The most common victim-offender relationship involving homicide scene staging is an intimate partner relationship.

A woman is found dead, hanging by a ligature in her closet and discovered by her husband who appears heartbroken and grieving. You cut her down and confirm there is no pulse. By all accounts, the scene looks like a suicide. You call it as such and summon the coroner. Right?

Now consider that the husband (who found his wife hanging) had a documented history of domestic violence against his now-deceased wife. Would you ask more questions? Would you look for more witnesses or evidence of foul play? Would you secure the scene and call out investigators? Would you go so far as to suggest a possible homicide? Or is this going too far?

In their article, “The Perfect Murder: An Exploratory Study of Staged Murder Scenes and Concealed Femicide,” researchers Yifat Bitton and Hava Dayan take us through some of the variables that point to staged suicide scenes. [1] These variables, when present, give us reasonable cause to consider protecting scenes, like the one above, for a more thorough investigation. The authors provide interesting details about this topic:

• The most common victim-offender relationship involving homicide scene staging is an intimate partner relationship.
• The most staged homicide scenes involve the killing of an intimate partner.

In summarizing the data, Bitton and Dayan point to six predictive factors, that when present, suggest foul play:

• A premature death when the deceased was in apparent good health.
• Death by suicide.
• Evidence that one of the partners wished to terminate the relationship.
• Prior domestic violence on the part of the deceased’s partner.
• The deceased was found dead in her home.
• The deceased was found dead by her current or previous partner.

In her 2020 Psychology Today article, Joni E Johnston Psy.D., reminds us that when someone calls 911 and reports a suicide, “It’s easy to take that at face value. No matter how much an officer is trained to treat any sudden and unexpected death as a homicide until proven otherwise, we are all influenced by what we are first told about an event.

“When officers get to the scene, they not only find what initially looks like a genuine suicide, they have to deal with the seemingly shocked and devastated person who just discovered their loved one hanging on a rope or dead from a shotgun blast. It can be difficult – and seem unnecessarily harsh – to treat the situation as a crime scene and the loved one as a suspect. On top of this, if the person who finds the body is the actual killer (as often, although not always is the case), they have a great opportunity to plant additional seeds of a suicide in the officers’ minds.” [2]

Joni points to the 1985 strangulation death of Meg Purk, which was determined at the time to be a suicide. But in 2015, after the case was re-investigated, a jury convicted Meg’s husband of her murder. [3]

The Alliance for Hope International has been looking into these types of cases for years. They have a team of experts dedicated to re-investigating suspicious, domestic violence-related suicides. Most of these cases involve death by strangulation. Take, for example, the case of Stacy Feldman, which was featured on Dateline. [4] In March 2015, Stacy’s husband, Robert, called 911, reporting that he found Stacy unresponsive in the shower. She was pronounced dead at the scene. In June 2015, Robert was paid $750,000 from a life insurance policy on Stacy.

It wasn’t until 2017, when Dr. Bill Smock – part of the review team for the Alliance and an expert in strangulation – reviewed Stacy’s case and various photographs. He testified that Stacy died due to asphyxia and/or suffocation and that her injuries were the result of an assault including blunt force trauma, strangulation and suffocation. In April 2022, after deliberating for less than three hours, Robert was convicted of first-degree murder. You can be sure that the Alliance has many more examples.

In reviewing the literature, and as a result of their work in this area, the Alliance added four factors to the six listed above by Bitton and Dayan that can predict domestic violence-related staged suicide scenes:

• A prior history of domestic violence that includes strangulation/suffocation.
• The deceased’s partner was the last to see her/him alive.
• The surviving partner had control of the crime scene.
• The body had been moved or the scene/evidence had been altered in some way.

THE BOTTOM LINE

When responding to a suicide call for service, take the time to check for any history of domestic violence, and review the predictive factors above. To learn more, consider registering for training courses conducted by the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention.

When cases like this arise, take pause and consider protecting the scene and calling out investigators. Most importantly, stay safe out there.

Gabby Petito’s phone shows that she took the selfie at 4:37 p.m. on Aug. 12, 2021. Two minutes later, a bystander called 911 to say that they had just witnessed Petito’s boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, slapping Petito in a parking lot in Moab.

Police never located that caller; they instead found a man who said he thought Petito struck Laundrie.

But based on the timing, Petito appears to have taken the picture to document her injury from the slap the 911 caller described. In the image, she is sweating and crying in the back of the van the couple was traveling the country in. And the camera captures a long cut under her left eye, with blood smeared across her cheek and onto her forehead — consistent with the blow she would describe to police, when they later arrived at 4:45 p.m. and pulled the couple over.

The selfie was found on Petito’s cell by her parents after she was killed, and it has never been released publicly.

