Cemeteries are designed to provide mourners with a semiprivate place to express their grief. The cemetery is symbolic of the reunification of the living with the dead. Deaths, particularly suicides, occurring in cemeteries are a rare phenomena. Graveside suicides represent an exaggerated form of pathological mourning and grief reaction. Graveside suicides are analogous to a death pact between two persons in which the second death occurs as a reaction to the first, in the cemetery where the first is buried, and without the knowledge of the first. Case histories of graveside suicides are presented, as well as a brief discussion of other types of injuries and deaths occurring in cemeteries. A profile of the graveside suicide victim, the psychodynamics of grief reactions, and the medicolegal implications related to a cemetery security are also presented.
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