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Comment by excalibur | Hacker News Reader

> In June 2018, news came of a second death from the kill list. Twenty-one-year-old Bryan Njoroge was found dead in Indiana, shot in the head on a baseball field. The police ruled the death a suicide. Weeks earlier, a user with the alias Toonbib had paid around $5,500 to order his murder and provided details of his upcoming travel. Njoroge was a U.S. military serviceman who, before he died, had made a female friend the beneficiary of his life-insurance policy. His father questions whether the death was a suicide, but the local police department has said that it is aware of the dark-web assassination order and stands by its conclusion.

It's possible that the police know something the father does not. I would not put it past a suicidal person to order a hit on himself.

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Ordering a hit on yourself doesn't really make it a suicide, someone has still committed murder

I know nothing of the particulars of this case, but a person could order a fake hit and then kill themselves in order to make it look like a murder to ensure the life insurance payout.

I mean maybe, if you thought the hit was real and were disappointed when nothing happened you might go that route.

Or if you fully intended to commit suicide and were only interested in a hit as a way to make sure the insurance pays out.

Trying to make sure someone gets a life insurance pay out is a really common feature of a lot of stories about suicide.

Most life insurance policies actually do cover suicide.

After 2 years.

Remember to check the terms of your contract, folks!

That's about as criminal as murdering someone though. There's nothing for the police to stand beside, behind, in front of or crouch and whimper inside of in this case.

> about as criminal as murdering someone

If you think insurance fraud is anywhere near as criminal as murder, then I worry for whatever juridiction you live in.

I think killing yourself for insurance fraud is definitely near murder. But that's just me.

That's just you. Killing yourself is nowhere near as serious as killing someone else; the insurance fraud leaves that conclusion untouched.

For purposes of a life insurance payout, ordering a real hit on yourself, and dying in it, is most definitely suicide.

If the one ordered to do the killing knows the target is the one ordering the kill and the target is of a sound mind, I would call it assisted suicide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_death), and I wouldn’t call what the killer did murder.

> It's possible that the police know something the father does not. I would not put it past a suicidal person to order a hit on himself.

It's absurd to assume the police wouldn't share such information with the victim's father. And if someone would order a hit on themselves, the police would still classify this as murder.

The police in the article declined to share info that would have been helpful had the victim known. I'm trying not to assume anything about what they would or wouldn't share.

You're right on the other point though, if the hit actually happened there would definitely be a murder there, regardless of any suicidal actions on the client/victim's part.

Which leads to another question: If the hit website was a scam, and you tried to put a hit on yourself, could you be criminally charged with attempted murder of yourself?

cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Hired_a_Contract_Killer

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