General

When my 88 year old uncle died alone in his room clearly from having gotten confused and taken more of his medicine than he was supposed to (his little am/pm pill boxes were open and empty beyond the day and time they should have been), his doctor very somberly questioned those in the family who had seen him last. The doctor felt that Uncle Al was too healthy to die suddenly, and although exhibiting early signs of dementia, should have been capable of keeping up with such a simple system to take his meds. Clearly, the doctor wanted to rule out the possibility that someone had a hand in getting Uncle Al to take too much medication. My uncle had a paranoid cast of mind and always thought people were after his money–little of it though there was–and the doctor wanted to be sure there wasn’t more to Uncle Al’s suspicions than he had credited. The reality is, there were 13,000 murders in the United States that year motivated by all sorts of things–jealousy, rage, personal gain–when someone dies, it makes sense to ask “Cui bono?” Who benefits?

When Justice Scalia died, my first thought was, “Heavy-set guy, 79, probably died of a heart attack…sounds reasonable.” I did notice that he was not at home at the time, so his wife was not with him to verify the circumstances of his death, and that he was reported as animated and well when he was last seen–aren’t there oftentimes warning signs of a heart attack? At this point, I usually get on my headlamp and start down the rabbit hole, and in this case, I might even have seen the rabbit hole in advance.

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