; she picked up a can of oil, poured it over herself and set herself a blaze. He husband managed to put out the flames, but not until after she was severely burned, she lived until the police arrived at which time she died of shock. 189810_147
AP 25 April 08
1900-1902
As seen in other sections, the most common form of female suicide was by carbolic acid. Intake of carbolic acid, however, was not the only method females used to take their lives. Women hanged, burnt or drowned themselves or took a variety of other types of poisons.
One file I came across was the case of an 18-year-old girl who hanged herself because, as her suicide note stated, her friends were not being nice to her.
In another case a women drowned herself in a little river by her residence. This case I have a hard time believing was actually a suicide and not an accidental drowning because there was no evidence or signs according to her family and friends that she was thinking about taking her life. A number of the drowning cases have this problem because it is difficult to determine if it was accidental or suicidal and there is not any way of finding out how the coroner determined the situation.
Lastly, one observation myself and the other interns have noticed is that a number of the suicides are usually labeled "suicide while temporarily insane." For those people who were Catholic and committed suicide they were not allowed to be buried in the Catholic cemetery unless they were insane while committing the act.
1900-1905
Other common factors that aided in many women in their suicide attempts were two chemicals called creosote and laudanum. There are mainly two different types of creosote - wood and coal tar. In many cases small exposures to coal tar creosote can cause stomach pain and a burning sensation to the mouth and throat. In severe cases, however, the kidneys begin to fail, the individual experiences convulsions and eventually dies. Laudanum is a type of medicine that is still in use today but with many alterations to its chemical potency. Laudanum is related to opium, and is a painkiller and sedative. This drug was very effective at relieving pain in many who took it, but often resulted in addiction and overdosing. In the 1903 case files I began to notice among the female suicide cases that these two chemicals were commonly used.
Early in 1905 there was a case of suicide that i found unusual for this time. Most women chose less bloody methods of suicide, such as poisioning, but a 39 year old housewife cut herself with a shard of broken glass. 190502-221
AFS May 19, 2008
1917
A 32-year-old Irish woman, single, was taken to the police station when an acquaintance found her with a vial of carbolic acid and the intent to commit suicide. Apparently she had not been in good health for a year; she was melancholy and worried about getting "the fever." From her cell in the police station, where she was found slumped over and unresponsive, she was taken to Allegheny General Hospital to investigate her health and sanity. As she was being undressed on the operating table, she was found to be dead, with a belt wrapped around her neck. She was determined to take her life. As her first effort failed, she commit suicide by strangling herself in her prison cell, an act which bizarrely seemed to have gone unnoticed for some time. The case file contains a suicide note, written in very poor English and for the most part incoherent. 191712_219.
RLM 08 Jun 08
1918
In one case, a 59 year old women had gone blind a few months previous and had become depressed or "despondent." She commited suicide by cutting her throat with a razor.
AFS 2 June 2008
A 25-year-old Austrian woman died at Allegheny General Hospital from 3rd degree burns after she set her house on fire. She was found by a neighbor standing in front of her burning bed, while her mother was found lying in front of the washstand with her wrist and throat cut. The young woman denied responsibility for her mother's wounds, yet based upon the evidence and testimonies from friends saying she had been acting "queer" lately, it appears as though she is guilty. The report lists her cause of death as a suicide while temporarily insane. 191808_246.
RLM 06 Jul 08
1920-1930
I found an interesting 1925 case that listed Lysol poisoning as the cause of a woman's suicide. After a typical morning, including breakfast with her husband, she swallowed an entire bottle of the cleaning product. The fact that the brand name of Lysol was listed made me curious as to how long the product had been around. Through a quick internet search, I found that U.S. production of Lysol began in 1912 by Lehn & Fink Products. Among the earliest evidence I could find was from 1918, when Lysol was advertised as a effective product to use in combating the Spanish flu (which reached pandemic levels in that year). This 1919 advertisement shows how Lehn & Fink were promoting Lysol as the only antibacterial product on the market worth having:
With advertisements like this, Lysol surely could have become a staple in every home's arsenal of cleaning products. I was also wondering how someone could have choked down a whole bottle of Lysol, but the various advertisements have shown me that early Lysol was a concentrated product that would have been added to a much larger amount of water to produce its usable form. I suppose a few gulps would have had the desired result to the despondent housewife looking for a way out.
