How do you find out HOW someone died?

I was reading the obituaries in today’s paper and I noticed a death notice of an older brother of a former friend. He was only 38. I’m curious to know how it happened, but don’t even feel close to comfortable enough to contact the person or the family. Perhaps it’s morbid curiosity, I don’t know.

Does anyone know of any legal ways to find out?

Amoral techniques are okay, but I’m looking for the easiest way (no hoop jumping).

I’d start with Google. There could be other news reports. Family members may have posted the news on blogs or forums. Some families put up a sort of memorial web site.

The death certificate itself is available, but you’d have to check with the applicable jurisdictions to find out what the procedure and other requirements are for that.

Sometimes the funeral director will tell you. Sometimes not. But you could call and ask politely.

If the obit says something like “undetermined causes” it’s sometimes euphemistically used for “suicide” or “drug overdose.”

Just to support this, I was not allowed (in Tennessee) to get copy of my brother’s death certificate. His widow (he had not children) was the only one who could request it. Obvious caveat that the clerk at the courthouse could have just been incompetent and/or wrong.

Another tip-off is “in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the National Mental Health Association” or similar.

Example:
http://obituaries.news-record.com/News-Record/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=125253248

I thought a death cert was a public record.

I think it’s one of those “public-in-the-aggregate, private-in-the-specifics” things like census records. Probably varies by jurisdiction, too.

On a related note, after Dale Earnhardt died there was a big move to make autopsy photos not public. The news media fought that hard. I think some states allow you to view the photos in the ME office but you cannot take them out or make copies.

Except many papers won’t do that if it’s not true, and – big and – if they know it’s not true. (They do tend to take the family’s word for cause of death of any non-newsworthy person.) The code for suicide or overdose AFAIK is “died unexpectedly at home.”

All the obituary says is “died Wednesday, June 3.”

Also, I always took “died unexpectedly at home” to also mean cardiac arrest, accidental fall or other type of accident.

“Died of a brief illness” is also code for cardiac arrest while “died of a long illness” is code for cancer. I’d also suspect suicide for someone that young and no reference to any sort of illness or accident.

There’s this recent death of a 38-year-old in Virginia.

It could be that it’s public in that anyone should be able to SEE it, but only certain people can obtain a COPY of it.

Or AIDS.

I think this is the most correct. I’ve been big into genealogy for the last few years, and this last year I’ve been ordering death certificates from a variety of States, each one with their own special rules and restrictions. I believe all States I’ve contacted allow you to view the certificate in person, but not to copy it unless you meet certain criteria which, of course, vary from State to State. On the “best side” is Missouri, which has a great online search and free download of most death certificates up to the 1950’s or so.

Likewise, “donations may be made to M.D. Anderson Hospital.”

Cancer. It’s creative obit reading.

Ah missed that part. The person I linked to died on Saturday, June 6.

I don’t think it is public at all. I think it is just a record filed with the government, you know, like your tax return.

Actually, a similar question came up a while back concerning death records in the state of Wisconsin. They will be released some fifty or seventy-five years after the date of death. Morbid curiosity is not a FOIA classification yet, I’m afraid.

As far as codes in the obits, if the family really doesn’t want the public to know, and I would suppose that would be the usual case, they can just write “A.B., 38, beloved husband of C. and son of D. and E. (nee F.), died Saturday, June 1. He is survived by his wife and parents.” They don’t have to include any details, encrypted or otherwise.

Finally, if this is the brother of a (former) friend, one traditional way of discovering this information is to tender your condolences to the surviving relative and offer your assistance during this sad time.

Meh. Most obituaries are written by the family, or by a funeral director on behalf of the family. There’s no common authorship from one obit to another within a paper, let alone from paper to paper.