History Main / SuicideNotMurder

* In ''Comicbook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'', [[spoiler:the Joker's final joke is to frame Batman for his own death. Batman ''did'' break Joker's spine, but didn't go through with murder as he originally intended -- Joker then taunts him and laughs as he ''snaps his own neck despite being paralyzed''. Sure enough, the police believe Batman broke his code and killed the Joker.]]

* As pictured above, ''Manga/CaseClosed'' uses this more than once:

** In the backstory for the [[spoiler: Detectives Koshien]] mini-arc, [[spoiler: a rich and mentally unstable young lady from Fukuoka hung herself in her mansion. Due to a thief's meddling, her butler's silence about it ''and'' an AmateurSleuth's mistaken deductions, the case was mistakenly filed as murder and her handmaid was blamed for it. The poor maid threw herself into the sea in despair, and her best friend (another AmateurSleuth) created the whole ''Detective Koshien'' deal to find and punish the people who drove the girl to her death.]]

* In ''WebAnimation/ElementsOfJustice'', [[spoiler:this is revealed to be the cause of Overall Concept's death in the first case. It is speculated to be due to his flare up of depression, but the true cause is left uncertain for the time being.]]

* In ''Film/{{Fletch}}'', Fletch is hired by a wealthy man to break into his house and murder him. The wannabee-victim explains that he has bone cancer and will die horribly in a few weeks, but doesn't care to commit suicide as it would invalidate his life insurance. [[spoiler: Turns out it's a scam on the victim's part ... but that's only fair because Fletch's "junkie drifter" facade is also a pretense by his IntrepidReporter character.]]

* In ''Film/LeaveHerToHeaven'', the insanely jealous Ellen, despondent when she realizes her that everything she's done to hang on to her husband Richard [[spoiler: (allowing his invalid brother to drown, deliberately causing herself to miscarry)]]has instead driven him away (he's fallen in love with her sister Ruth), poisons herself and makes it appear as though Ruth (with or without Richard's encouragement) has killed her. It almost works.

* In ''Fletch'', the book by Gregory [=McDonald=], the protagonist is hired by a wealthy man to break into his house and murder him. The wannabee-victim explains that he has bone cancer and will die horribly in a few weeks, but doesn't care to commit suicide as it would invalidate his life insurance. [[spoiler: Turns out it's a scam on the victim's part he wants to murder Fletch... but that's only fair because the protagonist's "junkie drifter" façade is also a pretense by his IntrepidReporter character.]]

* ''Literature/TheThinkingMachine'': In "The Great Auto Mystery", a woman is found stabbed to death in the front of an open-air automobile. It is ultimately revealed that woman was not the one everyone thought she was, that the death was really suicide and that one of the passengers knew the truth but could not say anything as it would have raised a large number of awkward questions.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'' had a murder turn out to be suicide where the victim planted evidence to convict three girls who had bullied her. Somehow in the end, we're supposed to be sorry for the victim because she was bullied and not the three teenagers who could have gone to prison for life. Raises the question of would we still feel the same way if she had just shot the three girls?
* In an episode of ''Series/BostonLegal'', Alan Shore and Jerry Espenson defend a woman accused of hanging her girlfriend. She looks guilty, but Shore and Espenson shine a light on the ex-girlfiend and the ex-husband as possible culprits, the former because the victim had recently amended her will to have her inherit her money and the latter because he stood to collect on her life insurance policy. It turns out the victim committed suicide and the ex-husband made it look like murder because suicide would have voided the policy.
* ''Series/ChicagoJustice'': In "Lily's Law" at first it looks like the victim was murdered since her mouth was duct-taped and her hands bound but is then revealed to have done this herself. Despite this, Stone charges her abusive ex-boyfriend with murder as he argues he'd driven her to it.

* On ''Series/ColdCase'', a doctor was revealed to have paid his friend to shoot him and make his death to appear to be a random street crime (he had ruined his family with his gambling, but knew his hefty insurance policy wouldn't pay out if he killed himself).

