History Main / NeverSuicide

* Subverted in the film version of ''Film/{{Constantine}}''. Everyone believes Isabel killed herself except for her sister Angela, which leads her to Constantine and a supernatural plot. However, the investigation turns up that really did Isabel kill herself, specifically to avoid getting possessed by the Son of Satan; tragically, this has resulted in her being damned to hell, as Constantine discovers when he visits it halfway through the film.

** Subverted in a rather tragic instance, [[spoiler:an ill girl[[StuffBlowingUp blows herself and her car up]] when she finds out that [[SurpriseIncest her fiancé was her long-lost twin brother]]. Bad thing, the fiancé was in the restaurant in whose parking lot she killed herself ''and'' both of them had suspected one another of cheating, so he was immediately accused of murdering her. Conan had to race against the clock to defuse the whole deal.]]
* Inverted in ''Anime/Danganronpa3 Future Arc'' with the time limit murders. [[spoiler:Every single person who was near a monitor when the time limit was in effect killed themselves, as the monitors [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed them into doing it]] using Monokuma's "Gloomy Sunday" video. By the Mastermind neglecting to mention this aspect, they could sow dissent further into the branch heads and make them think they would kill another of their members during the knockout phase.]]

* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/{{Cracked}}'', where it turned out the victim really did commit suicide and his mother cleaned the scene when she found him.

** Most notably, Stottlemeyer recalls a case where all the evidence pointed towards the victim committing suicide by overdosing on pills. However, Monk takes one look at the crime scene and destroys the suicide theory by asking, "Where's the water?" Turns out, the pills were too big to swallow unassisted and there was no evidence of any liquids in the room.

* In ''Film/ThheCrimeDoctorsCourage'', Gordon Carson is found shot through the heart in his locked study with powder burns on his coat in what appears to be suicide. However, Dr. Ordway is in the room within seconds of the shot being fired and when he touches the gun, discovers it is cold and could not have been just fired. Later, forensics confirms that the bullet that killed Carson did not come from the gun found by the body.

* ''Literature/OneOfUsIsLying" Averted. [[spoiler:Instead of a murder disguised as a suicide, the victim Simon Kelleher committed suicide and disguised it as a murder]]

* During the Brazilian military dictatorship, IntrepidReporter Vladimir Herzog was "detained" by the lackeys of the regime and "found" in a room after having "committed suicide" by hanging himself from a bar lower than he was tall. It was quite frequent during those times, so much so that the expression "to be suicided" made into Brazilian Portuguese parlance, thanks in no small part to the Brazilian military.

* During the Brazilian military dictatorship, IntrepidReporter Vladimir Herzog was "detained" by the lackeys of the regime and "found" in a room after having "committed suicide" by hanging himself from a bar lower than he was tall.

* ''Series/{{Columbo}}'' occasionally has this trope as the plot for the VillainOfTheWeek. The killer will try to pass the murder off as a suicide. Columbo will spot a clue that doesn't add up like a computer keyboard with finger prints missing from specific keys, telling him that the killer used gloves to type up the suicide note.

* ''Series/Columbo'' occasionally has this trope as the plot for the VillainOfTheWeek. The killer will try to pass the murder off as a suicide. Columbo will spot a clue that doesn't add up like a computer keyboard with finger prints missing from specific keys, telling him that the killer used gloves to type up the suicide note.

* On a ''Series/SpenserForHire'' episode a parish priest engages Spenser because the death of a young woman about to enter the convent is about to be ruled a suicide and he has doubts. There are suspicious facts around the death, including her pregnancy. [[spoiler:It turns out to be an accident rather than suicide or murder. Her mother confronted her about the pregnancy on a rooftop, and she fell over while backing away.]]
* ''Series/WhyWomenKill'': [[spoiler:Isabel]] is murdered and Bertram made this look like suicide.
* ''Series/MidnightSun2016'':
** Evalina is related to have killed herself by jumping from a waterfall. It later turns out she really was murdered because she'd learned a secret.
** Tardieu is made to look like he'd killed himself by taking pills. Kahina realizes he was murdered however based on prior information.
* Played straight in ''Series/TheHonourableWoman''. One character, an amoral and ambitious British civil servant who wants to be head of [=MI6=], spends the entire series scheming and playing off one side against another. Her efforts are actually successful, but she makes so many enemies that, in the final episode, before she gets to fulfil her ambitions, she is strangled to death by a black ops team that have infiltrated her bedroom while she sleeps, and then she's hung from a clothes hook to make it look like suicide. By that point, the character has so enemies that nobody is even interested in investigating her death; they're just glad she's not around any more.

* When Creator/AgathaChristie adapted her novel ''Appointment With Death'' into a play, she wrote a new ending which is [[spoiler:also a subversion. The tyrannical [[AssholeVictim Mrs. Boynton]] wished to still wield power over her family, even after her death, so she committed suicide in a way that would appear to be murder. Therefore, everyone would be suspicious of each other, and not believing their claims that they didn't do it.]]

* The first ''VideoGame/TexMurphy'' game is kicked off by a suicide investigation. The victim's daughter needs to prove that he didn't kill himself so she can claim his life insurance. The twist [[spoiler:is that the victim really did commit suicide, but he did it to escape the effects of a mind-screwing computer chip implanted into his brain, which makes it count legally as a murder]].

