"As you all know, this afternoon, the bone fell out of Mel's hair and beat him to death."
— Director, The Simpsons, "Four Great Women and a Manicure"
Shaughnessy: I assume it was suicide, Doctor?
The Doctor: (deadpan) Yes, I imagine so! It's quite clear that Frederick brought the car into the house, ran himself over with it, and put it back outside before he finally expired.
The Doctor: (deadpan) Yes, I imagine so! It's quite clear that Frederick brought the car into the house, ran himself over with it, and put it back outside before he finally expired.
Odo: Five operatives were killed yesterday?
Informant: Killed? No! Three died from natural causes. The other two perished in accidents.
Informant: Killed? No! Three died from natural causes. The other two perished in accidents.
— Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Improbable Cause"
It has been said that most merchants die not of lawbreaking or lack of coin but of running afoul of a cabal — one they belong to, two or more they belong to that end up having conflicting aims or activities, or just one they happen to be in the way of. Cabal troubles, even more than angry victims of swindles, are the reason so many merchants mysteriously fall out of high windows, fall 'asleep' on streets where heavily laden wagons can roll over them, or go for swims in handy harbors while unconscious.
Mrs. Pottsdam: Was it... suicide?
Sheriff: Never heard of anyone pulling their own spinal cord out before. Off the record, I'd have to say no. No... all in all, I'd say this was natural causes.
Steve: Natural causes?!
Sheriff: You can't live without a spinal cord, son. Nothing unnatural about that.
Sheriff: Never heard of anyone pulling their own spinal cord out before. Off the record, I'd have to say no. No... all in all, I'd say this was natural causes.
Steve: Natural causes?!
Sheriff: You can't live without a spinal cord, son. Nothing unnatural about that.
I didn't even know France had a leader. Sure it wasn't suicide? Yeah, committing suicide with a sniper rifle would be hard, but not impossible if you had a five-hundred yard length of string to work the trigger.
— "A Realistic Plan For World Peace, a.k.a., Nuke the Moon
", Frank J.
", Frank J. But the worst was yet to come! While King Jon the Mostly Absent and Skip the Other High Priest laughed off matters of justice that occupied their own domains, Colin the Rogue King was found by his guards to have suffered a terminally fatal mountaineering accident in his living room. Colin II the Rogue King's Son grew suspicious, rightly believing that his father would never have attempted to throw himself upon so many climbing spikes while tied to a chair buried in a vat full of concrete suspended from the ceiling — at least not while he was sober. Colin II began a spy operation to learn the identity of the person who supplied the climbing spikes, and soon found to his surprise that it had been the king of Ghoere, His Royal Highness Darth Adolf Saddam Nikita Khomeini "It's Nothing Personal" Bates I, currently occupied in building roads across Ghoere so his soldiers could more easily reach and oppress the populace in the manner to which they were accustomed.
So it was that, two weeks later, the king of Ghoere climbed out of his royal shower to answer the ringing of the royal semaphore, only to fall on a bar of royal soap and permanently disfigure himself on the large number of caltrops and land mines scattered around the bathroom floor. About a hundred miles west of the palace, Colin II hung up the semaphore in disappointment and consoled himself with a banana split and plans for a more successful but much less expensive future terminal surprise for Ghoere's king.
— Birthright Campaign: The Official Playtest Notes
(The Archbishop of Uganda lies on a slab after Amin shot him in the mouth with a .45 pistol)
Doctor: (incredulous) In a car accident?
Amin: I said he died in a car accident! I called you here to fix the report to show that he died from internal injuries!
Doctor: No, I can't!
Amin: You can't!? You fix the reports like I told you, or there'll be a report out on you that you died of heart-attack, understand!?
— Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1981)
There were a lot of ways to commit suicide. Walking in the night-time alleyways of the Shades was suicide. Asking for a short beer in a dwarf bar was suicide. Saying "Got rocks in your head?" to a troll was suicide. You could commit suicide very easily, if you weren't careful.
"Don't worry about Jagged Bones. He's on Mourning Dove's list. He's going to 'accidentally' not survive a fight with her soon."
Here and there, you fudged a report when an overzealous cop went a little too far with a perp, or when the mayor's office didn't want an investigation into a suspicious death. The "clear suicide" ruling for 38 stab wounds was perhaps the most absurd, but pressure from the DA to wrap up the case quickly meant that you never made it to the stand.
— Medical Examiner, Vampire: The Masquerade - Clanbook: Tremere (revised)
Alex: Have you really gone this long without an aide?