* ''Series/DeadMansGun'': In "Death Warrant", Katherine Morrison extracts her final revenge on BountyHunter John Pike by framing him for her murder. Dying of a ConvenientTerminalIllness, she waits until he is holding the eponymous gun on her, then suddenly reaches forward, grabs Pike's hand, and squeezes the trigger. With her dead by his gun, and no witnesses to prove his innocence, Pike is forced to go on the run: hunted like the outlaws he had pursued.

** An episode featured an elderly woman made a voodoo prediction about her own death at the hands of a "scarred man" and then died in suspicious circumstances the next day. As it turns out, she had long suspected this particular scarred man of her daughter's murder, and she faked her own murder at his hands in order to get the police to investigate him again.

* Used in several soap operas, particularly on ''Series/GuidingLight''. Devastated when husband Josh leaves her to reunite with ex Reva, Annie suffers a miscarriage. However, the baby remains in her womb. At a party, Annie lured Reva to the top of a steep staircase, provoked her into an argument, then made it appear as though Reva had shoved her down the stairs. Reva was charged with manslaughter for the death of the baby until it was proven that the baby had died long before Annie fell down the stairs.

* ''Series/RemingtonSteele'' In the first season episode "In the Steele of the Night", a group of Laura’s former colleagues gather at their old boss’s house. He is killed in the elevator – and [[OrgyOfEvidence different staged evidence points to different people]]. The last set of evidence points to Laura – but Steele proves it was suicide. In this case, the goal was to give them all a bad weekend of being accused. Scheduled service for the elevator would have revealed his suicide.

** Kokichi Oma's death in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'' was a convoluted assisted suicide. After he and Kaito were poisoned by Maki, he gives Kaito the antidote and emotionally blackmails him into helping him with his ThanatosGambit so she wouldn't be labeled as his killer. He comes up with a plan to end the DeadlyGame by turning his death into a "murder" that not even Monokuma knew the answer to, and has Kaito pilot a mech with a voice changer and a [[CrazyPrepared script of lines he prepared in advance]] to pretend to be him.

** A particular well-thought-out one was where the woman pointed the gun at herself from above and in front of her chest and shot herself through her clothes. A woman who commits suicide by gun ''usually'' does it from below and under her clothes. The forensic specialist had one of those indescribable hunches, and performed a test on the woman's hands for gunpowder residue; it came back positive. This, combined with the total ''lack'' of gunpowder on her ex-boyfriend's hands (and he'd been tested far too soon to wash or otherwise destroy the evidence) led to the verdict of suicide, not murder. (Yes, it was a revenge plot.)

* Attempted by Thomas G. Doty when he blew up [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Airlines_Flight_11 an airplane]]. Facing charges of armed robbery he decided to purchase a number of generous life insurance policies along with a bundle of dynamite, which he detonated in the lavatory. Unfortunately for his family, when his plot was uncovered the insurance companies denied their attempts to collect a payout, [[EpicFail giving them only a 3$ refund]].

-->'''John:''' It's not actually possible for the victim to have done it, Sherlock!
-->'''Sherlock''' It was the only possible solution!
-->'''Watson:''' ''It's not in the rules!''
-->'''Sherlock:''' ''Then [[GameplayAndStorySegregation the rules are wrong]]!''

* Right before the end credits roll on ''[[VideoGame/MaxPayne Max Payne-3]]'', a news report states that the BigBad was found hanging in his jail cell, and though it's speculated that he most likely killed himself out of grief for the hand he played in the game's event, it was mentioned that it was also probable that [[HeKnowsTooMuch he may have been killed to keep the truth from leaking out.]]

* In the original ending of ''Film/FatalAttraction'', the StalkerWithACrush slits her own throat to try and make it look like the man she'd been dallying with had done it to get rid of her.
** Actually, that likely wasn't her intent, since she sent him an audiotape warning that she felt suicidal. It's implied that this tape would get him out of jail. But then, she may have been too crazy to think things through.
* In ''Film/{{Fletch}}'', Chevy Chase is hired by a wealthy man to break into his house and murder him. The wannabee-victim explains that he has bone cancer and will die horribly in a few weeks, but doesn't care to commit suicide as it would invalidate his life insurance. [[spoiler: Turns out it's a scam on the victim's part ... but that's only fair because Chevy's "junkie drifter" facade is also a pretense by his IntrepidReporter character.]]

