10 Unbelievable Reasons for Why People Faked Their Own Deaths

In the United States, pseudocide, or faking one’s own death, is not a crime in itself, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns it almost certainly leads to numerous serious criminal offenses.

James Quiggle, director of communications for the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud in Washington, D.C., explains it like this. Essentially, you are defrauding the government by not paying various taxes or outstanding loans, such as a home or car. Even if you resurface, you continue to defraud the government as it processes your new identity.

Despite these dangers, the ten people on this list faked their own deaths and lived to regret it. Here are their reasons for doing so.

Related: 10 Hilarious Excuses People Gave Police to Cover a Crime

10 To Avoid Child Support Payments and Earn Supplemental Income

Some folks will do anything to avoid their obligations. Jesse Kipf is a case in point. To avoid making child support payments, he faked his own death. To accomplish his purpose, Kipf hacked his way into Hawaii’s death registry. Then, impersonating a medical doctor in a different state than his own, Kipf created a “case” supporting his own demise. Having completed his first step, he then posed as a medical certifier and confirmed the data he’d entered on a death certificate worksheet. Finally, he applied the impersonated physician’s digital signature. Now, officially, he was a dead man.

His success seems to have inspired another use for the death registry, a commercial one. On the dark web, using the “stolen credentials” of others, he could charge for “access” to other states’ death registries and the networks of private businesses, government, and corporate networks. His criminal enterprises netted Lipf an 81-month prison sentence, 85% of which federal law mandates that he serve.^[1]

9 For an Insurance Payout

Quick cash was Karen Salkilld’s motive for faking her own death. After claiming to have died, Salkilld, 42, submitted “falsified documents,” which included a death certificate and a coroner’s report. Her ruse, inspired by a movie, the title of which she refused to divulge, worked: $700,000 or more (sources differ on the amount), was delivered, a week afterward, to the bank account she’d opened in her ex-partner’s name. But the bank became suspicious, freezing the account. When her duplicity was subsequently discovered, she was arrested and confessed to fraud and the intent to defraud.

Salkilld received $718,000 as the life insurance “payout” for her supposed death. She also received a bonus: three years in prison, half of which she must serve before attaining parole eligibility.^[2]

8 To Mislead Investigators

The FBI website recalls a case in which Aubrey Lee Price, a devout Christian minister and trusted financial advisor, stole clients’ life savings before faking his death in an attempt to mislead investigators. Following an 18-month disappearance, he was arrested, admitting that he had become a drug dealer.

Price made risky investments with his clients’ money, covering the money trail with false documents. The situation soon went from bad to worse, and Price faked his own death, sending clients and family members supposed suicide letters, admitting to bank fraud and cheating individual investors. He then fled to Mexico and, later, Florida, growing and selling marijuana, selling other drugs, and working, on occasion, as prostitutes’ bodyguard. In 2014, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for crimes that included bank fraud and embezzlement.^[3]

7 To Escape Convent Life

Nuns don’t usually run away, and during the Middle Ages, nunneries offered women, and sometimes girls as young as 13, a means of survival in a world that provided few other options. If nothing else, author history professor Sarah Reese Jones explains, the life of a nun offered “bed and board.”

It appears that the life, which was demanding, proved too much for Joan of Leeds. To escape the convent, Joan faked her own death using a “dummy” and a bogus burial and made a daring escape from the house of St. Clement by York.

Although Archbishop William Melton had no idea what prompted Joan’s flight, he supposed, in a letter to a fellow clergyman, that her action imperiled her soul, scandalized her order, and was probably due to her having been “seduced by indecency,” which led to her turning from “poverty and obedience” to “carnal lust.” What, in fact, led Joan to fake her own death and flee the convent remains a mystery.^[4]

6 To Teach His Family a Lesson

David Baerten really knows how to make an entrance, especially for a dead man. The Belgian dad, assisted by his wife and children, pulled a prank for TikTok to see who actually cared for the 45-year-old family man. One of his children posted a heartrending tribute to her “late” father: “Rest in peace, Daddy. I will never stop thinking about you.”

Baerten’s “funeral” drew dozens of friends and family members, all appropriately attired in black. They must have been surprised when a helicopter landed nearby, and the decedent hopped out to greet the somber gathering. “Cheers to you all,” he called. “Welcome to my funeral.” Some attendees were relieved; others were puzzled. A few were miffed.

Baerten explained his motive for the stunt: he’d wanted to teach his family a lesson. “What I see in my family often hurts me,” he said. “I never get invited to anything. I felt unappreciated,” he declared. “That’s why I wanted to give them a life lesson and show them that you shouldn’t wait until someone is dead to meet up with them.”^[5]

5 To Escape Criminal Prosecution

William Anthony Spivey, 36, had a more practical reason for playing dead. The former police chief for Chadbourn, North Carolina, wanted to avoid criminal prosecution for 70 alleged felonies by staging suicide and fleeing to South Carolina. He was relieved from duty in 2021 because of a North Carolina State Bureau investigation of suspected misconduct related to the mishandling of evidence, drug trafficking, and embezzlement.

