History Main / SuicideNotMurder

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* Happens in ''Film/{{Narc}}'', similar to the insurance examples below.

* ''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying'': 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.

** Nagito Komaeda's death in ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' turns out to be a [[SubvertedTrope 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), the student would have technically killed him. This would still be ruled a suicide in a real court, but Monokuma has a vested interest in having a Blackened in every case, so...
** 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.

* In the third series of ''Series/BronBroen'', Saga's abusive mother kills herself and frames Saga for it.

** In the backstory for the [[spoiler: Detectives Koshien]] mini-arc, [[spoiler: a rich and mentally unstable young lady from Fukuoka hanged 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.]]
** [[spoiler: When a male IdolSinger hung himself a few days before he was about to make a huge comeback, his ex-girlfriend and now-manager decided to plant evidence that pointed more to a murder. She did it because they shared a very sad DarkAndTroubledPast that would come to the surface if the press dug into his possible reasons to kill himself, so making people think he'd been killed would distract them.]]

* 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/EndOfDays'', one of the cops investigating a crime scene involving a man having been crucified to a ceiling after the Devil paid him a visit 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.]]

* In ''Film/{{Fletch}}'', Fletch is hired by a wealthy man to break into his house and murder him. The wannabe-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.]]

* A double twist variant serves as the bookends for the story in ''Film/IRobot''. [[spoiler:The robot ''did'' kill Dr. Lanning, but it was actually because Lanning told him too.]]
* 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.]]

* In ''Film/LeaveHerToHeaven'', the insanely jealous Ellen, despondent when she realizes 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.

** Agatha Christie changed the ending of her ''Appointment with Death'' novel in the play adaptation. There, the tyrannical Mrs Boynton cannot bear the thought that her family will be free from her psychological torturing of them when she dies, so she kills herself in a way that will make it look like one of them did it so she can still keep tormenting them in death. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** In ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'', the killer [[spoiler: fakes his own murder]] and then [[spoiler: commits suicide in such a way as to match the details of his 'murder']].

* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': Book #6 (''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.]]

** 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.]]

* In ''Fletch'', the book by Gregory [=McDonald=], the protagonist is hired by a wealthy man to break into his house and murder him. The wannabe-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.]]
* Seishi Yokomizo's ''The Honjin Murders'', strangely enough, [[spoiler:combines this with MurderSuicide; the perpetrator killed his newly-wed wife first, then used a complicated mechanism to kill himself and propel the murder weapon out of the building they were in in his last moments, in order to create the appearance of a double murder]].

* ''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.]]

** "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 by 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.]]
** In the Holmes sequel-by-other-hands novel ''The Red Tower'' by Mark A. Latham [[spoiler: a woman who is secretly dying of luekemia arranges to be found mysteriously dead in a locked room in a supposedly haunted tower, specifically for the purpose of attracting Holmes's attention. She expects that he'll eventually deduce the truth, but anticipates that in the process of doing so, he will expose the tangle of secrets and sinister forces that bedevils her family. Which, of course, he does.]]
* 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... [[spoiler:He actually ''was'' killed by someone that wanted it to look like a suicide. Her rearranging things actually prompted a deeper investigation than if she had left well enough alone, especially since]] the life insurance would have likely paid out anyway since they had had it for several years, sidestepping most time limits on suicide.
* In ''Thank You for the Love'' by Yulia Voznesenskaya, Victor is afraid of getting murdered (by one of his three exes or their partners), and he steals Georgy's gun, it's implied, for self-defence. He ends up shooting himself as he realises what a mess his life is. There is another factor that leads to Georgy getting suspected: Victor is naturally left-handed but learned to use his right hand for most tasks and is believed to be right-handed by most of his acquaintances, so when the wound is revealed to have been inflicted by a left-handed person, at first people don’t realise Victor could have done it himself.

** A suicide is made to look like murder so the family will not lose the life insurance payout in [[spoiler:"Napoleon's Violin"]].