Often played as a refreshing subversion in shows where NeverSuicide is the norm. Sometimes the idea isn't to frame someone in particular, but to cover up the suicide as murder anyway, e.g. as part of an InsuranceFraud or in order to avoid the [[SuicideIsShameful stigmatization of suicide.]] Occasionally a suicide will be covered up by a second party who wants to protect the deceased's reputation.

Sister trope of SuicideNotAccident where instead of murder, the suicide is made to look like an accident. Also see SuicideByAssassin for instances where you hire someone to kill yourself. Exists at the intersection of WoundedGazelleGambit and MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning. Sometimes, but not always, a sub-trope of ThanatosGambit. Similar to but distinct from TakingYouWithMe; that trope is more of a last resort for when you were going to die anyway.

* Literature/TheYiddishPolicemansUnion'': Meyer Landsman is trying to solve the perplexing murder of Mendel Shpilman. It ultimately turns out that Mendel killed himself because he was gay and trapped in an ultra-orthodox society.

** This was attempted in ''Wasps' Nest''. A dying man who has lost his fiancee to his best friend decided to kill himself using cyanide after convincing his love rival to purchase said poison for the purpose of getting rid of a wasp nest in his backyard. Thankfully, Poirot caught wind of his plot and switched out the poison with harmless soda.

** An unhappy husband on ''Series/LawAndOrder'' framed his wife and her boyfriend. Awesomely pulled off, by the way. [[spoiler: He hired a hitman with an account of his wife's. Planted evidence that incriminated the two in the boyfriend's apartment and among the wife's things. To pull all this off, however, he had to borrow money from his best friend. To make sure said friend wouldn't be caught up in his plot, he made a VideoWill in which the "victim" revealed that it was his plot. Then the "victim" has a good laugh about it.]]

** Nagito Komaeda's death in ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' turns out to be a subversion: which is to say, [[ThanatosGambit it was a murder, that looked like a suicide, that looked like a murder]]. Details as follows: He had a number of knife wounds and a spear sticking out of him. All these were self-inflicted in an elaborate way to make it look like they weren't, but he didn't die of injury. He actually tricked one of the students into poisoning him, so that whether he died of the poison or by dropping the spear (as a result of being poisoned), said student would become the murderer.

[[quoteright:350:[[Manga/DetectiveConan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_1detective_conan.png]]]]

* As pictured above, ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' uses this more than once:

* In one of Robert B. Parker's Literature/{{Spenser}} novels, [[spoiler: ''Widow's Walk'']], a wife covers up her husband's suicide by making it look like murder so she could collect the insurance. [[TooDumbToLive Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer]], it didn't occur to her who the police would consider the prime suspect...

''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying'': [[spoiler:The essence of Simon's plan. He wanted to kill himself, and he decided to take down four people who he deemed deserving of it at the same time, so he made it look like a murder so they'd have their lives ruined.]]

* ''Series/{{CSI}}''
** One episode had a woman who tried to frame a doctor for her murder by having an affair with him and committing suicide.
** A man who lost all his money in Blackjack (trying to use the double-every-bet tactic) wedging a knife between a door hinge and slamming himself into it making it appear he was stabbed to death, so his life insurance would cover for his brother.

* A ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode involved a man who shot himself outdoors with a gun attached to helium balloons. The gun floated away but did eventually come down to earth and was recovered.
* ''Series/DeadMansGun'': In "Death Warrant", Katherine Morrison extracts her final revenge on BountyHunter John Pike by framing him for her murder. Dying of a ConvenientTerminalIllness, she waits until he is holding the eponymous gun on her, then suddenly reaches forward, grabs Pike's hand, and squeezes the trigger. With her dead by his gun, and no witnesses to prove his innocence, Pike is forced to go on the run: hunted like the outlaws he had pursued.

** On ''Series/LawAndOrkerUK'', Matt is rocked when a police officer who's his longtime friend is found shot dead in his car in a park. Matt is strident hunting his killer and thinks it might have been a suspected pedophile priest. But the evidence soon indicates that Pete actually shot himself. The two patrol officers who found the body admit they had discovered Pete with the gun in hand and made it look like a murder so his wife could collect on his pension (which she wouldn't be eligible for under a suicide). Matt is convinced Pete's suicide was driven by abuse from that priest and dedicates himself to bringing him to justice.

* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': ''The Cat Who Played Post Office'' has one of the people involved in a murder plot send Qwill a letter describing the plot and saying that she fears her partners will try to kill her and make it look like an accident or a suicide. Actually it was a genuine suicide. [[spoiler: She killed herself because her brother [[BrotherSisterIncest rejected her]] [[WomanScorned to marry another woman]], and the letter was her way of getting revenge on him.]]

* As pictured above, ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' users this more than once:

* Inverted in Brazilian novel ''O Homem Que Matou Getúlio Vargas'' (or ''Twelve Fingers'' in English): the titular dictator shot himself in real life. In the novel, a clumsy Serbian assassin (who's distantly related to him) tries preventing him from doing so, and [[BeenThereShapedHistory accidentally kills him]] when [[RedRightHand his * ''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying'': [[spoiler:The essence of Simon's plan. He wanted to kill himself, and he decided to take down four people who he deemed deserving of it at the same time, so he made it look like a murder so they'd have their lives ruined.]]extra index finger]] hits the trigger.

* The assassin variation occurs in ''The Odd Job'', which was originally a half-hour comedy skit starring Ronnie Barker, later remade as a film starring Creator/GrahamChapman. The main character asks a hitman to kill him but then changes his mind. Hilarity [[spoiler:and death]] [[HilarityEnsues ensues]].

* ''Manga/{{Golgo 13}}: The Professional'' has a weird version of this. The film starts with a powerful man's son being killed by Golgo 13. At the end, we learn that the son had hired Golgo to kill him - he felt he could never live up to his father's expectations, but was too squeamish to kill himself.

* In ''Comicbook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'', [[spoiler:the Joker's final joke is to frame Batman for his own death. Batman ''did'' break Joker's spine, but didn't go through with murder as he originally intended - Joker then taunts him and laughs as he ''snaps his own neck despite being paralyzed''. Sure enough, the police believe Batman broke his code and killed the Joker.]]

* The insurance fraud version is used in Creator/ArthurHailey's ''Film/{{Airport}}'' - however, here the culprit intends to blow up ''the whole plane he's flying in''.

* One of ''Literature/TheCatWho'' books has one of the people involved in a murder plot send Qwill a letter describing the plot and saying that she fears her partners will try to kill her and make it look like an accident or a suicide. Actually it was a genuine suicide. [[spoiler: She killed herself because her brother [[BrotherSisterIncest rejected her]] [[WomanScorned to marry another woman]], and the letter was her way of getting revenge on him.]]

** Another time involved a hunter making his suicide look like a hunting accident for very similar reasons - in this case to allow for a generous life insurance payout to his wife.
** An episode has Catherine, Langston ''et. al.'' dealing with a woman who sought to escape her financial woes and rocky marriage by framing her husband for her 'murder'. The 'murder weapon' was ingested poison - namely, two full tubes of ''fluoridated toothpaste''. ({{It Makes Sense In Context}}.)

-->'''Watson:''' "It's not in the rules!"
-->'''Sherlock:''' "Then [[GameplayAndStorySegregation the rules are wrong]]!"

** Nagito Komaeda's death in ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' turns out to be a subversion: which is to say, it was a murder, that looked like a suicide, that looked like a murder. Details as follows: He had a number of knife wounds and a spear sticking out of him. All these were self-inflicted in an elaborate way to make it look like they weren't, but he didn't die of injury. He actually tricked one of the students into poisoning him, so that whether he died of the poison or by dropping the spear (as a result of being poisoned), said student would become the murderer.

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[[quoteright:350:[[Manga/DetectiveConan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_1detective_conan.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[-We should have known—he was always a backstabber.-]]]

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%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900

* ''Series/RemingtonSteele'' In the first season episode "In the Steele of the Night", a group of Laura’s former colleagues gather at their old boss’s house. He is killed in the elevator – and different staged evidence points to different people. The last set of evidence points to Laura – but Steele proves it was suicide. In this case, the goal was to give them all a bad weekend of being accused. Scheduled service for the elevator would have revealed his suicide.

