List of suicides

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See also: List of famous deaths by accidental drug overdose and Lists of people by cause of death
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The following are lists of notable people who intentionally terminated their own life. Suicides committed under duress are included. Deaths by accident or misadventure are excluded. Individuals who might or might not have died by their own hand, or whose intention to die is in dispute, but who are widely believed to have deliberately killed themselves, may be listed under Possible suicides.

Contents

Lists of people
By belief
By nationality
By occupation
By office held
By prize won

  • William Inge (1973), U.S. playwright (Picnic, Come Back, Little Sheba, Bus Stop, Splendor in the Grass), carbon monoxide
  • Judas Iscariot, hanged himself according to the Gospel of Matthew, though the apocryphical Gospel of Judas suggests he was stoned to death by the apostles, and the Book of Acts suggests he died a violent death in a field he had bought
  • Juzo Itami (1997), Japanese actor and film director, jumped off building

  • Lawrence Oates (1912), Antarctic explorer; he said "I am just going outside and may be some time" when he walked out of the tent to his death in the blizzard, leaving behind Robert Falcon Scott and the others
  • John O'Brien (1994), author of Leaving Las Vegas (on which the film was based)
  • C. Y. O'Connor (1902), Irish engineer
  • Hugh O'Connor (1995), actor
  • Luis Ocaña (1994), Spanish cyclist, Tour de France winner
  • Phil Ochs (1976), American singer, hanged himself in sister's apartment, Far Rockaway, New York
  • Per Yngve Ohlin (a.k.a. Dead), (1991), vocalist for band Mayhem, killed himself with a shotgun after having slashed his wrist and cut his throat
  • Yukiko Okada (1986), Japanese idol of the 1980s, jumped from a 7 story building after failed wrist slashing and gas inhalation attempts

The following is a list of people who were not famous while alive, but who became notable subsequent to their suicide

  • Pekka-Eric Auvinen (2007), Jokela High School Massacre, self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
  • Kimveer Gill (2006), Dawson College shooting
  • Thomas Hamilton (1996), killed 16 five year olds and their teacher in the Dunblane massacre.
  • Eric Harris (1999), one of the shooters in the Columbine High School massacre
  • Joel Henry Hinrichs III (2005), detonated suicide bomb at the University of Oklahoma
  • Dylan Klebold (1999), one of the shooters in the Columbine High School massacre
  • Clayne Jeffs, nephew of Warren Jeffs, committed suicide with a firearm after admitting that Warren Jeffs had sexually assaulted him as a child. [1]
  • Friedrich Leibacher (2001), killer of 14 in Zug massacre
  • Malachi Ritscher (2006), burned himself to death as an anti-war protest on Chicago's Kennedy expressway
  • Gene Sprague (2004), jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge; featured heavily in the 2006 documentary The Bridge.
  • Seung-Hui Cho (2007), shooter in the Virginia Tech massacre; turned his gun on himself after executing the deadliest school shooting rampage in US history, killing 32 people
  • Jeff Weise (2005), Red Lake High School shooter
  • Vincent van Gogh (1890), Dutch Post-Impressionist artist, believed to have only sold one painting while alive, has become world famous since his death by self inflicted gun shot.
  • Roland Weißelberg (2006) Lutheran vicar; set himself alight in the German town of Erfurt, where Martin Luther took his monastic vows in 1505, following the example of Oskar Brüsewitz

The following is a list of people whose cause of death is disputed, or whose intention to commit suicide is doubtful.

  • George Washington Adams (1829), Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and the son of John Quincy Adams. Adams drowned after going overboard. It is generally assumed that he committed suicide.
  • Pier Angeli (1971), Italian-born actress, died of an overdose of barbiturates. Speculation that her death was a suicide has never been officially confirmed.

  • Andreas Baader (1977), leader of the German revolutionary organization Red Army Faction (RAF). His suicide by gunshot to the head whilst in prison is questioned by some supporters of the group.
  • Gaetano Bresci (1901), Italian anarchist, assassin of King Umberto I (officially suicide, but he was found strangled)


  • Guru Dutt (1964), Indian actor and director; accidental or intentional overdose of sleeping pills.

  • Michael Hutchence (1997), Australian lead singer of rock group INXS, hanged himself in a hotel room; officially ruled as suicide, but widely believed to be a case of autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong
  • Bohumil Hrabal (1997), Czechoslovakia writer, fell from a fifth floor hospital where he was allegedly trying to feed pigeons

  • Randall Jarrell (1965), American writer, struck by a car and killed at an odd hour of the evening on a lonesome stretch of road near Chapel Hill, North Carolina; after struggling with clinical depression and shortly after a suicide attempt in which he unsuccessfully slashed his wrists

  • Frida Kahlo, (1954), Mexican painter. Supposedly died of a pulmonary embolism, but no autopsy was performed, and many are convinced that she committed suicide.
  • Weldon Kees, (1955), American poet, artist and musician. Vanished in 1955; his car was found beside the Golden Gate Bridge, from which he may have leaped to his death. He had spoken to his friends of suicide beforehand, but had also spoken of departing for Mexico; either may have happened.
  • Douglas Kenney (1980), writer, producer, actor of National Lampoon Magazine and Animal House. Jumped, fell or was pushed off cliff in Hawaii. Composed note "These are the best days I've chosen to ignore" in hotel room.
  • Ivar Kreuger (1932), Swedish financier, entrepreneur and industrialist, officially shot himself - but the evidence that he was murdered is also compelling.