The attorneys representing Petito’s family are sharing it now as they build their case in a lawsuit filed against Moab police last year, for what they say was a failure by officers to realize that Petito was the victim in the case.

When officers arrived, the attorneys argue, police ignored Petito’s injuries and sided with Laundrie. And because of that negligence in not recognizing the risks Petito faced, they say, Petito was left to continue traveling with Laundrie, who killed her about a month later in Wyoming; Laundrie then killed himself after returning home to Florida.

“Moab police failed to listen to Gabby, failed to investigate her injuries and the seriousness of her assault, and failed to follow their own training, policies, and Utah law,” wrote attorney Brian Stewart, at the law firm of Parker & McConkie, in a statement this week about the photo.

Moab police declined to comment to The Salt Lake Tribune about the photo; the department also has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit from Petito’s parents, but it has said that it stands by its officers’ actions.

Domestic violence experts, though, say that based on the picture, Petito’s injuries were more serious than police seemed to realize. They believe Petito was documenting that she was a victim of domestic violence.

“The thing that stands out to me is she was definitely trying to come to terms with what was happening in her life with this photo,” said Jenn Oxborrow, a licensed clinical social worker and longtime victim advocate in Utah. “When I see people documenting an injury, it’s really important for them, they have something to refer back to.”

Domestic violence, Oxborrow said, is typically cyclical, with acts of violence followed by calmer periods. Victims sometimes feel gaslit by that pattern, she said, or are encouraged by a perpetrator to forget the severity of an assault.

Having a photo can help someone “have a good long look in the mirror” and remember the reality of their relationship, she said.

The attorneys in the case say Petito never sent the photo to anyone. And they don’t know what her intent was in taking it, including whether she planned to report Laundrie to law enforcement. But they believe she was trying to document her injuries.

Her parents approved the release of the photo, but their attorneys say they were too overcome by it to comment.

Gael Strack, the CEO and cofounder of Alliance for Hope International, which includes the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, said she believes the selfie shows that Petito’s injuries were worse than she described to police. Seeing the markings on her face should have prompted officers to ask more questions, Strack said.

In the interaction with police — where Petito can be seen wearing the same shirt and necklaces as in her selfie — Petito tells an officer that Laundrie “grabbed my face.” She reenacts that by putting one hand over her mouth and across her cheek.

The officer asked: “Did he slap your face or what?”

Petito responded: “He grabbed me with his nail, and I guess that’s why it looks — I definitely have a cut right here. I can feel it. When I touch it, it burns.”

Even though a independent review later confirmed that the grab by Laundrie should have been seen as a violent act, the officer doesn’t ask about her injuries further after Petito said she hit Laundrie first, which can be a hallmark sign of an abused partner taking responsibility for the aggressor’s actions.

Strack said she isn’t sure she believes that Petito hit Laundrie first, either. Laundrie’s injuries, she said, were minor and appear to her more like attempts by Petito at self-defense; they were mostly small scratches, which seem to be caused by Laundrie moving his arm out of the way than Petito actually hitting him. Petito had said she punched his arm after he took her phone and tried to lock her out of their van. Police extensively documented his injuries.

In Utah code, any attempt by a perpetrator to cover a victim’s mouth or nose is defined as strangulation — not just someone putting their hands around another’s throat — and should be treated as aggravated assault. When Petito used her hand to cover her mouth to show officers what Laundrie allegedly did to her, Strack said, police should have recognized it as strangulation, a red flag for escalating domestic violence and a better indication that he was the primary aggressor in the situation.

Laundrie did later strangle Petito to death, investigators said.

Strack, who previously worked as a prosecutor, said victims don’t typically describe an experience like Petito’s as being “strangled” or “choked.”

“They usually say someone grabbed my face, which Gabby did,” she said. “It’s up to officers to ask more questions and know what to look for and listen for.”

Joe Bianco, a former detective who now works as a law enforcement support coordinator with Strack’s organization, said it doesn’t surprise him, though, that Petito didn’t show the selfie she had just taken to the officers.

He said, based on watching the body camera footage, that she didn’t appear comfortable with the officers. They didn’t really give her the space to collect herself, Bianco added, and open up. They were quick and asked things like if Petito wanted the officers to tell Laundrie that she loved him.

“You really have to go in there and ask questions,” Bianco said. “Have you ever documented anything like this before? Has these happened in the past? A victim then might be triggered to remember it or bring it up.”

The officers ultimately decided to categorize the case as disorderly conduct instead of domestic violence and separated Petito and Laundrie for the night. Laundrie stayed in town. And Petito stayed in the van.

In recent years, Strack said, she has seen more victims documenting domestic violence, especially with phones. She noted how Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, kept a journal describing abuse in her marriage before she was killed.