* ''Series/TheCoroner'':
** The VictimOfTheWeek in "The Fisherman's Tale" is revealed to have actually hired the sniper who killed him.
** A suicide is made to look like murder so the family will not lose the life insurance payout in [[spoiler:"Napoleon's Violin"]].
* A ''Series/{{Forever}}'' VictimOfTheWeek did this accidentally: she intentionally overdosed on her medication to induce a simple, quiet death with the intent of going out whilst looking upon a painting created by a long-lost lover. Unfortunately, an unanticipated delay between her overdose and her arrival at the painting caused her to fall down a flight of stairs and suffer severe injuries. Undeterred, she then crawled on the floor to get that one last look at her beloved's painting; this unfortunately created the impression that she had been beaten and that she desperately attempted to escape her attacker before she succumbed. The first suspect was the man who had unwittingly caused that delay.
* ''Series/ChicagoJustice'': In "Lily's Law" at first it looks like the victim was murdered since her mouth was duct-taped and her hands bound but is then revealed to have done this herself. Despite this, Stone charges her abusive ex-boyfriend with murder as he argues he'd driven her to it.
* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'': "[[Recap/NCISS13E19 Reasonable Doubt]]" has the wife and the mistress of a Navy journalist accuse each other of his murder. The problem is, Team Gibbs can't arrest either of them because no matter who they chose, there's enough ambiguity in the evidence to establish reasonable doubt that it could have been the other one, making it impossible for a jury to convict. It turns out the guy killed himself, and that the two women set up the ambiguous crime scene [[InsuranceFraud to collect and split the life insurance money as it wouldn't pay out on a suicide]].
* In ''Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa'', a girl is believed to be the latest victim of a serial killer preying on women. It emerges that her brother is the killer, but has suffered spinal injuries and now needs to use a wheelchair. His sister realized that police would suspect him if the murders suddenly stopped, so made her suicide look like a murder in order to get him off the hook.
* ''Series/CrossingLines'': In "Enemy of the People" the victim at first appears to have been thrown out a window. It turns out he was {{blackmail}}ed though and killed himself to expose the people behind this by making his death appear to be murder, along with ensuring his family got the life insurance (as most policies do not pay out for a suicide).
* ''Series/DeadMansGun'': In "Death Warrant", Katherine Morrison extracts her final revenge on BountyHunter John Pike by framing him for her murder. Dying of a ConvenientTerminalIllness, she waits until he is holding the eponymous gun on her, then suddenly reaches forward, grabs Pike's hand, and squeezes the trigger. With her dead by his gun, and no witnesses to prove his innocence, Pike is forced to go on the run: hunted like the outlaws he had pursued.
* In an episode of ''Series/BostonLegal'', Alan Shore and Jerry Espenson defend a woman accused of hanging her girlfriend. She looks guilty, but Shore and Espenson shine a light on the ex-girlfiend and the ex-husband as possible culprits, the former because the victim had recently amended her will to have her inherit her money and the latter because he stood to collect on her life insurance policy. It turns out the victim committed suicide and the ex-husband made it look like murder because suicide would have voided the policy.

* Right before the end credits roll on [[VideoGame/MaxPayne Max Payne-3,]] a news report states that the BigBad was found hanging in his jail cell, and though it's speculated that he most likely killed himself out of grief for the hand he played in the game's event, it was mentioned that it was also probable that [[HeKnowsTooMuch he may have been killed to keep the truth from leaking out.]]

* In ''Webcomic/RiversideExtras'', the death of [[spoiler:Henry Baxter]], member of the Ink gang. The widespread assumption is that [[spoiler:Ophelia]] killed him as part of the ongoing gang war between the Ink and the Roses. She was the last person with him that night, but [[spoiler:she didn't come to kill him but instead to offer him a place with the Roses, now that Baxter had lost power in the ink following an internal coup. Baxter, loyal to the old Ink regime and filled with bitter hatred for the Roses, kills himself rather than compromise.]] Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Henry's daughter Meredith]] believes that it was murder, and she almost kills [[spoiler:Ophelia]] for it.