  • Ettore Majorana, Italian physicist who disappeared in 1938 ; one of the possible considered explanations is that he committed suicide by drowning
  • Jan Masaryk (1948), Czech statesman, found dead in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry below his bathroom window. Though the initial 'investigation' stated that he committed suicide by jumping out of the window, it is now commonly believed that he was defenestrated by Communists.
  • Marilyn Monroe (1962), US Actress, found dead and naked in her bed at her California home from an overdose of sleeping pills.

  • Pier delle Vigne (1249), Italian diplomat. Reportedly killed himself to avoid torture, although the circumstances of his death are not certain. In The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri puts him among suicides.
  • Pontius Pilate (36), Roman governor and judge of Jesus of Nazareth; Eusebius of Caesarea quotes some accounts which relate that Pilate committed suicide, but this is considered to be merely a legend.

  • Saul, King of Israel (1 Sam. 31:4), died either by falling on his sword or at the hands of an Amalekite soldier
  • Romy Schneider (1982), Austrian actress. Schneider began drinking alcohol in excess after the sudden death, in July 1981, of her 14-year-old son, who was found impaled on a fence at the home of his stepfather's parents. When she was found dead in her apartment in Paris in May 1982, it was suggested that she had committed suicide by taking a lethal cocktail of alcohol and sleeping pills. However, no post-mortem examination was carried out, and she was declared to have died from cardiac arrest.
  • Elizabeth Shin (2000), MIT student, died from burns inflicted by a fire in her dormitory room after sending emails to faculty members saying that she was depressed and wanted to kill herself.
  • Elliott Smith (2003), American musician (reported as suicide, still officially under investigation - no suspects named). Smith died of two fatal stab wounds to the chest after an argument with his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba. She claimed that she had locked herself in the bathroom, only to find Smith with a knife in his chest upon her return. However, many suspect that Chiba murdered Smith. An official autopsy was carried out, the results of which were inconclusive.

  • Saigō Takamori (1876), Japanese samurai, injured in battle, might have committed suicide, or been killed by comrades rather than being killed or captured by the enemy.
  • Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1893), Russian composer. Generally assumed to have died of cholera; one account claims that he committed suicide by taking arsenic following an attempt to blackmail him over his homosexuality. Some believe that he wrote his Sixth Symphony as his own Requiem.

  • Kenneth Williams (1988), English actor, barbiturate overdose. Williams was taking medication for back pain and stomach trouble, which he referred to in the last sentence in his diary, concluding "oh — what's the bloody point?". The coroner recorded an open verdict.

  • Ward Abbott (The Bourne Supremacy), self-inflicted gunshot
  • John Abruzzi (Prison Break), suicide by police
  • Ajax the Great, a character from the Greek mythology, stabbed himself with a sword. His death is described by Sophocles, Pindar and Ovid. The scene is only implied in Homer, when, in the Odyssey, the ghost of Ajax refuses to speak to Odysseus in Hades.
  • Misa Amane (Death Note), unknown cause (( In the anime, she was last seen standing at the top of a very tall building, assumed that she jumped ))
  • Ansem (Kingdom Hearts II), willingly remained to be caught in machine explosion

  • Dido (The Aeneid), Aeneas' lover in Carthage stabs herself when he leaves her on his quest to found a new nation in Italy.
  • Maya Driscoll (24), daughter of CTU Director Erin Driscoll slits her wrists on Day 4.

  • Jimmy "Thunder" Early (Dreamgirls), heroin overdose
  • April Ericcson (Rent), slits her wrists after finding out she has AIDS, and has infected her boyfriend, Roger.
  • Anne Ervin (The Chrysalids), hanging
  • Jimmy Edwards (One Tree Hill) shot himself in his head

  • Rumpelstiltskin, dwarf/fairy tale character who "in his rage drove his right foot so far into the ground that it sank in up to his waist; then in a passion he seized the left foot with both hands and tore himself in two."
  • Romeo, from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, deliberately drank poison after discovering Juliet's "dead" body, although Juliet was really only in a deep sleep, not actually dead(unknown to Romeo).

  • Beatrice Taylor (Ten Little Indians), drowns herself in the river
  • Capt. Clark Terrell (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), self-inflicted phaser shot
  • Floria Tosca (Tosca), opera heroine leaps to her death from the walls of the Castel Sant Angelo in Rome to escape Scarpia's henchmen
  • Claude Tanner (Degrassi High), shot himself in the head after being rejected by caitlin.

  1. ^ Insider accounts put sect leader on the run[1].

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