In the last 10 years almost half a million Australians have been reported as a missing person to Police, with just over 71,000 of those reports relating to mental ill-health. Significant difficulties in determining how many people will die by suicide before they are located exist given data challenges and ambiguity over cause of death. However, in a small Australian study from 2012 up to half of those who died while missing was due to suicide. Thus there is an urgent need to better understand for whom suicide may be a risk, and how police may be better informed during the search for someone reported as missing.
Via access to coronial case records within the National Coronial Information System in Australia data will be analysed to the hypothesised correlation between a death by external cause (intentional self-harm) or body not recovered and an episode of being reported missing to Police in NSW. A content analysis of the coronial summaries and demographic data was undertaken to examine the circumstances of individuals prior to their death and after their body was located, with an additional focus on interactions with police. From this analysis a more holistic understanding of intentions to remain missing, and unintentional outcomes of being reported missing prior to suicide are presented. Misunderstandings are common when a persons whereabouts is unknown, yet this period can offer an important time for suicide intervention with better police and media training.