How to determine if a deceased person has committed suicide or has been the victim of an accidental death or even a homicide? As much as forensic teams today have extensive training, the application of the latest technologies and an exhaustive protocol to draw clear conclusions from both the death investigation and a rigorous physiological autopsy, there are times when it is practically impossible. unfeasible to rule with 100% certainty the cause of death. This is where the so-called psychological autopsy, an auxiliary method, and in many cases fundamental, of police investigations, comes into play and is becoming increasingly important in Spain. It is also a tool that is increasingly used for suicide prevention.
This method is based on the premise, commonly accepted by both criminologists and forensic psychologists, that, somehow, every victim of a death produced in unclear circumstances leaves “psychological traces” that can clarify the causes of death in their family relationships. , in their employment relationship, in their habits and behaviors prior to their death… Therefore, what it is about is to follow those “traces” in the behavior of the deceased in their last days or hours of life to seek explanations in their behavior and their psyche, and thus clarify what has really happened.
“Psychological autopsy began to be used in our country at the end of the 80s of the last century in the forensic field of the Civil Guard corps. The National Police has been using it more and more since the 1990s. We do not have a clear percentage of its incidence, because the cases are not specifically counted and because it is not an exact science, but its usefulness, even in complaints of disappearances, makes this technique more and more necessary. On the other hand, many times its use in the resolution of a case is not made public at the request of the parties involvedâ€, explains Francisco Pérez, professor of Psychology, Criminology and Security at the Camilo José Cela University. Hence, he considers it vital that registration procedures and instruments be improved.
Forensic psychology is carried out in Spain by specialists in the psychological departments of the different police forces, starting with various local police forces. What is sought is to “understand” the victim and thus clarify her death. If there is evidence of criminality, it is necessary to determine if the death of the victim constitutes some form of simulated suicide or an attempted fraud. In these cases, only the victim –and the hypothetical murderer– know the cause of death, so it must be unraveled by scrutinizing the mind of the deceased, the only person we are certain was ‘there’.
“With the rise of the mafias and the settling of accounts, we increasingly need a police officer with psychology studies that allows us to find out if there is something in the vicissitudes of a victim’s life that has caused them to commit suicide or if we are facing a very well planned and executed deceptionâ€, exposes from anonymity one of the members of the General Commissioner for Criminal Investigation of the Mossos d’Esquadra.
“After decades of errors in the interpretation of their work, behavioral psychologist analysts do not determine who, but rather try to unravel motivations in search of how, why and for what (…) as hypotheses-generating machines that guide behavior. The work of field researchers, always fundamental and irreplaceable, in contexts of uncertainty”, explains Francisco Pérez, who, together with Heriberto Janosch, also a professor of Psychology, Criminology and Security, and the pharmacologist Francisco López, signs the article ‘Psychological autopsy as auxiliary technology of conduct analysis and police investigation’, published in the magazine ‘Logos’ published by the Civil Guard University Center.
In life insurance and workers’ compensation dispute resolution cases, the psychological autopsy is performed by experts with training in psychiatry and psychology. “Let’s think about it: how can we decide whether or not someone has jumped from a scaffolding?” The question is from Óscar Lorente, one of these experts, in his case trained in Psychology and Law and Criminology at the University of Barcelona. “Before, there were many deaths that were declared suicides without sufficient investigation, but it has been more than a decade since everything has taken the necessary course, since not everything is always what it seems at first glance. I receive requests from both families and mutual insurance companies â€, he remarks.
The other great aspect of this methodology is its crucial support in suicide prevention. “The suicide rate in Spain exceeds the world average. Galicia, Andalusia, Castilla y León and Aragón are the autonomous communities with the highest number of cases. We are talking, with post-pandemic figures, of approximately 11 people per day, which exceeds the world average of nine set by the World Health Organization, and in our country many take place in summer and among the migrant population. Thanks to the psychological autopsy, we identify common risk factors and rule out psychiatric pathologiesâ€, reveals Mariano López, a psychiatrist at the Mental Health Unit of the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital in Madrid, in an article in the magazine ‘Redacción Médica’.
Since it is carried out postmortem, the tools available to the specialist who carries out the psychological autopsy are collateral or ‘third-party’ sources of information, such as statements from relatives and friends, or from people who were in contact with the victim. before his death, as well as the health records, writings and correspondence prior to his death and, obviously, the presence of alcohol or other drugs in the physiological autopsy, medical history, socioeconomic and psychosocial factors and legal records.
“But not all is so easy. Many times this expert will find himself without concrete and truthful information or that even the memories of people close to or present a few hours after the death of the victim are diffuse and highly affected, distorting the mental state and his previous behavior, either in a conscious or not. Let us think of those cases in which the victim’s partner does not recognize and denounce the suicidal behaviors of their deceased spouse due to their guilt for the deathâ€, points out the professor of Criminology at the University of Barcelona Jordi Palomar.
Along the same lines, López, Pérez and Janosch highlight that in cases whose data is restricted, random or contradictory or which find tortuous and/or problematic resolutions that never satisfy all the parties involved in the process, the researcher-analyst in charge of this psychological autopsy should keep in mind that people always keep secrets. Thus, the analyst must begin by deconstructing the case and reorganizing it in order to clarify whether there may have been errors of appreciation at any point.
The origins of this forensic technique lie on the west coast of the United States, where it began to be used in the mid-20th century by Dr. Edwin Shneidman. Known as the father of contemporary suicidality, Schneidman began to develop this new methodology when he came across 100 suicide notes in the Stanford faculty files and, along with other doctors, began to investigate in order to find new methods. to prevent this horrible life outcome. Along with Norman Farberow and Robert Litman, he founded the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center in 1958 and laid the foundations for the necessary evaluation of psychological or psychiatric disorders or pathologies –diagnosed or not- when clarifying a death.
The protocols for performing a psychological autopsy today follow two main models, the one established by the American researcher Thomas J. Young based on 26 categories of information that must be completed to consider rigorous analysis – it is the model used by the Department of Justice of United States– and the one developed by the Cuban psychiatrist Teresa GarcÃa, known as the MAPI Protocol, the retrospective investigation procedure of the victim’s personality most widely used in the Latin American context. However, experts point out that more reliable statistical studies are still needed to determine the hit and miss rate of these reports, which in no case should be considered evidence despite its undoubted value.
This lack of analysis means that, at a time when the applications of Artificial Intelligence prevail in police investigations, experts point out the risks of using it as an analysis tool in psychological autopsy. “In this field, AI presents two controversial difficulties that are difficult to subvert: the ease with which it induces illusory correlations, as well as the difficulties it usually encounters when dealing with the random-chaos binomial with low volumes of dataâ€, point out López, Pérez and Janosch. Likewise, they consider that in the case of the existing technological tools to determine the risk of a victim of sexist violence suffering new attacks, the effectiveness of a specific software would depend in any case on the quantity and quality of the data that is entered into the system. algorithm, but it could never replace the specialization and professional qualification of the police investigation on the ground and the forensic team.