JN 2007
I found this case to be particularly interesting. A woman visited her husband at the Dixmont Hospital for the insane and while she was there she lured her husband to look out the window for her to see if their friends were coming as well. As they were standing together with his arm around her shoulders, she leaned over, picked up a gun from her bag, and shot herself through the head. I get the feeling she should have been in the Hospital for the Insane as well. 192501-095
AFS May 23, 2008
1930
I found this particular suicide very uncharacteristic of a female suicide. A woman in her late 30s, who was married and had two young children, committed suicide by ingesting shards of broken glass. The glass eventually lacerated her esophagus and trachea as well as perforating the lining of her stomach. Her body was found by her two small children and there was no note left behind. One can only speculate what this woman must have been going through to die by swallowing glass.
AS 13 Oct 2007
1933
This was a female suicide with a Romeo and Juliet-like ending. The husband passed away from cancer at an old age. Two days later his wife was found dead at her husband’s grave site. The woman, who was also elderly, had committed suicide by cutting her throat. As she was dying she must have laid down on her side because when the cemetery maintenance man found her he said she looked like she was sleeping. There was a suicide note in her purse that stated she “died from a broken heart” because she missed her husband and she wanted to be with him again.
AS 23 Oct 2007
The other day I came upon the file referenced above and was so moved by how tragic this woman's case was. She was a 52 year-old widow, who had slit her throat over the grave of her deceased husband in Homewood cemetery. She was found with the razor still clutched in her hand and a suicide note reading: "My death is not a mystery nor a secret but a broken heart." 193301_179.
2008 May 26 RLM
A 41 year-old woman, married by common-law, died from bronchopneumonia at Mercy Hospital. She was originally admitted for injuries to her body after jumping off a cliff over the Boulevard of the Allies, where she was found at the foot of Jumonville St. With her was a suicide note addressed to her husband, reading: "Jack, I am no good to myself." 193301_195.
2008 May 26 RLM
A 42 year-old woman died at St. John's General Hospital from lobar pneumonia, after being admitted for an overdose of Luminol tablets taken while "temporarily deranged." She was found in a comatose state at her residence. Upon curiosity, I found that Luminol is a chemical used by forensic investigators to detect trace amounts of blood left at crime scenes. . . I cannot imagine how a housewife could have gotten her hands on such a thing. 193301_193.
2008 May 26 RLM
1938
I have noticed that women typically did not commit suicide in a violent manner. Additionally, woman rarely shot people. Breaking the typical mold, in this case file (193808_85) a depressed woman decided that she did not want to live any longer and her boyfriend (193808_84) should die with her. According to the affidavit the girl went on a date with her boyfriend. Her sister realized that she did not return home from her date that evening, so she went to the boyfriend’s house to see if her sister was there. The boyfriend's mother told her that he did not return home either. When the sister got home from the boyfriend's house, the police were already there. They informed her that her sister and her boyfriend were found dead in a nearby park, and her sister was holding the gun.
AL 19 Oct 2007
1957
A 24-year-old pregnant woman shot herself in the chest. She was worried about childbirth (four months pregnant) because her mother died in childbirth. This was not her first suicide attempt- she had taken aspirins during a previous attempt, but they did not produce the desired results. This time she talked to a neighbor, who thought that shooting oneself was the best way for one to kill oneself. 195701_17
AP 29 Jan 2008
A 61-year-old woman was being treated for a nervous condition and staying at a hospital. As a result of showing some positive signs, the woman was permitted to take walks outside in the afternoons. The day after her doctor informed her that she would begin receiving electroshock therapy the woman went out for a walk and committed suicide using a utility razor. She slit her wrists, her arms at the elbows, and her throat. People currently regard electroshock therapy as a brutal practice. It is interesting to consider what people thought of the treatment while it was still being used. It was obviously a horrific prospect for this woman. 195711_035
TG 29 Jan 2008
1958
A 19-year-old girl jumped from the Fern Hollow Bridge, plunging into Frick Park and dying of internal injuries and broken bones connected to fall. She was a very nervous, high-strung person, according to her boyfriend. She was upset over an impending separation from her boyfriend, who had recently returned from the army. He was unemployed and had little money. He wanted to temporarily separate from her to get a job and then return and marry her. The couple had been arguing about this as they drove though Schenley Park and when they reached Fern Hollow Bridge, before the Forbes/Braddock intersection, she demanded he pull the car over. As he was slowing down she got out of the car and was up on the guardrails by the time he stopped the car. She had done this before and the boyfriend did not really think she would jump. As he describes it, she slipped and fell, maybe not really intending to kill herself, but only to force him to marry her. After she fell, the boyfriend ran down into the canyon to comfort her in her dying moments, while a bystander, a dog-walker, called the police. 195801_163