* ''VideoGame/TraumaCenter'': Trauma Team's Naomi Kimishima has a LockedRoomMystery as her first in-game investigation.
* One way to get rid of a victim in ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator'' is to drag her to the roof and shove her off; if done right, it will be accepted as a suicide. (Although, another way is to destroy their reputation badly enough that they ''do'' [[DrivenToSuicide kill themselves]]; though the threshold for Senpai to reject them is well below the threshold for them to kill themselves, meaning the only reason to keep going at that point [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential is just to be a dick]].)
* In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'', the NonstandardGameOver you receive when failing to steal your quarry's treasure before deadline ends with you [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head]] by a mysterious assailant in the interrogation room, and the police assuming you had offed yourself.
* In the epilogue of ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'', [[spoiler:the BigBad is found hanged in his cell]]. His death is officially ruled a suicide, but it's strongly implied that he was killed in retribution for [[spoiler:his organ-harvesting scheme]].

* [[spoiler:Most of the "clawing out your own throat" deaths]] in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry''. Turns out it's [[spoiler:the last stage of the HatePlague; Tomitake's death in particular is always a murder via an injection that worsens the symptoms.]]

* In ''Webcomic/MyDeepestSecret'', Emma's perverted professor is suspiciously found hanged the day after he made creepy advances on her. The audience is well aware that he was killed by her {{yandere}} boyfriend. However, in the comic AmateurSleuth Yohan is also thinking it was murder...[[DramaticIrony just that it was Emma who killed him]].

* It's never suicide in ''Series/FoylesWar'', although in one episode it wasn't actually murder either, but a spy organization staging the suicide of one of its members to cover up that he had died about a minute into his mission due to his superiors' incompetence.
* The second episode of ''Series/{{Moonlight}}'' has an alleged murdered acquitted when a book writer lobbies that his case is reviewed and inconsistencies are found. It turns out he ''did'' shoot his wife and stage it as suicide. Mick knew it all along, as he was the one who warned her ''not'' to get a gun, afraid something like this would happen. The worst part for Mick is that the guy knows he's a vampire and is out for revenge, having spent years reading up on his vampire lore.
* Inverted in a ''Series/{{Moonlighting}}'' episode, the protagonists are hired by an old man in a wheelchair and on life support to witness his murder that he plans to stage by hiring a killer in order for his daughter to get life insurance. When [[Creator/BruceWillis David]] shows up, the old man is already dead with no killer in sight. Instead, the police are after him as the murderer. In the end, Maddie figures out that the old man was only partially paralyzed and could walk. He shut off his own life support just before David got there, planning to frame him all along.
* Subverted in a ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' episode, "To The Last Will I Grapple With Thee". Sean, a friend of Jessica's from Ireland was arrested for the murder of an old enemy of his from Ireland. Jessica proved that the victim (whom she learned was terminally ill anyway) committed suicide, but staged his death to look like murder so that Sean would be convicted of murder.
* Averted in the ''Series/ElleryQueen'' episode "The Adventure of [[spoiler:the Judas Tree]]", where the death is revealed to be a suicide made to look like a murder.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer:'' The first season episode "I Robot, You Jane" has the Sunnydale high computer geek Dave murdered by his friend Fritz, under the influence of the demon Moloch, and made to look like he hung himself.
* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/{{Cracked}}'', where it turned out the victim really did commit suicide and his mother cleaned the scene when she found him.
* ''Series/InspectorGeorgeGently'':
** In "Gently with Honour", Gently and Bacchus return to a psychiatrist with a warrant for the medical files of one of his patients and find the psychiatrist hanged; an apparent suicide. Gently suspicions are immediately raised, especially when he finds the medical file he was after is missing. It is later discovered that the psychiatrist's neck had been snapped and he was then strung up to make it look like he hanged himself.
** Averted in [[spoiler:"Breathe in the Air"]] where the BodyOfTheWeek really is a suicide, and the discovery of why she killed herself reveals another crime altogether.
* In ''Series/{{Healer}}'' [[spoiler:Jung Hoo]]'s father was murdered and then staged to look like he'd killed himself out of guilt after murdering his best friend after being framed for his friend's murder by the same group that killed them both.
* The plot of ''Series/TheHour'' is [[PlotTriggeringDeath kicked off]] by Ruth's death, which the police have ruled as a suicide but Freddie is sure isn't.
* Averted in an episode of ''Series/ColdCase'', where a girl's first fiance seemingly jumped off a balcony on the night of their wedding. After an episode's worth of questionings and suspicions, his best friend finally reveals that the groom was already married. He thought his wife, who has spent years in a hospital, was calling for him. Then he found out she died. He then jumped off the balcony right in front of his friend.
* One of the stories in ''Series/MrsCop'' involves a teenage girl accidentally being murdered and it being covered up as a suicide. Luckily the protagonist doesn't believe it is - mainly because the girl was a Catholic and had previously bought tickets for a concert - and she keeps on pushing for them to investigate further. Eventually an autopsy proves she was killed.
* ''Series/LegendOfTheSeeker'': Sister Brenna is said by the Prelate to have killed herself in "Dark." However, Richard soon discovers it was really murder. Additionally, a Resistance member had apparently killed himself as related in "Confession", but no one believes this, and it's revealed to have actually been murder.
* ''Series/{{Vera}}'': Played straight and later averted in "Sundancers". The first death is a murder made to look like a suicide. Vera thinks it looks too much like a suicide to actually be a suicide. When a second near-identical death occurs, Vera assumes it is the work of the same killer. This sends the investigation down a blind alley till she realises that the second death actually was suicide.
* ''Series/TheDoctorBlakeMysteries'': In "For Whom the Bell Tolls", when a man falls to his death from the Ballarat fire station bell tower, it is initially assumed to be suicide when an apparent suicide note is found. However, Lucien thinks the position of the body is odd for someone who jumped and keeps investigating. It turns out to be murder, and the 'suicide note' was constructed from a letter the victim had sent his murderer.
* ''Series/AgathaRaisin'': In "Agatha Raisin and Hell's Bells", everyone is prepared to write off the death of the VictimOfTheWeek as suicide; except Agatha, who keeps pointing out all of the discrepancies in this theory. Naturally, Agatha is proved right.
* ''Series/ForeverKnight''
** An intern at a hospital is murdered in a way that makes it look like a suicide (slashed wrists in the shower when she was already depressed), but Nick correctly suspects that the woman was murdered.
** Averted when Nick insists on digging into the death of an astronomer who shot herself after predicting an extinction-level asteroid would strike the Earth. Turns out she really did kill herself, but Nick is right to suspect there's something dodgy going on as one of her colleagues faked the evidence for a financial scam.
* In ''Series/TheWire'' [[spoiler:Stringer Bell]] orders [[spoiler:D'Angelo Barksdale]]'s murder because he was afraid [[spoiler:D'Angelo]] would become a snitch, and also likely he was [[spoiler:[[MurderTheHypotenuse having an affair with his sort-of girlfriend Donette]]]]. The killer made it look like a suicide. [=McNulty=] isn't convinced.
-->'''[[spoiler:Brianna]]:''' I heard you visited Donette. Told her that [[spoiler:my son]]'s death couldn't be no suicide. Is that right?\\
'''[=McNulty=]:''' I did do that.\\
'''[[spoiler:Brianna]]:''' ...[[spoiler:D'Angelo]] hung himself. Hm?\\
'''[=McNulty=]:''' Not with the belt they found around his neck. Not at that distance between the door knob and the floor.
* ''Series/TheIndianDetective'': [[spoiler:Aarav's]] mother is told that he offed himself with a gun to his temple (although she asks if there was a note, which of course there wasn't). The show makes it very clear that his uncle / her brother Gopal was actually responsible, with one of his henchmen pulling the trigger.
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': "Dance with the Dead" begins with what appears to be a SuicidePact gone wrong. Of course, being Midsomer, it is never suicide.
* ''Series/DeathInParadise'':
** In "Hidden Secrets", the owner of a surf shop committed suicide (to avoid a prolonged death from a terminal disease), and then a friend of his staged the scene to look like murder so the victim's wife would receive the insurance money. [[spoiler:Except that the victim didn't have the disease he thought he did: his doctor friend had faked the disease in order to push the victim into committing suicide, so the doctor could have the victim's wife.]]
** In "The Secret of the Flame Tree'', a young student seemingly throws herself to her death off a cliff in imitation of a literary suicide. However, one look at her suicide note is enough to make Humphrey suspicious that this was not a suicide.
** In "Murder from Above", a bride-to-be seemingly throws herself to her death off her hotel balcony. Everybody, including the Commissioner, wants to write this off as a suicide, but Mooney can't move beyond the fact that she painted one thumbnail before jumping.
** In "Wish You Weren't Here", the second VictimOfTheWeek is killed in such a way as to make it look like he had committed suicide by overdosing on his heart medication. However, as he was the prime suspect in the first murder, DI Mooney is immediately suspicious and the method confirms his theory regarding the first death.
* ''Series/{{Motive}}'': In "The Vanishing Policeman", the team investigates what appears to be the extremely public suicide of a police officer. The officer was actually murdered hours earlier and the 'suicide' was an elaborate piece of misdirection.
* ''Series/Charmed2018'': After his accidental death, Trip is made to look like he hanged himself by Charity as a cover.

