My dad killed himself 1 month ago.

Hey, I thought I would just reply to this, because I had a similar situation with my dad’s suicide and thought I could clarify on this point. The police did the same thing in my experience of it. I think the accurate words they used were “scene of investigation” and “suspicious circumstances of death”, but ultimately it was because it obviously wasn’t a death of natural causes so they can’t rule out any foul play officially without a police investigation. I believe that that was the explanation they used when asked if it was a crime scene, so the phrase “crime scene” could have been used at the time to explain to the family why they couldn’t enter the house.

“Crime scene” is really how it is treated — people can’t enter the property for weeks, the locks are changed by the police and things will be taken away as evidence — phone, computer, journals or diaries, documents, ID and keys etc. My dad’s case was truly as cut and dry as it gets but they still underwent this, it’s not off or unusual at all, just procedure for them.

They are slow though. It took 2 and a half weeks to return the keys and 3 weeks to deliver the death certificate, and even then it was down as “unknown cause”. It’s actually 8 weeks later now and I am still awaiting the toxicology report, and the return of everything that they took from the house. It’s a little ridiculous!

/r/offmychest Thread Parent