* In ''Comicbook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'', [[spoiler:the Joker's final joke is to frame Batman for his own death. Batman ''did'' break Joker's spine, but didn't go through with murder as he originally intended - Joker then taunts him and laughs as he ''snaps his own neck despite being paralyzed''. Sure enough, the police believe Batman broke his code and killed the Joker.]]

* In ''WebAnimation/ElementsOfJustice'', [[spoiler:this is revealed to be the cause of Overall Concept's death in the first case. It is speculated to be due to his flare up of depression, but the true cause is left uncertain for the time being.]]

* There's a movie called ''Film/CookiesFortune'', where the old lady killed herself and left her fortune to one of the other characters... and her daughter was the first one to discover her, and so scandalized by the idea that she would have killed herself, and that people would think ill of the family for it, that she planted evidence to make it seem like murder, which led to a series of events that ended in a very just ending.
* In ''Film/LeaveHerToHeaven'', the insanely jealous Ellen, despondent when she realizes her that everything she's done to hang on to her husband Richard [[spoiler: (allowing his invalid brother to drown, deliberately causing herself to miscarry)]]has instead driven him away (he's fallen in love with her sister Ruth), poisons herself and makes it appear as though Ruth (with or without Richard's encouragement) has killed her. It almost works.
* In ''Film/EndOfDays'', one of the cops investigating a crime scene involving a man having been crucified to a ceiling after the Devil paid him a vist suggests with no trace of sarcasm in his voice that "maybe he did it to himself". Jericho, speaking for the audience, mocks him for it. [[spoiler:The man is later revealed to be a Satanist.]]

* {{Film/Shadow Of The Thin Man}} has two dead bodies show up in connection with a gambling racket; a jockey whose body was found in the shower, and a corrupt journalist on the take from the racketeers, both shot. Though the connection between them is tenuous at best, Nick bets Lt. Abrams that "there was only one murderer". He's right, but not in the obvious way; the jockey committed (accidental) suicide. He had thrown races on the orders of the racketeers, was afraid of being exposed, and planned to kill himself. He chickened out at the last minute, dropping the gun down the drain in the shower, but did so in such a way that the hammer hit a curve in the drainpipe and the gun went off. Nick figures this out and retrieves the gun, but conspires with Lt. Abrams to use it in FramingTheGuiltyParty; they will tell the press that the same person who killed the jockey killed the journalist, and the murderer will put forward a suspect to take the fall for both crimes.
* Zig-zagged in ''Film/KnivesOut'': Marta, Harlan Thrombey's nurse, accidentally injected him with an overdose of morphine, and when she realised it he set up a fake alibi for her and cut his own throat because he was very old and didn't want her to have her life ruined by one genuine mistake. However, it then turns out that the drug supply was deliberately sabotaged by a would-be murderer to ensure that Marta would make that mistake. [[spoiler:And twisted one last time when it is revealed that Marta didn't overdose Harlan after all, making the suicide pointless.]]

* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'':
** "The Problem of Thor Bridge". Villain sets up the evidence to frame her rival for murder, then figures out a way to shoot herself and hide the gun. Of course Holmes discovers the one subtle clue that gives the game away. Most probably a TropeCodifier.
** A variation in "The Norwood Builder" where [[spoiler:the victim only faked his death in order to avenge himself on the supposed murderer- or rather the supposed murderer's mother for having refused him in his youth. He also did it to swindle his creditors by sending his money to a bank account with a different name.]] And it would have worked except for a fingerprint belonging to the murderer being found y the police. [[spoiler:Holmes knew the print wasn't there the previous day, which led him to realize the victim was still alive, and some quick calculations involving the size of the rooms and a straw fire led him to the truth.]]

* The Literature/FatherBrown stories use this twice, in "The Three Tools of Death" and "The Strange Crime of John Boulnois". In the first case, the fact that the death appeared to be murder was due to chance, but the second case had the more usual situation of the suicidal person deliberately trying to frame an enemy for murder. Most probably a TropeMaker.