* In the ''Series/{{Level 9}}'' episode "A Price to Pay", the team investigates the apparent suicide of Annie's mentor and finds a larger conspiracy at work.
* In the ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'' episode "Murder Ward," a MadDoctor tests a drug he invented on mental patients, four of whom die of respiratory failure. He hangs two of the corpses, knowing that no one will be suspicious of a mental patient's suicide.
* ''Series/{{Harrow}}'': In "Audere Est Facere" ("To Dare Is to Do"), what at first appears to be a tragic accident starts to look like suicide. However, as Harrow continues to dig deeper, he discovers that the 'suicide' is actually a carefully planned murder.
* ''Series/WhodunnitUK'': "All Part of the Service" starts with the police arriving to investigate an apparent suicide. Immediately {{lampshaded}} by host Creator/JonPertwee in his introduction when he says that if it really was a suicide, they wouldn't have a show.
* Zig-zagged in the ''Series/HawaiiFive0'' episode "Nalowale I Ke Ehu O He Kai". The victim, a reformed gangbanger turned priest (and also [[spoiler:Noelani's uncle]]), initially appears to have died of a heart attack, but evidence not in the coroner's report suggests suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. However, the coroner left the evidence out of his report because he was threatened by an old enemy who had once tried to kill the priest. As it turns out, that man is also reformed, the two became friends, and, believing the priest committed suicide, he made the coroner conclude otherwise so as not to undermine the priest's legacy of helping adolescents avoid the gang life. But then the suicide theory falls apart and it turns out he was murdered by someone else who was not a prior suspect and who made his death look like a suicide.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Red Snow", KGB Colonel Ilyanov does not believe that Major Yuri Andreev, the previous investigator sent to the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]], cut his own throat as is generally believed. When he examines Andreev's frozen body, he immediately notices that there is no blood on the wound, indicating that the cut was made after his death. He later learns that Andreev was killed by vampires.
* ''Series/InTheDark'': Sam habitually makes her hits look like suicides, according to Stirling. Within the show, we see this when she murdered [[spoiler:Detective Becker]].
* ''Series/DarkDesire'':
** Brenda is theorized to not have really killed herself, with it being murder made to look that way. [[spoiler:It turns out that she did though.]]
** Julieta in Season 2 appears to have jumped off a roof initially. It soon becomes apparent she was pushed.
* The ''Series/FantasyIsland'' episode "Seance" has a woman who wants to contact her twin brother, who threw himself off a bridge. [[spoiler:He was actually the victim of an InheritanceMurder by their cousin, who drugged him, dragged him to the bridge, and shoved him off.]]
* ''Series/DeadMansGun'': In "Next of Kin", Winston apparently commits suicide using the eponymous gun. However, during the denouement, Jeb points out that if he had shot himself, there would have been powder residue on his hand.
* ''Series/ColonelMarchOfScotlandYard'': In "Passage of Arms", the killer attempts to make it look like the VictimOfTheWeek committed suicide by leaving an empty bottle of sleeping pills by her body. However, he had actually smothered her with a VorpalPillow and then forced some of the pills down her throat after she was dead.
* ''Series/ResidentAlien'': Sam's death initially appears to be suicide in Harry's judgment, although those close with dispute that he had any reason for that. On further examination, though, it turns out he was poisoned.

