Hidden messages in suicide notes: New study distinguishes genuine letters from murder cover-ups. Jason Bennetto reports
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Your support makes all the difference.PEOPLE who leave suicide notes rarely give a reason for killing themselves, but they often praise loved ones and write surprisingly long, complicated letters, a conference on investigative psychology was told yesterday.
A new study into the differences between faked and genuine suicide notes may be used in the future to help identify killers who attempt to cover up murder by forging a suicide confession.
An analysis of 84 suicide notes, 51 genuine and 33 written by volunteers, revealed the fakers use longer sentences but fewer verbs and nouns.
Genuine suicide victims are more often practical about life, rather than writing of hate and revenge, the International Investigative Psychology Conference at Liverpool University was told.
About one in five people who commit suicide leave a note. Adam Gregory, who works at the Surrey police force's offender profiling unit, told the seminar that the genuine suicides were less likely to blame themselves, or give a reason for the deaths.
Mr Gregory became interested in suicide notes following the case of Eddie Gilfoyle, who was sentenced to 25 years last July after being found guilty of murdering his wife. He was accused of tricking his wife into writing a suicide note, telling her he was studying suicide at the hospital in Merseyside where he worked as a nurse. Earlier this year he was given leave to appeal.
Mr Gregory in his study The Decision to Die - Psychology of the Suicide Note, to be published soon, uses a scientific model to help predict which notes are likely to be fake and which are genuine. But he emphasised the research was only at a very early stage and that more examples were needed before any conclusions could be drawn.
The use of hypnosis by police to gain evidence from witnesses and suspects is seriously flawed and could lead to miscarriages of justice, the conference was told. Research has shown that people supposedly under hypnosis cannot remember any more details than those who are fully conscious.
Hypnosis can lead to people exaggerating and telling lies according to Graham Wagstaff, a reader in psychology at Liverpool University. He argued that there was a general misconception, often propagated by hypnotists, that hypnosis could improve memory and that people could not lie, or fake a state of semi-consciousness.
Citing several pieces of research, he said hypnosis could not be used as a 'truth serum'.
He added that the Home Office was aware of the profession's concerns about the use of hypnosis by the police, but refused to ban it.
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