** 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.]]

** 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]].

** 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 his 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.

*** 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)]].

* The assassin variation occurs in ''Series/TheOddJob'', 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]].

* ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' has one quest where this trope features: [[spoiler: a jerk of an elven wizard stages a suicide to look like murder to [[MurderTheHypotenuse frame the hypotenuse]]]]. The player character can unravel the scheme... or play right into it. It'll only work if you play into it, too, since the people 'investigating' the case just jumped to the obvious suspect -- who as it turns out was not the actual target for framing since he was really only the obvious suspect for being [[FantasticRacism the wrong race]] and having an obvious motive (whether he had opportunity was not looked at).

** Sakura Ogami's death in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' turns out to have been a suicide; the victim had just admitted she was blackmailed into being TheMole, and she knew her continued presence was a ticking time bomb that would eventually get someone killed. So she locked herself in a room and drank some poison. Unfortunately for the player, Monokuma tampers with the suicide note, leading [[spoiler:Aoi Asahina]] to believe she did what she did out of despair and try to cover up the suicide to get everyone killed.
** 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), the student would have technically killed him. This would still be ruled a suicide in a real court, but Monokuma has a vested interest in having a Blackened in every case, so...

* 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.
* {{Implied|Trope}} in ''Webcomic/SomethingPositive.'' [[ItsAllAboutMe Kharisma]] and her fiance's uncle, [[CreepyUncle Avogadro]], don't like each other, but he issues a challenge out of boredom: he would change his will to make her his sole heir, then change it back on Thanksgiving. If she could kill him by then and get away with it, then his fortune would be hers. She tries repeatedly, but fails, only for him to die the night before Thanksgiving. It's never clear if it was suicide or just his terrible health, but either way, all the evidence from Kharisma's ''actual'' murder attempts point to her as the culprit. [[spoiler:She's convicted, and to add insult to injury, he lied about putting her in his will]].

When TheDeadGuyDidIt...to themselves.

'''As a DeathTrope, spoilers will be unmarked.'''

* 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 an arc near the end of Season 3, a serial killer arranges his suicide to make it look like Mac had thrown him off a roof while handcuffed, causing Mac's career to be in jeopardy for a while.

** 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}}.)
** A subversion occurs in the episode "Who Shot Sherlock?", where the victim is the Holmes of a Sherlock Holmes club. Greg finds the gun attached to an elastic cord, concealed in the fireplace. It looks like ''The Problem of Thor Bridge'', but it turns out the victim was drugged with morphine instead of Holmes' habitual cocaine, and it's a murder disguised as a suicide disguised as a murder.
** Hodges' 'death' (actually a scenario for his board game) in "You Kill Me" turns out to be this.
** Another 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.

** A woman faked her suicide to look like she'd had an affair with the married doctor she blamed for her child's death and that he'd killed her.
** Apparent murders were discovered to be the results of suicide pacts in both "Blood, Sweat and Tears" and "What Schemes May Come."
** A serial killer arranged his suicide to make it look like Mac had thrown him off a roof while handcuffed, causing Mac's career to be in jeopardy for a while.

[[MaliciousSlander Framing an enemy for a crime]] is a long-established tactic for dealing with them. Framing them for murder is even better. In some places, they could wind up dead! There is a snag, however; the police may well find evidence, witnesses, and so on to link the killing back to you. If only there was a way to get yourself above suspicion. Well, there is, but it is awfully extreme.

* 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: would we still feel the same way if she had just shot the three girls?

* Invoked in ''Film/TheLifeOfDavidGale'', as part of a ThanatosGambit to get an innocent man executed for murder.

* Angier pulls this in ''Film/ThePrestige'', with the added twist of (sort of) not actually being dead.

* Creator/AngelinaJolie claims to have tried this once, when in a deep depression.

** 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.]]

* 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.

** 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), the student would have technically killed him- which would still be ruled a suicide in a real court, but Monokuma has a vested interest in having a Blackened in every case, so...

** 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), the student would become the murderer according to Monokuma's twisted rules.

[[folder:Film]]

** 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), the student would become the murderer.