* In the Mercedes Lackey book ''Literature/FourAndTwentyBlackbirds'', everyone except Tal Rufen is willing to accept the murder-suicides as an enormous series of unrelated incidents where a man kills a musician and then commits suicide. He figures out that they're actually a chain of double murders committed by a mage controlling the apparent killer from a distance.
* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': In book #6 (''The Cat Who Played Post Office''), the victim even leaves a note saying that if she apparently commits suicide, it was most likely murder at the hands of the most obvious suspect in the murder Qwill was originally investigating. However, [[spoiler:the trope is subverted at the [[TwistEnding very last page]]. As Qwill himself says, "It wasn't murder made to look like suicide, it was suicide made to look like murder!" On top of that, it's entirely possible that the victim wasn't exactly the manipulated patsy of an accomplice she makes herself out to be. She was, after all, the brains of the family law firm.]]
* ''Literature/PrettyGirls'' initially averts this with the death of [[spoiler:Sam Carroll]]. It was considered suicide because it was done in their home, cause of death was an injection of animal medicine that they would have access to as a vet and a suicide note was found. It's not until near the end of the novel, that it's revealed that it was a murder performed by [[spoiler:his future son-in-law, Paul Scott]].
* Creator/MichaelConnelly detective novels:
** Averted in ''Literature/TheDrop''. A mysterious death is written off as a suicide, but Harry Bosch doesn't buy it and discovers there's a lot more to the case--but in the end, it turns out that it actually was a suicide after all.
** ''Literature/TheNarrows'' played similarly with the death of Terry [=McCaleb=] in that he was poisoned. It initially appeared a suicide but was later connected to the main case of the story, chasing the serial killer known as The Poet (from [[Literature/ThePoet the titular novel]]). [[spoiler:In the end, it was shown that it really was a suicide but the FBI covered this up and blamed the above serial killer so that his wife can keep his pension]].
** ''Literature/TheBlackIce'': Played straight with the apparent suicide of Calexico Moore. Subverted in that not only was it not a suicide, [[FakingTheDead it wasn't Cal Moore, either]].
* Played with in the first Literature/{{Spenser}} novel, ''The Godwulf Manscript''. Spenser discovers the body of a young woman who had been involved in the case he was working on, lying dead in her bathtub. The crime was made to look like a suicide, though Spenser spots evidence that makes suicide seem unlikely. Unfortunately, the police captain in charge of the investigation is on the take, and the crime lord responsible for the murder leans on him to brush it under the rug, so he states that it's clearly a suicide and washes his hands of it.

* During ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'', at one point Zak appears to have eaten poisonous cryptberries, well aware of how lethal they were, and died. The readers know that's not what happened, though he did have reason and it didn't look entirely unexpected. Apparently aware of this trope, or possibly afflicted by the fear that her only surviving relative may have killed himself, his sister Tash soundly rejects what it looks like and bullies her uncle into agreeing that there's probably more to it.
* Jo Nesbø's novel ''[[Literature/HarryHole Nemesis]]'' [[spoiler:subverts this - Anna Bethsen really did kill herself]].
* Lindsey Davis's novel ''[[Literature/MarcusDidiusFalco Alexandria]]'' has a [[spoiler:subversion. By the end of the book, Falco concludes that Theon's death was most likely a suicide and the locked doors of his office were an accident. There's no irrefutable evidence to support this, but it's clearly meant to be the answer.]]
* Hank Palace, the detective hero of Ben H. Winters' ''Literature/TheLastPoliceman'' suspects and tries to prove that an actuary found choked by his own belt in UsefulNotes/{{McDonalds}} was murdered although he looks like a suicide. This idea gets even more resistance because there is a worldwide suicide epidemic due to the [[ColonyDrop rogue asteroid]] that's expected to end all human life on Earth.
* The central question of ''{{Literature/Reconstructing Amelia}}'' is whether the title character threw herself off the roof of the school or if she was pushed, and if so who pushed her. It turns out [[spoiler:she ''was'' pushed, and the culprit was none other than her best friend, who got into an argument with her and accidentally did it.]]
* ''Literature/TheCrownerJohnMysteries'': In ''Crowner's Quest'', John is called in to investigate when a priest hanged himself in the privy. John becomes suspicious when he notices that the short priest short not have been able to reach the beam he was found hanging from. He then finds ligature marks on the priest's neck that indicate he was strangled before being strung up.
* ''Literature/{{Matilda}}'': When Miss Honey tells Matilda about her father's death, she says that the cops ruled it out as suicide. Matilda doesn't believe it, instead suggesting that Trunchbull may have been the one who killed him, [[spoiler:and given her reaction when Matilda uses her powers to make it seem that Magnus' "ghost" is haunting her, it's all but confirmed that she was right]].
* ''Literature/ChocoholicMysteries'':
** As discussed in ''Bridal Bash'', when Sally [=TenHuis=]' fiancé Bill Dykstra was found dead, it was believed to be a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning; he'd shut himself in his car with a rubber hose leading from the exhaust pipe. One of his friends, however, managed to convince himself for years that it had to have been a murder, and by the book's end, he turns out to be right.
** Happens again in ''Castle Clue'', where Dan Rice's death was ruled a suicide forty-five years before. His wife remained convinced it was an accident, but it's ultimately proven to have been murder.
* Two examples in ''Literature/IHeardThatSongBefore'':
** Nicholas Greco investigates as to whether Grace - who drowned in her swimming pool after getting drunk -intentionally drowned herself, as her marriage was failing, she’d started drinking again after months of sobriety and she may had feared she'd damaged her unborn child via excessive alcohol consumption. However, upon talking to those who knew her best, he comes to the conclusion suicide is unlikely; Grace would've wanted her baby to live after having three miscarriages and she was planning on leaving her husband Peter for her lover; she only stuck it out after getting pregnant because she'd subsequently receive more money in the divorce settlement.
** It's revealed that [[spoiler:Jonathan Lansing]] didn't commit suicide when his body turns up on the Carrington estate with his skull bashed in; he was murdered and his death made to look like a suicide to prevent Susan's body being uncovered ([[spoiler:Jonathan]] had planned a garden in the area where the body was buried and wanted the Carringtons to see the plans [[spoiler:even after he was fired]]).
* ''Literature/TheSpeedOfSound'': Henry Townsend, a congressman backed by the American Heritage Foundation, [[OutWithABang accidentally strangles a hooker during sex]] and calls the Foundation to get him out of trouble. Instead, the Foundation sends two assassins who force him to shoot himself to protect their reputation.
* ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'': [[spoiler:Kirk]] from ''Death of a Bachelorette'' appears to kill himself via a drug overdose. Jaine isn't convinced, of course.

