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N O V
2 0 1 6
D E C
Psychological Autopsies
as
a Tool for Law Enforceme
n
t
in Death Investigations
David Estep
Contemporary law enforcement agencies today rely upon as well as
utilize the behavioral/psychological sciences during the course of criminal
investigations that they must perform. One such tool used is a “Psycho-
logical Autopsy”. A psychological autopsy (PA) is a technique used in
cases of death which reviews and analyzes the psychosocial aspects of
a victim’s life and attempts to reconstruct the victim’s psychological state
leading up to and at the time of their death. Performing this technique
requires an analysis and reconstruction of the decedent’s background,
relationships, behaviors, thoughts, coping mechanisms, and emotional
state.
then to present the resulting case to prosecutors
who will then take the case to trial and hopefully
obtain a successful prosecution.
One type of “puzzle” that can be perplex-
ing to investigators are death investigations, par-
ticularly those that are deemed to be equivocal
in nature.
Knoll
(2008) defines equivocal deaths
as “Situations in which the manner of death (i.e.
accidental, natural causes, suicide, and homicide)
is uncertain or not immediately clear”. It is neces-
sary to clarify the distinction between “cause of
death” and “mode of death”. Bernstein (2011)
defines the cause of death as what actually caused
the death of an individual (i.e. asphyxiation due
to strangulation), whereas mode of death involves
four categories… accidental, natural causes, sui-
cide, and homicide. An example of mode of
death can be that of an individual in a bath tub
which contains a hair dryer. The cause of death
is apparent (electrocution), however, the mode
of death may not be so discernible in that some-
I
t is the intent of this article to discuss the
methodology by which this technique is per-
formed. During the course of this article, various
concepts related to psychological autopsies will
be discussed and which will include… equivocal
death profiling, exposure analysis (victim expo-
sure vs. blame), and lifestyle and situational ex-
posure on the part of the victim which may have
resulted in their demise. Also, to be discussed
will be the sources of information which can
assist in performing a PA. The relationship be-
tween offender and victim as it pertains to what
brought them together will also be looked upon.
Suggestions will also be provided on how those
performing a PA should approach the technique.
Criminal investigations can be likened to a
jigsaw puzzle that is waiting to be solved… some
pieces are obvious while others are elusive and
require discovery. It is the job of criminal inves-
tigators to locate all of the pieces and then to fit
them together in order to solve the crime and
one may have thrown the dryer in the water
(homicide), the individual could have done
it themselves (suicide), the person could have
had a heart attack and inadvertently hit the
dryer causing it to become active and proceed
to fall into the water (natural causes), or sim-
ply accidentally dropped the dryer (accident).
Bogdan Tasu
(2008) states that it has been es-
timated that between 5-20% of all deaths can
be deemed as equivocal in nature.
It can be opined that the general public
has many misperceptions pertaining to the
law enforcement field, particularly regarding
criminal investigations. Contrary to what is
portrayed in today’s media, death investiga-
tions are usually not as straightforward as
portrayed and typically not solvable in an
hour’s time due to the painstaking process
that must be utilized when the mode of
death is not immediately clear and/or known
and which requires the usage of specialized
techniques and practices by investigators.
One such technique that can be utilized and
which is the focal point of this article is that
of the
“Psychological Autopsy” (PA).
Psychological Autopsy: An Overview
According to
Brent Turvey
(2008), a
psychological autopsy aka
“Equivocal Death
Analysis” (EDA)
can be defined as “A tech-
nique that entails reviewing the psychosocial
aspects of a victim’s life and is an extension of
victimology (knowledge about a victim) that
reconstructs the deceased’s psychological state
leading up to and at the time of their death”.
Behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and relation-
ships of the deceased individual are examined.
In short form, a PA is a retrospective analy
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