Experts debate fire
suicide linksTwo deaths and an attempt in
one week have some wondering
about a copycat effect
Three intentionally set fires this week, two ruled suicides, have sparked questions as to whether the latter two are copycats.
"It's possible," said Stephen Whiting, a fire consultant. "Three fires involving suicide in a row are unusual."
Whiting, a former fire expert with the Honolulu Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division, said: "In my time, I can only remember three fire suicides in eight years.
"Most people don't choose suicide by fire," he said. "It's a damn painful way to die."
On Monday, a 40-year-old Hawaii Kai woman and her two daughters, 7 and 3, were found on the bedroom floor, dead from smoke inhalation. Police have classified the case a murder-suicide after a suicide note was found. The woman suffered from a disease that caused dizziness, fluctuating hearing loss and a hypersensitivity to sounds.
On Wednesday, a 76-year-old Pacific Palisades man died in a house fire, and the medical examiner's office classified it a suicide. The man was caring for his wife who had Parkinson's disease and had suffered a stroke.
On Thursday, a 42-year-old Waimanalo woman, who had been despondent, set fire to her bedroom, police said. After attempts to open the door failed, her daughter's boyfriend broke the bedroom window from the outside and pulled her to safety.
Psychiatrists disagree as to whether Wednesday and Thursday's fires are copycats.
Forensic psychiatrist Robert Marvit said: "Drawing a cause-and-effect association, other than a temporal one, may be unwarranted," he said. "It doesn't sound like a copycat thing."
Rather, "there seems to be quite a discrepancy with the various individuals," he said, noting no similarity between the mother of two, the woman in Waimanalo and the man in his 70s caring for his ailing wife.
Daryl Matthews, forensic psychiatrist, disagrees.
"At least the choice of method seems to be related, not the actual choice of suicide," he said.
"It's an unusual choice of method," he said. "Most people who want to kill themselves don't choose fire," whereas drug overdosing and jumping are far more common than fire.
Matthews said the people involved may have already been at high risk for suicide.
"These people didn't get the idea for suicide," he said. "It's more suggestions of the method of choice for people contemplating suicide."
Matthews said that whenever something comes to the public's attention, whether suicide or murder-suicide, copycats occur.
University of Hawaii journalism professor Beverly Keever said, "Many news editors say they decline to cover suicides in most cases because there's a copycat syndrome."
She said some research has validated that.
However, Keever related that her students had interviewed the chief medical examiner in the late '80s and learned there were a lot of suicides among the young and the elderly that had not been brought to the public's attention.
"The public was not aware of it," she said, adding that it was a social sickness probably not even recognized by experts in the field.
"I don't believe it's the press's job to cover up the facts," Keever said. "It's a tough ethical question for the press."