* ''Series/PsychopathDiary'': In-woo's modus operandi is to make his murders look like suicide. Bo-kyung is the only person who suspects foul play.
** He causes a gas leak in an elderly woman's home and gets her to lock herself in.
** He drugs the homeless man and sets fire to the building. The police put it down as suicide by arson.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in an early episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''. Olivia and Elliot are investigating the death of a young woman who fell from her apartment window onto a parked car. Suicide is ruled out about thirty seconds after the opening credits, and with good cause: there is evidence of someone else in the room, and the victim appeared to have been ''thrown through the windowpane'' all the way into the street. [[spoiler:As it turns out, the victim ''did'' kill herself, having been DrivenToSuicide by a series of emotionally and physically abusive relationships, beginning with the father who raped her when she was a child.]]
* ''Series/{{Monk}}'' does it all the time.
** Most notably, Stottlemeyer recalls a case where all the evidence pointed towards the victim committing suicide by overdosing on pills. However, Monk takes one look at the crime scene and destroys the suicide theory by asking, "Where's the water?" Turns out, the pills were too big to swallow unassisted and there was no evidence of any liquids in the room.
* ''Series/{{Psych}}'', too. There was even an episode about a SerialKiller who went after people who had called a suicide hotline and made their deaths look like suicides.
** In a later episode, [[spoiler:this trope gets twisted around when Shawn notices that a daredevil's stunts are being sabotaged. Naturally he assumes attempted murder, but it turns out the daredevil is sabotaging his own stunts because he has cancer and a secret life insurance policy that pays more if he dies in a stunt than of natural causes.]]
* Even ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' had one. In a bit of a twist, the deaths actually were suicide, but the victims' therapist had purposely [[DrivenToSuicide driven them to it]].

* ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}'' did a subversion. Charlie, upset over the death of a student, gets Don to look into it to see if it was really suicide. [[spoiler:It was, but in the process of investigating it they uncover another crime.]]
** Played straight in two later episodes, one involving an ex-girlfriend of Don's, the other an old college friend of Charlie's. In the former case, Don simply doesn't believe the victim was suicidal and asks Charlie to look into it, prompting him to discover a key piece of evidence. In the latter, Charlie is suspicious because his friend had told him she was afraid for her life and because three of her colleagues had also died in apparent accidents in the past few weeks, which Charlie knows is statistically unlikely. In both cases, it turns out that the women were killed because they knew something their killers wanted to keep secret.
* Subverted in ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' when Crosetti dies, it's almost immediately apparent to everyone that it's a suicide (even if they'd rather not face up to it), but Lewis has a major case of denial and refuses to believe that Crosetti would kill himself and under the cover of 'investigating' what 'really' happened attempts to undermine the investigation by tampering with witnesses. Eventually the call from the coroner comes in to confirm that it was suicide - and Lewis breaks down.
** Double subverted later on when Beau Felton is found with his head blown off. Everyone including Lewis is sure it's suicide this time since Felton was a troubled alcoholic whose wife had split with the kids. Then the medical examiner reconstructs the skull fragments and finds a bullet hole from a handgun in the back of his head. The killer used the shotgun to both stage it to look like a suicide and obscure the actual cause of death.

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'':
** Subverted with [[spoiler:Logan's mother]]. It really was just a suicide. (Probably. [[NeverFoundTheBody They never did find the body.]])
** Played straight with [[spoiler:Dean O'Dell]], whose murder is an elaborate suicide set-up to eventually implicate his unfaithful wife and her lover.

