Police Say No Foul Play In Death of Bitcoin Exchange CEO Autumn Radtke

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt: "The CEO of a virtual-currency exchange was found dead near her home in Singapore. A police spokesman said Thursday that initial investigations indicated there was no suspicion of 'foul play' in the Feb. 26 death, meaning officers do not suspect murder. The spokesman said police found 28-year-old Autumn Radtke, an American, lying motionless near the apartment tower where she lived. Police have so far classified the death as 'unnatural,' which can mean an accident, misadventure, or suicide." Hat tip to Jamie McCarthy for Slate's thoughtful take on Radtke's death, and the way it's been reported (notably, several sources have speculated that her death was a suicide, with little support).

Comments

Here's why they're calling it a suicide

[barlevg]

According to the Washington Post, "Police have so far classified the death as 'unnatural,' which can mean an accident, misadventure, or suicide," and they've taken that and combined it with "Last month she linked to an article on entrepreneurs suffering depression, commenting above the link: everything has its price." WaPo stops short of outright *saying* she committed suicide, but that's certainly the conclusion they're leading their readers to.

why the press don't generally report suicide

[SuperBanana]

WaPo stops short of outright *saying* she committed suicide, but that's certainly the conclusion they're leading their readers to.

There's a reason the press shies away from it. Mental health organizations have guidelines and recommendations on how to report responsibly on suicides.

The absolute worst is reporting on the contents of, or even mentioning, a note, because then people who are on the edge / suicidal think "Ah, I can get my letter published too!"

This sounds absurd, but it's well demonstrated that suicides are "infectious", and reports in the media about a suicide can cause others who are close to do it themselves. It's one of the reasons, after a suicide in a school/workplace/community, you see an immediate effort made to make resources available to everyone else.

Re:How long would it take

[Overzeetop]

It wasn't "destroyed" in the physical or electronic sense. However, if you were to lose your cold-storage wallet (and it ended up at the bottom of a landfill), or you were to die, with your wallet encryption password only in your head, those BTC would still exist but would never be available for trading. They may as well be destroyed, since they can never, ever re-enter circulation, baring someone unlocking the encryption (which BTC has been designed to prevent).