Famous Prisoners Who Committed Suicide

NFL player Aaron Hernandez was found guilty of murdering Odin Lloyd in 2015 and sentenced to life in prison. On April 19, 2017, he committed suicide by hanging while serving out his sentence at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center.

Dr. Harold Shipman was found guilty of 15 murders in 2000. He had administered lethal doses of pain medication to his patients, and then falsified their records to reflect "old age" as the cause of death. Shipman used bed sheets to hang himself in his cell in 2004 at the age of 57.

War criminal and Nazi Rudolf Hess was convicted of crimes against humanity for his part in the Holocaust. In 1987, at the age of 93, he hanged himself with an extension cord. Some believe that his death may have been a murder, as Hess was quite frail at the time of his death; hanging himself would have been exceedingly difficult.

In 2013, Ariel Castro was sentenced to life in prison for rape, kidnapping, and aggravated murder. He had kidnapped three women and held them for years. Castro was found hanging in his cell after serving only one month of his sentence.

Al Qaeda member Inayatullah committed suicide in 2011 while being held at Guantanamo Bay. His death came only two weeks after Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces.

Philip Markoff, The Craigslist Killer, committed suicide in 2010 while awaiting trial for murder. He had cut several major arteries with a makeshift blade before shoving toilet paper down his throat and covering his head with a plastic bag.