The first time Elizabeth Greenwood thought about faking her own death was while having dinner with her friend Matt in the Bronx in New York. Sitting in the cheap Vietnamese restaurant, Elizabeth says she was feeling sorry for herself due to a number of missteps which had left her over one hundred thousand dollars in debt, most of it student debt.
Faking my own death. An untimely end would make a far superior story for the bill collectors than simply vanishing one day. Sloughing off the past, shucking the carcass of my impoverished self, to be reborn, unblemished as a sunrise. My “death” would not be a conclusion but a renaissance – a shot at an alternate ending.
Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood.
Clearly she was romanticising the process in her mind. If only we could all have a do-over, right? And while faking your own death isn’t an illegal act, the series of frauds you have to execute in order to achieve it are. It’s more complicated than simply walking out on your life with no explanation.
You’d never be able to contact your family again.
Mamamia Confessions: I chucked a sickie so I could…
One Google search later and she was knee-deep in what she describes as “a diverse and vibrant ecosystem: amateur forums where anonymous avatars traded tips on how to score fake IDS and stash money undetected”. It’s called “pseudo-cide” and it’s more common than most people realise.
Greenwood didn’t end up going through with it but did become fascinated with pseudocide and has since written a book called Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud, Elizabeth Greenwood.
Top Comments
It would be very hard but the best thing to do is not to run away but face up to what you've done.We all make mistakes and we all do the wrong thing at times but what matters most is learning from those wrongdoings and making amends to make sure they don't happen again. Going on the run and having to look behind your shoulder every day for the rest of your life is a huge price to pay and really isn't worth it.