Florida Man Tried To Make His Suicide Look Like Murder Using Weather Balloon In Scheme Similar To ‘CSI’ Plot

Usually, real-life crimes inspire CSI episodes, but it seems that the end of a Florida man’s life imitated art, not the other way around.

Authorities have finally closed the case of a Ballen Isles Country Club, Florida, resident, who died under mysterious circumstances. According to the Daily Mail, it was originally thought that 71-year-old Alan Jay Abrahamson had been murdered. However, an unusual thin line of blood on the deceased septuagenarian’s shirt steered the investigation into his death in a wildly different direction.

As reported by the Palm Beach Post, investigators later concluded that Abrahamson had actually committed suicide. This revelation came after they uncovered a bizarre scheme that was strikingly similar to the plot of an episode of the CBS crime series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Alan Jay Abrahamson’s body was discovered in a field near his home on January 25, 2018. He had a bullet wound in his chest, and investigators initially called his death a murder. However, there was a small detail of the crime scene that left investigators scratching their heads: a thin line of blood running across his shoulder.

A few months later, authorities altered their determination of Abrahamson’s cause of death, saying that he had taken his own life. A detective pointed out that the line of blood was approximately the width of a string, and a theory involving a weather balloon began gaining traction.

The theory was that Abrahamson had shot himself with a gun tied to a weather balloon, his thinking being that the helium-filled vessel would lift the gun out of his hand after he was deceased, carrying it far away. The absence of a weapon at the scene of his death would make it look like a murder, not a suicide.

While they were looking for evidence to back up their hunch, detectives stumbled upon a 2003 episode of CSI that possibly provided the blueprint for Abrahamson’s complicated suicide scheme. According to the CSI Files website, the episode in question is titled “Homebodies,” and it likely inspired another similar incident. In 2008, a man’s body was found near US Route 84 in New Mexico. About 30 feet away, investigators found six or seven white balloons tangled in a bunch of cactus. They were tied to a revolver.

'CSI' episode helps Florida police solve a fake murder https://t.co/Ykwc1Nz5UK

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 14, 2018

According to the IMDB summary of “Homebodies,” the CSI team is called in to investigate after a toddler accidentally fires a gun that has somehow ended up in a family’s garden in the suburbs. The weapon was used to take the life of a “bounty-hunting has-been,” and everyone is stumped over how it ended up where it did — until the team “consults the sky.”

In the CSI episode, the man who committed suicide also used a bunch of balloons to carry his weapon away. However, Alan Jay Abrahamson attempted to ensure that there was no hope of investigators discovering his gun by using a much sturdier vessel to transport it far from the scene of his death. He did succeed in this; the gun he shot himself with has not been discovered and was likely carried out over the Atlantic Ocean.

However, that telltale trail of blood set investigators down the right trail, and eventually all the pieces fell into place. They discovered that Abrahamson had purchased multiple weather balloons near the end of 2017, and he bought two tanks of helium in January. Pieces of string and small rubber bands were also found in the field where he took his life.

As far as Abrahamson’s motive for trying to make his suicide look like a murder is concerned, investigators discovered that he had been conducting internet research on whether his life insurance policies would pay off for suicides. Unfortunately, he couldn’t leave a note behind, so his family members and friends will never know why the man, who was described as starting “each morning with a smile on his face,” decided to take his own life.