* ''Series/PushingDaisies'': at least twice (in "Pigeon" and "Bad Habits").
** Played with in another episode. Turns out the deaths are suicides, but the... victims? were hired to test an experimental drug that drove them to do it, making the drug company culpable.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds''
** Played straight ''and'' subverted in an episode. A number of parents of children who died in a school accident begin committing suicide at a rate far above what would be expected for the situation. Sure enough, there's a serial killer disguising his murders as suicides. Except for one of the deaths, which turns out to have been a real suicide after all.
** In another episode, a number of high school kids appear to be committing suicide by hanging with little obvious connection between the victims. It turned out they were actually being tricked over the internet into playing a dangerous game whereby the kids hang themselves near to death and cut the wire at the last minute to obtain a natural "high"- the deaths are those who failed to cut it in time and thus "lost" the game. The mastermind turned out to be an [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] who has Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy; he forced his son to hang himself near to death over the years in order to get attention and pity as the poor dad with the depressive, self-harming son. The idea of making this an internet game came about when he got tired of abusing just his own kid.
* The Japan episode of ''Series/CriminalMindsBeyondBorders'' is centered all around these. The team is called in to investigate an uptick in American suicides in Japan, while the local authorities are sure they're legitimate suicides. It turns out to be [[spoiler:a man killing the people he holds responsible for his parents' suicides, framing them as suicides more because he feels it's "appropriate" than to fool the authorities.]]
* Subverted several times in ''Series/InspectorMorse''. Morse insists on investigating several cases of suicide which are ''actually'' suicide. He has become quite knowledgeable on what details to look for.
* Subverted in the ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' episode "A Murderer Among Us". The detectives intially suspect a man of killing his wife, but ultimately determine that the victim [[SuicideNotMurder staged her own suicide]] [[spoiler:to frame her husband. She had discovered that her husband murdered a number of Jewish men and she had been his unwitting accomplice; she had also recently learned of her own Jewish heritage. Before cutting her wrists, she inflicted wounds on herself similar to those her husband inflicted on his victims. The detectives infer the woman wanted to spare her daughter from learning the truth about her father.]]
* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' has an interesting take on this trope. When investigating the death of two women, an agent suggest it might be suicide only to be told that it didn't matter, standard procedure insists that all deaths are to be treated as murders until proven otherwise. [[spoiler:Naturally in this instance, going by procedure pays off]].
* ''Series/{{Scandal}}'': Played with in "Spies Like Us" when an ex-[[GovernmentAgencyofFiction B613]] agent shoots himself in a residential neighborhood in broad daylight with several witnesses - to show his death ''wasn't'' a hit.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In "With Intent to Die", Admiral Chegwidden’s mentor decease at a hunt, and Chegwidden refuses to believe it was either a suicide or an accident. Turns out he had the right hunch.

%% * Subverted in a fairly painful way on an episode of ''Series/TheCloser''.
* Subverted in ''Series/TheAdventuresOfBriscoCountyJr''. The cancer-ridden AssholeVictim and his accomplice set up his death so it looked like the man sleeping with his wife had killed him.
* Played with on ''Series/{{House}}''. [[spoiler:When Kutner was found dead of a gunshot wound, House was temporarily convinced it must have been murder because he hadn't noticed any signs that Kutner was depressed (possibly because they had to [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Drop A Bridge On Him]] at the last minute), but there was no way that could have been the case.]]
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', where Claire discovers her college roommate apparently having committed suicide by jumping out the window, even leaving a note about how depressed she was, despite having planned out her whole life. Learning that being pushed will send a body a further distance than jumping, Claire jumps out the window herself ([[GoodThingYouCanHeal Good Thing She Can Heal]]), only to land on the same spot. [[spoiler:Played straight, actually. She was pushed out the window by an invisible girl, but we don't find that out for a few episodes.]]

* An apparent suicide sets the events of ''Series/StateOfPlay'' in motion. Proving it was actually murder is just the start.
* In ''Series/StargateUniverse'' everyone assumes that the emotionally unstable marine with discipline issues was murdered. And to be fair, he didn't get along very well with a large number of the crew. However, [[spoiler:the trope ends up [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] when it turns out he ''did'' commit suicide and [[InsufferableGenius Rush]] framed it so it looked like a murder, to get [[TheCaptain Colonel Young]] removed from command, but making sure to make it look ''enough'' like a suicide that Young wouldn't be convicted by the impromptu jury.]].
* ''Series/UnsolvedMysteries'' did this with about half its cases. Nearly every next-episode preview featured at least one case in which someone had been found dead, and narrator Robert Stack would always end it with "the police ruled it a suicide, but the family says...murder."

* ''Series/DaVincisInquest'' averts this more than once. More unusually, the accidents sometimes really are accidents.
* ''Series/BostonLegal'' subverted this in one episode that started where the girlfriend of Missi Pyle's recurring character was found by police (hanged) in a manner that suggested murder (hands bound behind back, etc.), and Missi is arrested and charged with the then it's later revealed that the victims ex-husband actually found her dead (still hanged, but that was all) of suicide and staged it to look like a break-in murder. He'd altered the scene since he was still the beneficiary of her life insurance policy, which would not pay out on suicide. Missi's arrest for her murder seemed to actually be accidental on his part, as he hadn't deliberately framed her.

* [[spoiler:Donkey's death]] in ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'', as well as the [[BoardToDeath "banishment" of several Friend group chairmen.]]

* Double subverted in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' manga. Eddie Johnson meets with his boss Robin Wolfe, who wants to talk with him about his being disrespectful to others at work, and commits suicide on the way home. The police suspect that Robin killed Eddie because he was the last person Eddie saw while alive, and Robin decides to hire Phoenix to represent him, but [[UnreliableExpositor doesn't tell the whole truth about Eddie]]. However, after talking to the Wolfe family and Eddie's brother Brock, realizes that Robin may not have actually killed Eddie, but he essentially deliberately drove him to suicide, which is virtually the same thing, and which leads him to decide not to represent him.
* Inverted in ''Anime/Danganronpa3 Future Arc'' with the time limit murders. [[spoiler:Every single person who was near a monitor when the time limit was in effect killed themselves, as the monitors [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed them into doing it]] using Monokuma's "Gloomy Sunday" video. By the Mastermind neglecting to mention this aspect, they could sow dissent further into the branch heads and make them think they would kill another of their members during the knockout phase.]]

