Discussion Do police have the right to go through your things after you die?

[slaholi]

Something that's been bugging me for a while. In a few articles I've read about suicide I've seen them say things like "In her internet history it was found that she searched how to tie a noose" or something of that nature. I guess privacy doesn't really matter to dead people. But it still feels weird that someone you don't know will be rummaging around in your things after you die.

Do they need to go through all your things to confirm cause of death? Would leaving a note prevent this? I also have a lot of old sketches and journals laying around, should I chuck those before leaving?

 

[HelensNepenthe]

Simply put, they're going to investigate your belongings to rule out that your suicide was not a homicide. I found a PDF recently that trains investigators how to investigate suicide scenes. If I pull it up I'll quote this post or edit it. It goes through in detail who confirms the death, what potential items they can cease, and the possible outcomes of your parents/family/significant other/siblings not ever seeing your note.

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Found 'em.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/234457.pdf

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/167568.pdf

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

What @HelensNepenthe said.

As far as your journals and sketchbooks, if you don't want anyone to go through them and you won't miss them if you survive, then yeah, chucking them would be wise.

 

[Abaigh]

Same I'm so weirded out by a randomer looking through all of my stuff. I get that they want to rule out homocide but I feel like I just want to break all my devices before I try anything.

 

[slaholi]

Simply put, they're going to investigate your belongings to rule out that your suicide was not a homicide. I found a PDF recently that trains investigators how to investigate suicide scenes. If I pull it up I'll quote this post or edit it. It goes through in detail who confirms the death, what potential items they can cease, and the possible outcomes of your parents/family/significant other/siblings not ever seeing your note.

- - -

Found 'em.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/234457.pdf

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/167568.pdf

This answer was really helpful, thank you tons. I would only want my loved ones to be able to look through my computer if anyone after I'm gone. If not I'll probably just get rid of my stuff, maybe give it away or something but I hope that doesn't make my death look more suspicious.
I'm also scared of the morgue looking at my naked body. I guess these are just the reality of things I'll have to face someday.

Same I'm so weirded out by a randomer looking through all of my stuff. I get that they want to rule out homocide but I feel like I just want to break all my devices before I try anything.

Right? Like, someone I never met before is going to get to know me very intimately and also see my dead nude body. The whole thought gives me the creeps.

 

[HelensNepenthe]

This answer was really helpful, thank you tons. I would only want my loved ones to be able to look through my computer if anyone after I'm gone. If not I'll probably just get rid of my stuff, maybe give it away or something but I hope that doesn't make my death look more suspicious. I'm also scared of the morgue looking at my naked body. I guess these are just the reality of some things I'll have to face someday.

Have you looked into encrypting your contents onto a cloud storage service (e.g. Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive)? Cryptomator will encrypt those contents for you. As long as your master password is secure, it's impractical for someone to use bruteforcing methods to break into it.

Alternatively you could encrypt your hard drive with Veracrypt.

Reminder that if you lose your master password, your data is going to be gone. These recommendations are entirely hypothetical and do not warrant any legal advice whatsoever. It's possible your loved ones could face legal problems with this route.