Are there any notable suicides you admire? The means/reasons/results?
Here's some of mine:
Finn Yeats - A Kiwi (like me) who went on a week-long road trip around the North Island. Didn't check into any motels, didn't come up on any CCTV cams - the only trace of him before he died was his car being spotted in a seaside town. He ended up near the Tongariro National Park, which is a beautiful and surreal part of the country (I know it's the set of Mt Doom in LOTR). What's really impressive is that his family is relatively famous (his sister is well known for having a rare brain disease) and even with seemingly the whole country on watch he still managed to ctb successfully. I'm considering on doing a similar trip, see special places, holiday locations and such before I'm gone.
Richard Russell - We all know this one. Airline worker steals an empty plane, pulls off some insane stunts, gets a birds-eye view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains, crashes harmlessly into an uninhabited island. Aside from being so awesome, it seemed in the day or so afterwards that the world were generally accepting and charmed by this idea of suicide. Maybe if a few more brave souls do something like this suicide can become a choice respected by society.
"Lyle Stevik" - Real name unknown. SS debates on whether we want our bodies found, whether we want our families notified etc. Lyle got the best of both worlds. His family weren't immediately traumatised because they found out about his death 17 years later, and he also wasn't forgotten about completely because his identity was eventually confirmed. Somewhere on an SS thread is a link to pictures of his body with the noose still attached, and he looks completely at peace like there was no struggle/death throes at all. It's probably the least traumatising outcome I can think of.
Would love to hear the stories you know.