* In ''ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron'', after Isard has an agent shoot Admiral [[SmallNameBigEgo Lon Isoto]] in the back, she tells the agent to make it look like a suicide. ...Exactly how you do this with a ''blaster wound in the back'' is unclear. Maybe the girl just shoved him into grinding machinery and told everyone he'd thrown himself in.

* In ''ComicBook/JonSableFreelance'' #44-45, Jon is present on board a yacht when a movie star seemingly [[LockedRoomMystery commits suicide inside his locked cabin]] by shooting himself in the head. Of course, it is Never Suicide, and Jon turns detective to work out what really happened.

* In ''[[https://www.youtube.com/user/blackbugbrutha Kikaider The Abridged Series,]]'' every homicide seems to get written off by the police as a suicide case that is then promptly ignored.
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12050459/1/Embers-and-Frost Embers and Frost,]]'' Thatch freaks out when he sees Ace climbing on the railing of the Moby Dick, as Ace was brutally tortured and it would be logical for him to think about suicide (actually, he was only really, really depressed). Then it gets worse when Haruta yells at Ace and the kid is later discovered with his wrists slits (after being assaulted by Pitch Black) which drives Haruta in full-blown MyGodWhatHaveIDone mode.

* A large plot point in the movie ''Film/IRobot''. Although the death appears to be a suicide to any relatively sane person, the dead man knew that Spooner would automatically suspect a robot when one was found at the scene and left him a trail of breadcrumbs to follow in order to uncover the bigger issue at stake. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the robot did kill the man, but the man asked him to (and made him capable of doing such a thing) which makes it a SuicideByAssassin with the man [[ThanatosGambit specifically requesting that the robot kill him in a way that would make the main character think that it's murder]].]]

* Played Straight in ''Film/TheGhostAndMrsMuir''. Everyone thinks that Captain Gregg committed suicide by closing all the windows and doors and turning on the gas. He takes extreme offense to this and explains that he closed the windows and doors that night because it was raining and accidentally kicked the switch to the gas on when he fell asleep in a chair.

* In ''Film/LAConfidential'', [[spoiler:Patchett's murder by Dudley]] is staged into a suicide. White notices that he decided to write a suicide note and open his wrists... while having two of his fingers broken.
* Played with in ''Film/{{Heathers}}'' (movie and musical). JD and an unwilling Veronica kill three of their classmates and make it look like suicide. The laughably incompetent police barely bother investigating once they see the suicide notes.
* Parodied in ''Film/FatalInstinct'' when Lana murders her lover Frank and stages it as a suicide. The police find his suicide note shoved up his nose.
* In ''Film/{{Goldstone}}'', Jimmy's killers try to make it look like he hanged himself. Jay isn't convinced and, after a little digging, neither does Josh.
* In ''Film/UnfriendedDarkWeb'', the Circle initiates a FrameUp by [[spoiler:breaking into Damon's house and hanging him, staging it as a suicide, then writing a confession in his Word document]].
* The first death after the plane explosion in ''Film/FinalDestination'' is caused by Death seeping water into the bathroom for the victim to slip on, landing them in a slick bathtub with their neck garrotted by a clothesline. After he finally dies, the water recedes back to the toilet, making it look like a suicide rather than a slip.
* ''Film/RehearsalForMurder'': Monica's murderer makes it look like she jumped to her death from her bedroom window. Alex is suspicious as soon as he arrives at the crime scene.
* In ''Film/{{Andhadhun}}'', Manohar attempts to kill Akash with a noose to make it look like a suicide. Akash manages to escape.
* ''Film/TortureGarden'': In "Terror Over Hollywood", Mike Charles threatens to spill the beans over the secret of the Top 10 who rule HorribleHollywood. A bartender in their employ knocks him out and leaves him locked inside his car inside his garage with the engine running.
* In ''Film/MurderSheSaid'', Harold dies by his own shotgun. The police are unsure if it was suicide by a remorseful murderer or the third victim. Needless to say, he is the third victim.
* ''Film/BigDriver'': Tess speculates that Lester and or his mother may have murdered Lester's father (his death was ruled a suicide) as it's possible he'd been intent on exposing Lester's crimes. It's never confirmed however-he might have just been distraught over finding out his son is a monster.
* ''Film/KnivesOut'': Wealthy novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead in his room with his throat slashed with a knife in his hand. The police declare his death to be a suicide, but private detective Benoit Blanc is hired by an anonymous party to investigate and believes that he might have been killed. [[spoiler:Not long in the film, [[SubvertedTrope it is revealed that Harlan actually did kill himself]], in a [[ComplexityAddiction misguided and over-complicated]] attempt to protect his nurse/[[IntergenerationalFriendship close friend]] Marta Cabrera from being charged with manslaughter after she mistakenly gave him an overdose of morphine instead of his medication. It is further revealed that this happened because the labels on the drugs were swapped by [[BigBad the real mastermind]], who had been planning to kill Thrombey and frame Marta in one stroke, and subsequently hired Blanc with hope that he'd misidentify Marta as the killer]].
* ''Film/TheLongGoodbye'': The police believe Terry Lennox murdered his wife and promptly committed suicide out of guilt. Literature/PhilipMarlowe, of course, suspects there's more to it and that Lennox was murdered in order to [[FrameUp posthumously frame him for the death of his wife]]. [[spoiler:Turns out both sides are right, but no in the way they thought; Lennox really did murder his wife, but he definitely didn't commit suicide... because [[FakingTheDead he's not really dead at all]].]]
* In ''Film/ElectraGlideInBlue'', an old hermit seemingly commits suicide by shooting himself in the chest, but Wintergreen thinks it was murder because the vast majority of gun suicides shoot themselves in the head. The autopsy confirms that he was also shot in the back of the head with a small bullet that left an easy-to-miss entry wound.
* ''Film/SherlockCaseOfEvil'': Upon discovering Dr. Cruikshank hanged and leaving behind a signed confession as a suicide note, Inspector Lestrade is convinced that the case of the West End Killer is solved. Holmes is not convinced as the whole thing seems too pat. Ultimately, Holmes discovers that Cruikshank's 'suicide' is yet another of Moriarty's ploys to through the police off his trail.
* In ''Film/TheSleepingCardinal'', Watson is certain that Roland Adair's is a case of suicide, but Holmes is able to prove it is murder.