AP 29 Jan 2008
1959
An East Liberty woman took her own life shortly after her husband, who had been gaunt and ill for some time, passed away in their bedroom. After notifying the funeral home of her husband's death, she went to their garage, where she closed all of the doors and started their car, which poisoned her by carbon monoxide inhalation. According to neighbors, the couple was very devoted to each other and had no children, and it was concluded that she simply did not feel that life was worth living anymore after the passing of her husband. Unfortunately, the only case file whose number I could find for this incident was that of the wife, even though both died within hours of each other. 195901_257
MWB 31 Jan 2008
A Coraopolis woman committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates (sleeping pills) that were prescribed to her. Affidavits from family members state that she had been in poor health for some time, and that on several occasions she had threatened to take her own life. She appears to have been a member of a rather large family, judging by the family photo that was taken, which also had a suicide note written on the back. Interestingly enough, she also left a note advising family members that there was laundry in the dryer, and the intended activities of other family members. While I am no authority on the matter, the woman was 47 years of age at the time of her death and the notion that she was going through some sort of menopausal depression is certainly not a far-fetched one, especially considering the depressed tone of the suicide note. 195911_95
MWB 04 Feb 2008
A 38-year-old woman lived for about an hour after shooting herself in the right temple. The bullet entered there and exited through the left temple. She had a miscarriage in January and was arguing with her husband on the morning she shot herself. Her 15-year-old son told her to stop arguing with his father, to which she replied, "I'll stop it." She then went to her 10-year-old daughter's bedroom and said, "I've been saving something for a long time." She then moved across the hall to her bedroom, took a gun out of a drawer, and shot herself in the head in front of her daughter who was pleading for her not to do so. 195909_100
TG 11 Feb 2008
A 37-year-old woman fell to her death from the third floor balcony of a women's lounge/restroom in a museum building. Falling 35 feet, her body struck the railing of the second floor balcony before reaching the ground of the concrete courtyard below. The woman's fall was witnessed by a 9-year-old girl in the lounge at the time. The girl testified that the woman was crying, would not respond to the girl's questions, and appeared to let herself fall out of the window overlooking the courtyard. A man who was making sure there were no children playing around the balconies had seen the woman putting her legs out of the window and yelled at her to get back, which she did. She fell a short time later. The case seems to be an obvious suicide, but was ruled accidental by the coroner's jury. When speaking earlier about the location of the bathroom, the deceased woman had said to her husband, "Do you see where you have to go, all the way up to that window up there." Her husband then told her, "It was a long way to fall." 195909_05
TG 13 Feb 2008
1960
A 42-year-old woman died from drinking oil of winter green (Solicylate Poisoning), but no information given as to why. 196001_69
AP 15 Feb 2008
A 31-year-old woman shot herself in the stomach and survived the trip to the hospital to make it to surgery, where most of the damage was repaired. She lived for six days, and then died from mediastinal emphysema and lower nephron nephrosis. No other information was given as to why she attempted suicide. 196004_77
AP 15 Feb 2008
1961
In October of this month a 72-year-old woman committed suicide by asphyxiating herself with a plastic bag. This is the first instance that I have come across thus far where an item such as this was used for suicide. Some quick research revealed that plastic bags were first used in 1957, so I am not surprised that I have not come across this before. Since this method would seem to be preferable to (or at least easier than) hanging oneself or asphyxiating oneself by inhaling automobile exhaust, I am interested to see how many deaths of this type I come across in the future, especially in the case of women's suicides given its nonviolent nature. 196101_45
MWB 22 Feb 2008
1962
A 15-year-old white girl committed suicide by shooting herself in the head (left eye) with her father's rifle. According to the coroner's report, the girl had an argument with her boyfriend a week ago and has been quiet and despondent ever since. She arranged to be left alone with her brother on the night of her suicide and she shot herself in her bedroom. Her brother found her still alive and waved down a neighbor's passing car for help; she died two hours later in the hospital. 196207_82
AP 24 Mar 2008
1965
A 47 year old woman died of a self inflicted gun shot wound to the head. However, this was not her first attempt at suicide, her husband stated that she tried to kill herslef by taking sleeping pills the week before. One has to wonder why he didn't do anything about this if he knew it was going on. 196501-143
AFS 2 June 2008
1970