* The insurance fraud version is used in Creator/ArthurHailey's ''Film/{{Airport}}'' - however, here the culprit intends to blow up ''the whole plane he's flying in''.
* In one of Robert B. Parker's Literature/{{Spenser}} novels, [[spoiler: ''Widow's Walk'']], a wife covers up her husband's suicide by making it look like murder so she could collect the insurance. [[TooDumbToLive Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer]], it didn't occur to her who the police would consider the prime suspect...
* Inverted in Brazilian novel ''O Homem Que Matou Getúlio Vargas'' (or ''Twelve Fingers'' in English): the titular dictator shot himself in real life. In the novel, a clumsy Serbian assassin (who's distantly related to him) tries preventing him from doing so, and [[BeenThereShapedHistory accidentally kills him]] when [[RedRightHand his extra index finger]] hits the trigger.
* In ''Fletch'', the book by Gregory [=McDonald=], the protagonist is hired by a wealthy man to break into his house and murder him. The wannabee-victim explains that he has bone cancer and will die horribly in a few weeks, but doesn't care to commit suicide as it would invalidate his life insurance. [[spoiler: Turns out it's a scam on the victim's part he wants to murder Fletch... but that's only fair because the protagonist's "junkie drifter" facade is also a pretense by his IntrepidReporter character.]]

* While there is [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness plenty]] of [[HeKnowsTooMuch reason]] to suspect murder, especially since it happens at around the same time as another character's disappearance, it is eventually decided that the death of Edward Janacek in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series was a suicide.
* ''Literature/TheThinkingMachine'': In "The Great Auto Mystery", a woman is found stabbed to death in the front of an open-air automobile. It is ultimately revealed that woman was not the one everyone thought she was, that the death was really suicide and that one of the passengers knew the truth but could not say anything as it would have raised a large number of awkward questions.
* ''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying'': [[spoiler:The essence of Simon's plan. He wanted to kill himself, and he decided to take down four people who he deemed deserving of it at the same time, so he made it look like a murder so they'd have their lives ruined.]]

** Played with in "The Word Is Murder." This turns out to be the key answer to how Diana was able to plan her funeral shortly before her murder. [[spoiler:She was planning to commit suicide. But Robert didn't know that and he got there first.]]
** In "The Sentence Is Death", [[spoiler:Greg's death has nothing to do with Philip's murder. He committed suicide rather than die, slowly and painfully, of a terminal disease.]]

** One of the New York episodes involved a man who shot himself outdoors with a gun attached to helium balloons. The gun floated away but did eventually come down to earth and was recovered.

* Happened in a ''Series/McMillanAndWife'' episode where the "victim" was trying to frame cast regular Sgt. Enright.

* ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'':
** An unhappy husband on ''Series/LawAndOrder'' framed his wife and her boyfriend. Awesomely pulled off, by the way. [[spoiler: He hired a hitman with an account of his wife's. Planted evidence that incriminated the two in the boyfriend's apartment and among the wife's things. To pull all this off, however, he had to borrow money from his best friend. To make sure said friend wouldn't be caught up in his plot, he made a VideoWill in which the "victim" revealed that it was his plot. Then the "victim" has a good laugh about it.]]
** A woman on ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' made her death look so much like a homicide (having several high-powered and/or married lovers [[spoiler: and a sexually abusive father]] helped) that no one even thought it was a suicide until her sister received the note.
** ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent:''
*** A woman framed her husband for her murder to send him to prison while protecting her daughter from an AwfulTruth: [[spoiler: her husband was a Jew-hating serial killer and she'd discovered she was a Jew (which made her daughter one by extension)]].
*** In another episode, a young mother with severe, untreated postpartum depression blows up her car to kill herself and her children. She never specifically says she meant for it to look like murder, but it's mentioned that she rejected another method (carbon monoxide poisoning by intentionally breaking a space heater) because people would know what she had done, implying she wanted people to think someone besides her was responsible.
* Used in several soap operas, particularly on ''Series/GuidingLight''. Devastated when husband Josh leaves her to reunite with ex Reva, Annie suffers a miscarriage. However, the baby remains in her womb. At a party, Annie lured Reva to the top of a steep staircase, provoked her into an argument, then made it appear as though Reva had shoved her down the stairs. Reva was charged with manslaughter for the death of the baby until it was proven that the baby had died long before Annie fell down the stairs.
* ''Series/DowntonAbbey:'' This is the fate of Vera Bates. It's confirmed in the third season that Vera did, in fact, kill herself with an arsenic-laced pie.