* ''Film/{{Bloodthirsty}}'': Greta, Vaughn's wife, shot herself according to him. [[spoiler:He later admits he'd killed her, but claims it was self-defense. Given just how murderous he gets revealed as however, this is dubious.]]
* ''Film/TheManTheyCouldNotHang'': Over the month following Savaard's execution, six of the jurors from his trial are found hanged in apparent suicides, a commonality noticed by reporter 'Scoop' Foley.
* ''Film/PleaseMurderMe'': After shooting [[spoiler:Craig Carlson]], Myra attempts to make it look like a suicide. what she didn't know was that [[spoiler: EngineeredPublicConfession had been CaughtOnTape]].
* ''Film/TheManWhoTurnedToStone'': Deciding not to pass off Anna Sherman's death as a heart attack as they have with their previous victims, the doctors instead make it look like she hanged herself. However, Carol Adams is still suspicious.
* In ''Film/JacksBack'', [[spoiler:Jack]] strangles John and then makes it look like John hanged himself. the police buy this for a while, but John's brother Rick does not.

* ''Literature/MistressOfTheArtOfDeath'': Bertha in ''The Serpent's Tale'' and Brune in ''A Murderous Procession'' are believed to have killed themselves. Adelia disagrees.

* ''The Raven at the Foregate'', a Literature/BrotherCadfael mystery by Creator/EllisPeters: [[spoiler:Subverted; it was suicide.]]
* Sir Henry Merrivale: In ''She Died a Lady'', Dr. Luke spent the novel trying to prove the two deaths were not suicide.
* Creator/ElleryQueen: ''The Greek Coffin Mystery'': The second solution involves a "suicide" not meant to convince the reader.
* Inverted in the ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' story "The Problem of Thor Bridge": The servant of the house is accused of murdering the mistress, the evidence initially points to the murder being likely, until Holmes realizes the gun he found wasn't the murder weapon, and it was an elaborate suicide made to frame the servant.
** The story was based on a true incident, and there's been at least one known case where that was attempted after the Holmes story was published.
* In the third ''Literature/{{Spaceforce}}'' novel, the detectives are investigating a suspicious but apparently accidental death. Then a woman who was unrequitedly in love with the (female) victim is found dead, in a classic suicide scenario. They immediately suspect murder.
* Inverted in ''LightNovel/AnotherNote: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases'', in which L and Naomi Misora investigate a series of murders, except for the last, which is a [[spoiler:suicide meant to look like a murder.]]
* In ''[[Literature/TakeshiKovacs Altered Carbon]]'', [[spoiler:this is averted in all sorts of ways]]. Not only is the victim exceedingly powerful, wealthy, and nigh-immortal (and hence unlikely to just off himself, especially as he'd be brought back to life from a backup soon enough), but there's a fair list of people keen to have him killed.
** Extra points for the fact that the investigator is hired by the victim whose backed-up memories were restored to a clone body shortly after his death, who is determined to prove that his death was a murder.
*** And just for kicks [[spoiler:it actually ''was'' suicide, albeit to prevent his memories of murdering a prostitute under the influence of a drug from being uploaded to his backup.]]

** Subverted in a rather tragic instance, [[spoiler:an IllGirl [[StuffBlowingUp blows herself and her car up]] when she finds out that [[SurpriseIncest her fiancé was her long-lost twin brother]]. Bad thing, the fiancé was in the restaurant in whose parking lot she killed herself ''and'' both of them had suspected one another of cheating, so he was immediately accused of murdering her. Conan had to race against the clock to defuse the whole deal.]]

* The death of Salvador Allende spent 40 years in this state: Due to the circumstances of his death (dying inside a presidential palace that was being actively shelled by artillery during a military coup) and that the suicide was announced by the Junta who overthrew his government ([[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch who would have a vested interest in looking blameless on the matter]]), some parties (chief amongst them UsefulNotes/FidelCastro, who had been a friend of Allende's) questioned the official story and claimed the Junta had killed Allende during the siege instead. It was only in 2011, after the Junta had fallen, that an independent commission could confirm, based on an autopsy report and witness testimonies, that Allende [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled had indeed shot himself rather than fall into the Junta's hands]].

* ''Series/BostonLegal'' subverted this in one episode that started where the girlfriend of Missi Pyle's recurring character was found by police (hanged) in a manner that suggested murder (hands bound behind back, etc.), then it's later revealed that Missi actually found her dead (still hanged, but that was all) of suicide and staged it to look like a break-in murder. She'd altered the scene since most (if not all) insurance policies (one of these which her girlfriend had had) don't pay out on suicides.