About a year after the charges were made public, Spivey pulled off his disappearing act during a fishing trip. Investigators found his boat abandoned in the Lumber River and handwritten letters at the scene, along with a .22-caliber rifle with a discharged round in it. A review of videotaped footage of the scene convinced police that Spivey’s apparent suicide had been “staged.”

Thanks to a tip, police found the “dead” man, alive and well, at an apartment outside Loris, South Carolina. He was arrested after he fled into nearby woods. The police chief had accumulated a bond of nearly $1 million for 40 warrants issued for failing to appear in court. Spivey pleaded guilty to 14 felonies, for which he received a prison sentence of 138 to 267 months.^[6]

4 Due to Coercion

Daniella Gaboa died in November 2024, a victim of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). There was proof: a photograph showing her debris-covered body. The IDF was unable “to confirm or deny” the incident,” reports the Jerusalem Post staff.

Before her death, she’d been abducted from the Hahal Oz army base; her captors, members of the terrorist group Hamas, released her in January 2024. Free, she was able to tell the true story of her ordeal. She’d been coerced into staging her death by posing for the photograph, and her captors had poured powder on her daughter to make it appear that she’d been covered in plaster. A captor had told her, “Today we’re filming you dead.”

Upon her release, she was flown, with her father, by helicopter to Bellinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel, emerging from the aircraft to the cheers of a jubilant crowd who danced in the street and offered prayers of thanksgiving.^[6]

3 To Do Some Catfishing, Perhaps?

We can assume that a story is probably far out when we’re told up front that “this is not a plot to a made-for-TV movie.” Double T, a radio host in Rockford, Illinois, gives listeners who tune in to the classic rock station 97.6 just such assurance. Double T shared that the story sounded like a tall tale, like fake internet news. It’s true, though: Ryan Borgwardt really did fake his own death.

After not hearing from Ryan, his family notified the police, who found his personal belongings, including his kayak, car, wallet, and fishing equipment, but not his body. So, what happened?

The fact that Borgwardt had an internet girlfriend in Uzbekistan seemed significant to the radio host, who guessed that Borgwardt’s faked death might have been the result of catfishing—the creation of a false online identity as a means of deception. “Wouldn’t it [have] been easier to get divorced?” Double T asked.^[8]

2 To Provide Evidence of His Murder

Ramon Sosa, the son of a pro wrestler, became a professional boxer in Puerto Rico before moving to Texas, where he became a trainer. At age 40, his life, rather than just his career, changed: he met “a knockout”—a beautiful, 40-year-old Mexican woman named Maria de Lourdes Dorantes, aka “Lulu,” who was visiting the U. S. The couple married, opening a gym in 2010.

Three years into wedded bliss, Sosa noticed problems in their marriage. Then, Mundo showed up, a street-tough kid to whom Sosa became a mentor. Also friends with Dorantes, Mundo learned of her determination to make Sosa “disappear.” He warned Sosa that he believed that Dorantes intended to hire a hitman. A downturn in business may have motivated her to take such drastic action, and she began to accuse her husband of being an abusive alcoholic.

Sosa’s complaints to the police went nowhere. The authorities needed evidence of Dorantes’s alleged intentions. Working with Mundo, Sosa obtained it: Dorantes’s texts and recorded conversations about hiring a hitman. Police were convinced, but they wanted one more piece of evidence: Maria’s reaction to a photograph of her dead husband’s body.

Posing as Maria’s hitman, a detective showed her a picture of his “victim.” Sosa was dirty, shirtless, and lying on the ground with his nose bleeding, a bullet wound to the temple, and blood running down his cheek, throat, and chest. She offered the hitman money, jewelry, and her husband’s pickup truck.

Arrested, tried, and convicted of second-degree solicitation of capital murder, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Sosa’s last memory of her, he said, was the “sound of [the chains she wore] as they took her away.”^[9]

1 To Hide from Family

Due to family conflicts, Shahraban K, an Iraqi-German woman, faked her death so she could “hide” from her kin. She needed a lookalike, though, and found one in a 23-year-old woman she met by offering a free beauty treatment through social media.

Shahraban K and a male acquaintance, Sheqir K, drove her to a forest, stabbed her 56 times, and put her in Shahraban K’s car. Her mother discovered the body, but a subsequent police investigation revealed the corpse was not that of Shahraban K, who was convicted of attempted incitement of murder for hiring a hitman, even though the victim’s only killers were Shahraban K and Sheqir K.^[10]