* On ''Series/{{Emmerdale}}'', Chris Tate found out he had a brain tumour and only months to live, so he arranged a meeting with his GoldDigger wife Charity and drank poisoned wine in order to frame her for his murder.
* ''Series/{{Elementary}}:''
** A woman faking her own murder got the plot rolling in the episode "On The Line", loosely based on the Conan Doyle Thor Bridge story. The audience saw her go through with it in the cold open, including a 911 call where she identifies an old enemy of hers as her "assailant". Sherlock figures it out pretty quickly but soon regrets exposing the plot, because [[spoiler:the man she framed was a sadistic serial killer]].
** Season one episode "You Do It To Yourself" featured a professor shot dead in front of witnesses, [[EyeScream in his eyes]] -- which looked like a vicious revenge killing. The truth is, he hired his own hitman after being diagnosed with an incurable and fatal illness, whose first symptom manifests in the eyes -- and out of spite, he arranged things so that evidence would point to his Teacher's Assistant (and his wife's lover) hiring the hitman.
* Similarly, on ''Series/ColdCase'', a doctor was revealed to have paid his friend to shoot him and make his death to appear to be a random street crime (he had ruined his family with his gambling, but knew his hefty insurance policy wouldn't pay out if he killed himself).
* ''Series/DeathInParadise''
** An episode featured an elderly woman made a voodoo prediction about her own death at the hands of a "scarred man" and then died in suspicious circumstances the next day. As it turns out, she had long suspected this particular scarred man of her daughter's murder, and she faked her own murder at his hands in order to get the police to investigate him again.
** In another episode, it ''looks'' like this when it a while into the episode turns out to be suicide made to look like a robbery gone wrong so the insurance pays out. There's one more twist left to be played, however... [[spoiler: the victim had been manipulated into committing suicide by his doctor, who had gone so far as to lie the victim had a terminal illness.]]
** In yet another episode, this becomes clear towards the end of the episode. ''Unlike'' the above examples, [[spoiler: the person committing suicide wasn't involved with making it appear as if he'd been murdered. It was the victim's ''friends'' that arranged that when they found the body, in a bid to frame a faux-friend who was lying to and blackmailing the victim.]]

* An episode of ''Series/QuantumLeap'' had Dr. Beckett playing an attorney whose client was accused of murdering a neighbor. The neighbor's daughter had disappeared under mysterious circumstances when a little girl and the neighbor always believed that the client was responsible. Sam eventually discovers that the neighbor slit her own throat with one of the client's kitchen knives to invoke this trope.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'' had a murder turn out to be suicide where the victim planted evidence to convict three girls who had bullied her. Somehow in the end, we're supposed to be sorry for the victim because she was bullied and not the three teenagers who could have gone to prison for life. Raises the question of would we still feel the same way if she had just shot the three girls?
* A variant happens in one episode ''Series/ElleryQueen''. The VictimOfTheWeek actually does commit suicide, but the two people who find the body make it look like murder so they can claim the victim's life insurance.
* ''Series/RemingtonSteele'' In the first season episode In the Steele of the Night, a group of Laura’s former colleagues gather at their old boss’s house. He is killed in the elevator – and different staged evidence points to different people. The last set of evidence points to Laura – but Steele proves it was suicide. In this case, the goal was to give them all a bad weekend of being accused. Scheduled service for the elevator would have revealed his suicide.
* In the third series of ''Series/BronBroen'', Saga's abusive mother kills herself and frames Saga for it.
* ''Series/FatherBrown'': Happens in "The Hangman's Demise". The VictimOfTheWeek commits suicide in a manner designed to look like murder and leaves evidence framing one of his friends. Overlaps with FramingTheGuiltyParty, because the reason he did it was that he had learned his friend had committed a murder years ago and gotten away with it. By making him out to have committed this murder, he was attempting to ensure the friend would still go to the gallows.