In August of this year, a 47-year-old white female committed suicide by inhaling the exhaust fumes from an automobile. There was a 50% saturation of carbon monoxide in her blood. The deceased left her husband a note urging him to support their children and marry again. In her note the woman also requested that her husband do whatever possible to donate her organs, she specifically mentions her heart and eyes, to someone who could use them. She also requests that her body be donated to the University of Pittsburgh for medical study. She very clearly stated that she wanted no funeral or church service and told her husband to cremate her body if it should be returned from the University of Pittsburgh. She said that she loved her family, but could not stand herself any longer. 197008_182
TG 19 Mar 2008
A 58-year-old white female committed suicide by jumping from the second-story window of her home onto the sidewalk below. She was found with a plastic bag tied over her head. The woman was treated for an overdose a month before when she had initially tried to take her own life. The barbituant phenobarbital was found in her blood at the time of her death. 197008_269
TG 19 Mar 2008
In September, a Hampton Twp. mother committed suicide using the family car in a closed garage. According to a note found, as well as her husband's affadavit, the woman had gotten into an argument with his mother awhile back, and the note clearly demonstrates that friction between the deceased and her mother-in-law was the reason behind her committing suicide. Oddly enough, when the husband found his wife in the car, the family cocker spaniel was in the car with her but emerged apparently alive and not too much worse off for the experience. I do not know the density of carbon monoxide gas, but I do believe that it is lighter than air and thus would be found in higher concentrations toward the top of the car where the woman would have been breathing it in. The dog on the other hand must have been on the floor of the car for most of the experience, since it obviously did not suffer too greatly. This also must have meant there was a fairly small amount of gas left in the tank of the car since if it had run for a very long period of the time, the dog would have most likely expired as well. 197009_123
MWB 20 Mar 2008
A 61-year-old white woman committed suicide by hanging herself in her cellar. In her note, she explains that she cannot handle he husband's illness and her first-born son has severed all ties with the family. She mentions that she loves her daughter and husband and tells them she is sorry. She asks that her attorney commit her husband to the Jewish home (nursing home?) and that her son be disinherited from the will. 197011_217
AP 21 Mar 2008
A 51-year-old white woman committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes from automobile exhaust. Her husband found her when he returned home from work. She left no note. Her husband stated that she had tried suicide a year ago with pills. According to him, she never got over her hysterectomy operation in February of 1970. 197011_87
AP 21 Mar 2008
1971
A 22-year-old white woman committed suicide by inhaling Carbon Monoxide fumes automobile exhaust. She worked at a nightclub and apparently told her friends not to be surprised if she turned up dead. She had attempted suicide twice before using once with an aspirin overdose and once by slashing her wrists. Photos included. 197101_49
AP 25 April 08
1972
A 14-year-old Liberty girl hung herself in a bedroom with a suede belt from a pipe running along her ceiling. Family members state that she had been ill, and when her brother came up to her room to see if she wanted dinner, he found the door locked. He knocked but received no response, so he broke the door down, only to find his sister hanging. Accompanying the case files are photocopies that appear to be from a notebook, filled with romantically-themed sayings, letters to her ex-boyfriend, names, and a lengthy and very touching poem in which she confesses her undying love for a man or boy whom she had apparently dated on and off but who appears to have left town. 197201_170
MWB 27 Mar 2008
In the first case of a female committing suicide with a gun that I have seen thus far in my internship, a 45-year-old Penn Hills woman shot herself in the chest with a Remington 20 ga. shotgun. Her family reported that she had been despondent for some time due to money problems, and at one point she had even asked her children to shoot her. Because of this, they had hidden the shells for the shotgun, but evidently she was able to find one. When police initially arrived at the scene, they found the woman's oldest son smashing the gun against the concrete steps of the house. This, they found out later was the gun used in the suicide. 197210_186
MWB 31 Mar 2008
A 23-year-old female drowned herself in one of Pittsburgh's rivers. When her body was found it was so badly decomposed that dental records had to be used to indentify her. This case is the first one I have come across that has used dental records to solve a Jane Doe case. 197211_164
LB 02 Apr 2008
1973
A 29-year-old white woman committed suicide by inhaling Carbon Monoxide fumes from automobile exhaust. Most people in her life described her as being in good health and spirits. In her suicide notes, she first asks her family to check the basement, (where they will find her body). She then says that she loves her mother and brother and that she could not live in fear anymore, (of what she does not say). Finally, she leaves a will. 197309_193
AP 17 Apr 2008
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