Man used TV plot to disguise suicide

A MAN borrowed the plot from an episode of the TV crime drama CSI to make his suicide look like murder, US police say.

Detectives were initially baffled when they found Alan Abrahamson, 71, dead in a field beside his Florida home.

He had a bullet wound in his chest, but there was no sign of a murder weapon or shell casings near his body.

A six-month investigation concluded that Abrahamson had killed himself in a plan borrowed from a 2003 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in a bid to secure a large insurance payout for his family.

Police believe he tied a gun to a piece of string attached to heliumfilled balloons and after he shot himself in the chest, the balloons lifted the weapon away from his body before bursting and dropping the evidence in the sea.

An investigation found that Abrahamson had recently purchased balloons and helium tanks and had searched the internet asking the question: ‘Can life insurance companies deny payment for suicide?’

Abrahamson, who worked for a lighting company and was on his second marriage, had recently made large payments into his lifeinsurance account.

Police have closed the case and the Florida state attorney ruled Abrahamson’s death was suicide.

In 2008, a US restaurant chain executive used the same method to mask his suicide as murder. Police found balloons caught on a plant near his body with a gun tied to ribbons hanging beneath it.