I think it is an oddity that he was hanged in a seated position with a belt wedged only in a door. In other words, he could have stood up at any time. The superficial cuts (as they called them) from a pocket knife suggest a few possibilities to me.
1. That this was intended as a suicide gesture, but no one found him in time to ‘rescue’ him. Perhaps the TV was too loud. Perhaps he waited too long to stand up and passed out from lack of oxygen, thereby completing an act that wasn’t certain to result in a hanging given the position of the belt and the sitting position.
2. Perhaps they might find another cause, such as a heart attack or stroke while he was in the middle of a suicide gesture. Perhaps a crushed larynx?
3. It takes an awful lot of determination to choke yourself when you could easily stand up and relieve the pressure. It takes overcoming the self-preservation instinct not to stand up and relieve the pressure.
“It takes an awful lot of determination to choke yourself when you could easily stand up and relieve the pressure. It takes overcoming the self-preservation instinct not to stand up and relieve the pressure.”
This is just not true. For evidence, just look at the game of “pass out” that teenagers play, where they intentional asphyxiate themselves until they pass out. It is quite easy to overcome this instinct until you are unconsciousness and unable to physically resist.
The only difference between that game and suicide is that in the game, you are in a position where, as soon as you pass out, the pressure is relieved and oxygen starts flowing again, so you don’t (usually) die. If instead, you were in a position where you would need to move in order to restore the oxygen flow, you would likely die without ever regaining consciousness.
Another simple evidence that your contention is wrong is an activity as common as swimming. It’s against your self preservation instinct to dive underwater and hold your breath while your oxygen levels drop, and yet people do this intentionally and casually all the time. The self-preservation instinct might be a high hurdle for lower animals to hop over, but compared to the force of human will, it’s pretty insignificant.
I agree that once the oxygen is cut off the person’s reflex is to get air, and so most suicides are done in a way to prevent that, and this wasn’t.
A second thought on the wrists....cutters are those who do tattoos and have cut themselves before, and have serious issues inside like a bad childhood or molested etc. Not everyone is open to cutting their wrists and watch the blood drain out....while dying. Maybe a desperate drug dealer who is about to be arrested....I don’t know, it makes no sense he would close the knife and find a table to put it on after cutting his wrists, unless he is a clean freak, but then what clean freak cuts their wrists?