How do drug overdoses get classified as intentional or accidental?

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This stems from a case happening in my home state. A woman* (in her mid twenties) was found buried in a shallow grave behind a home after leaving a bar with a man “with no force indicated”. The coroner ruled her death was an accidental overdose. How do they know it was accidental? Couldn’t this guy have given her these drugs? What’s the protocol for determining intentional or accidental overdoses?

Edit: changed young girl to woman

In: Other

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Probably depends on the drug and the amount in the system. If the person was a known user. Basically we’re they trying to kill them selves or just a user who used too much

Anonymous 0 Comments

When there is no evidence of force or malicious intent, and when the toxicology and other evidence shows a plausible about of drugs and/or metabolites. Also, a ruling of accidental only means there is no evidence of an intentional overdose, not that one did not occur.

It is entirely possible the woman (20+-year-old females are women) you mention was murdered or committed suicide, but it will take evidence beyond the autopsy to prove that.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You can’t call an overdose intentional unless there are facts to support it. Default is accidental unless proven otherwise.

Being found dead, buried in a shallow grave says to me someone tried to cover it up, overdose or not. I’d imagine that would be cause for some sort of criminal charges at the very least related to moving or tampering with a corpse? Sounds fishy.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s not the only factor consider, but usually intentional OD’s are obvious in that the dosage is “overkill”.

Accidents tend to be more marginal.

Anonymous 0 Comments

In many cases they don’t put much effort into determining it, they just make a guess based on other facts about the person and/or the current political/cultural climate.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Not an expert in the least. Just watch a crapton of Law & Order (doink doink). They run a tox screen for drugs. If it comes back positive they look at how much of the drug is in the system of the deceased. If it’s 25 times the normal limit that is known to be harmful, it wasn’t accidental. They would then talk to friends, family, and people that saw her the night her death (including who she left with). They might even do a little digging into the background of the guy she left with.

If the screen comes back with normal levels of several drugs that are known to be fatal toxic when combined? Potentially accidental. They’d then investigate what meds were legally prescribed, found in the home, or known to be used by the deceased. They would repeat the taking to everyone as listed per above and the make a determination.

Again, this could be wrong, but that’s how Ice-T does it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They are poor. That’s the answer.

No note – ie. suicide – likely determined accidental. Regardless of how sketchy the situation seems. Lots of police know the coroner and would rather avoid the work of an investigation.