Both Oxborrow and Strack said there were warning signs that officers missed when responding to the case, and they urged police departments to train and re-train constantly on domestic violence protocols.

Petito’s parents, Joe Petito and Nicole Schmidt, have recently been in Utah to speak in favor of SB117, a bill that would create a database for police of past domestic violence incidents and calls to police, even if the calls did not lead to criminal charges. The bill would also mandate police ask a series of questions called a Lethality Assessment Program to survivors in order to determine their potential danger.

“Our daughter, Gabby, died as a result of intimate partner violence that could have and should have been identified by law enforcement using the lethality assessment,” Schmidt said.

Source: Courtney Tanner, The Salt Lake Tribune. Click here to view original post.

Shirlene Wakisaka, a mother of two daughters from her previous marriage and a resident of Hawaii, lived with her then-husband Kenneth Wakisaka when she was rushed to the hospital on April 5, 2000.

According to Kenneth, the deceased, who died five days later, had mental illnesses and tried to commit suicide by taking a dose of sleeping pills with alcohol. However, a subsequent investigation and an autopsy revealed that Shirlene died due to a lack of oxygen likely caused by strangulation.

On Wednesday, February 1, 2023, Oxygen‘s Dateline: Secrets Uncovered will revisit the case to honor the relentless efforts of Shirlene Wakisaka’s daughters who continue to fight to bring their mother’s killer to justice. The episode, titled The Vow, will premiere at 8.00 pm ET. Its synopsis states:

“Two tenacious sisters are determined to fulfill a promise to investigate the mystery surrounding their mother’s death.”

1) First responders were firstly called to the Wakisaka residence early in the morning on April 5, 2000

On April 5, 2000, at around 6:20 in the morning, Honolulu first responders arrived at the Wakisaka residence after one of Shirlene’s daughters made a distressing 911 call, requesting a medical check on her mother. At the time, Kenneth told the personnel that his wife Shirlene had consumed sleeping pills with beer.

The authorities discovered after an inspection that 52-year-old Shirlene was in a distressed situation and didn’t appear to recognize their intention to help her. They added that she also seemed a little upset, but otherwise normal, and that there was no sign of alcohol in her breath. Authorities then concluded that she was neither under the influence of drugs nor alcohol.

2) During the second emergency call, Shirlene Wakisaka was rushed to the hospital

In response to a second emergency call that was received at around 2.10 pm, Honolulu fire department officials and paramedics went right back to Wakisakas’ home that same afternoon. According to Kenneth Wakisaka, his wife Shirlene was allegedly choking and had already collapsed.

Authorities discovered the victim’s skin was blue around her lips and had a reddish tint around her neck upon a closer look. They concluded that the blue color was either due to a heart attack or from a lack of oxygen. Shirlene Wakisaka was initially examined at home before being sent to the hospital, where she was taken off life support on April 10, 2000.

3) Shirlene’s daughters and detectives investigating her death found some incriminating evidence

About a year after the incident, Shirlene Wakisaka‘s daughters from a previous marriage, Tiffany and Tammy, discovered their stepfather had been abusive towards their mother in the time leading up to her death.

Tammy claimed that her mother left her with a number of unsettling messages the day before she was rushed to the hospital on the answering machine and that the former was only able to contact her mother early in the morning on April 5. Shirlene then told her that “[she] was afraid for [her] life and, if anything happened to [her], to please investigate.”

Her two daughters also found Shirlene’s handwritten notes and other documented evidence that indicated towards domestic violence between the couple. They also found empty pill bottles in Wakisakas’ backyard – something detectives claimed was absent at the time of their initial investigation.

4) A detailed autopsy report confirmed that Shirlene Wakisaka died of strangulation

“When it comes to social media challenges, a lot of kids think that they’re just games,” says Dana. “Our son was bullied and dared by a bully at school to participate in ‘the choking game.’” Dana and her husband, Matt, say their 12-year-old son, Evan, died after attempting the choking game, which encourages children to strangle or suffocate themselves until they blackout. “This bully had explained to our son, step-by-step, how to do this challenge,” Dana says. In the video above, the couple shares more of their story. And, hear how Dana says since Evan’s death in 2016, she has devoted her life to spreading awareness in the hopes of saving other children’s lives. On Thursday’s episode of Dr. Phil, “Shedding Light on ‘The Blackout Challenge,’” hear from parents who say their 14-year-old son died from “The Blackout Challenge.” And, follow up with a past guest who lost one of her 13-year-old twin boys to the choking game in 2005. Check local listings to see where you can watch. WATCH: Attorney Says Kids On Social Media Are ‘Being Fed Dangerous Material That They Don’t Even Want To See’ TELL DR. PHIL YOUR STORY: Are you involved in a story making headlines?

Source: Yahoo Entertainment. Click here to view original post.