Morden: As a matter of fact, I've had two. Unfortunately, they've had rather poor luck. The first disappeared in the summer and the second committed suicide.
Anne: Suicide?
Morden: Yes, it seems the stress of the position proved too much for him. He broke all his fingers, cut his throat and set himself on fire.
Alex: He set himself on fire.
Morden: Yes.
Alex: After cutting his own throat.
Morden: One has to admire his sheer dedication to avoid counselling. As a point of interest, the Crusaders had recently approached him in the hope of gaining some insight into the names and details of my supporters. The Keepers assure me that this fact is entirely unrelated to the case.
— Bound
Known as the "Woods Warrior," Kapthala was a passionate botanast who actually had several types of fungus named after her. But it was Phaic Tan's precious hardwood trees that she most fought to protect and during the 1980s this passionate environmentalist led numerous campaigns against unscrupulous logging contractors. Ironically, Triong Kapthala was killed in 1998 when the branch of a large rainforest tree fell on her. The fact that she was sleeping in her city apartment at the time was dismissed as a coincidence by authorities.
Successfully secured Mouila with assistance from government forces. Have been greeted by local populace with jubilation and cheer. Several individuals slightly too overcome with jubilation and had to be restrained. Twelve civilians killed by accidentally shooting themselves while attempting to hug and kiss Shield operatives. Requesting food and water supplies for trade, ammunition, and a crate of plastic bags.
— Shield Solutions internal communication, Differently Morphous
The suicide rate in this quarter was unnaturally high, and the insurance companies had established a definite connection between owing large sums of money to George Macready and accidental death.
and accidental death.Have you never wondered why the murder rate is so low in this town, but the accident rate is so high?
— Nicholas Angel, Hot Fuzz
"This Fasil was so upset about the lousy wrestling tonight, that he went down to the garage and in a fit of depression cut off his own head!"
— Connor MacLeod, Highlander
[Sigh] "Fourteen bullet wounds to the head...classic suicide."
— Larry Dean, Mock the Week, "Unlikely Lines from a TV Detective Show"
"Okay, Gideon's blows all to hell and you're having a chitchat with some weirdo who winds up in T-Bird's car when it 'zigs instead of zags'. Then you steal one of my case files from homicide, and you're sayin' this is just a fuckin' automobile accident?"
— Torres to Albrecht, The Crow (1994)
"Bob Ewell fell on his knife - he killed himself. There's a black man dead for no reason. Now the man responsible for it is dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch. I never heard tell it was against the law for any citizen to do his utmost to prevent a crime from being committed, which is exactly what he did. But maybe you'll tell me it's my duty to tell the town all about it, not to hush it up. Well, you know what'll happen then. All the ladies in Maycomb, includin' my wife, will be knockin' on his door bringin' angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin', takin' the one man who done you and this town a big service, and draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight - to me that's a sin. It's a sin. And I'm not about to have it on my head. I may not be much, Mr. Finch, but I'm still Sheriff of Maycomb County, and Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night, sir."
— Sheriff Tate, To Kill a Mockingbird
I honestly don’t think that Corbyn would make a good leader but only because he would quickly take his own life in a highly unconvincing manner on a long country walk, an inquiry taking 15 years to report that he had kicked himself to death.
Lochie: Maybe he suicided.
Goose: Highly unusual method. Five 32-calibre pistol bullets—two to the back of the head—then he hacked himself to bits and hurled himself into a 44 gallon drum.
Lochie: Well he was a desperate man! (Everyone laughs)
— Phoenix, "Hair of the Dog"
"The deputy prosector never made the trial. He died of a heart attack, according to the coroner. Seven other witnesses died before the trial. A car accident. A gas explosion. A suicide. A drowning. A work accident. A second car accident. And a heart attack while driving."
—The Photojournalist, Z
"Baldrick, does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you into long strips and telling the Prince that you walked over a very sharp cattle-grid in an extremely heavy hat?!"
— Blackadder, Blackadder, "Duel and Duality"
When I left, van Thiel shook my hand and winked and said I was on to a good thing in my line of work. Germany would always need people who understood the big ideas. Four days later he was found hanging from the quaint wooden rafters of his traditional wooden house by an old bit of hemp rope. A note on the desk stated that he had betrayed his country by selling his ideas and his soul, and he could no longer live with the grief. The verdict was suicide, and the bruising around his ribs and hands dismissed as incidental injuries sustained postmortem when the police came to cut him down.
