Story Archive

American Roulette

Nobody disputes that James Jewell, 39, killed himself by putting a gun to his temple and pulling the trigger. Jewell’s family, however, disputes the Oakland County (Mich.) Medical Examiner’s Office determination: suicide. “I was there. I know that’s not what he wanted to do,” said Jewell’s girlfriend, Jennifer Jackson, 36. Jackson said Jewell was trying to convince her to keep a gun in her night stand, but she was afraid to get one. To help alleviate her fears, Jewell demonstrated how “you can do all these hundreds of little actions, and nothing would happen.” Then, Jackson says, “He said, ‘Look, I’ll show you one more time.’ That’s when he put it to his head, and it went off.” The Medical Examiner’s Office is standing by its ruling. “The victim ... applied the gun to his temple, unfortunately, and pulled the trigger,” Medical Examiner Ljubisa Dragovic said, which “constitutes a set series of purposeful acts.” (MS/Detroit Free Press) ...Until obliviocy is a legal cause of death, that will have to do.