NCJ Number
203126
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 48 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2003 Pages: 1113-1116
Date Published
September 2003
Length
4 pages
Annotation
In October of 2000, the burned body of an adult female was found in a closed automobile trunk along a rural county road in eastern Arapahoe County, CO; this paper describes the investigative process that led investigators to conclude that the death was a suicide.
Abstract
When a passing motorist stopped to render assistance for what he believed was a disabled car, the engine was running and the lights were on; after noticing flames beginning to emerge from the seams of the trunk and the rear deck of the back passenger compartment, he called 911 on his cell phone. Members of the local fire district arrived within 14 minutes of the call and found the vehicle engulfed in flames. The female victim was discovered after fire personnel pried open the trunk during fire suppression. A melted 1-gallon red plastic gas can was found under the victim's left arm, and a melted cigarette lighter was found at the victim's knees. A search of the rear passenger compartment found numerous personal effects of the victim, including school drawings and projects from kindergarten through high school. An examination of the char and heat patterns in the vehicle indicated that the trunk was closed at the time the fire began. Although the circumstances of the woman's death were not indicative of a "typical" suicide, eyewitness accounts associated with related events of the evening, coupled with the findings at the crime scene and autopsy, indicated that the death was a suicide. Factors that led to this conclusion included the restricted time frame associated with the victim's movements on the evening of her death, the victim's history of setting fires with accelerants, a previous attempt at suicide with pills, and lyrics from a song of the victim's favorite artist in which a woman's body is placed in a car trunk. 2 figures and 11 references