Cops: Man's Murder Really Elaborate Suicide by Balloon

Palm Beach Gardens police rule Alan Abrahamson's death a suicide
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 17, 2018 7:56 AM CDT
They Thought He Was Murdered, Then Learned About the Balloons
Police determined a balloon could have risen to about 100,000 feet and would have burst somewhere north of the Bahamas.   (Getty Images/ShariFotodesign)

At 71, Alan Abrahamson had started taking early morning walks, explaining he was hoping to shed the weight he gained on a recent cruise. On the morning of Jan. 25 he left his $900,000 home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., for that walk, with a camera in his gated country-club community recording him at 5:53am. At 6:30am, the camera picked up the sound of a gunshot. Abrahamson was dead. It was assumed to be murder, but there was no indication of a struggle and no weapon or shell casing. The Palm Beach Post reports there was just one unusual clue at the scene: a very thin line of blood that ran from the wound in his heart to his shoulder. But when police accessed Abrahamson's email, they found something else: He had purchased two weather balloons, though no one they interviewed thought he had any interest in weather balloons, weather, or aerial photography.

His internet history gave up more secrets: He had emailed the seller four times asking about things like burst altitude; his Google Maps history revealed a Jan. 23 visit to an industrial supply store where police learned he had bought a 40-cubic-foot helium tank; internet searches regarding suicide dated to 2009. The Washington Post reports one February 2017 search read, "Can you have a gunshot suicide with no weapon present?" What police described as a "far-fetched" but "plausible" theory formed: That Abrahamson attached a gun to the balloon, ran a string from the trigger to his finger, and shot himself, with the balloon carrying away the weapon and the string dragging that line of blood across his sweatshirt. Using a simulator, they determined the balloon could have carried a gun north of the Bahamas and into the Atlantic. By early March, they had closed the case, ruling it a suicide. (More strange stuff stories.)

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