Here is an amazing case in which spiritism charges murder though the verdict of the courts is suicide. . . . I am enabled here to give to the world for the first time the details of the part which spiritism has played in the affair from the beginning to the present time; a part so utterly astonishing that it is without a parallel in history.
—Edward Marshall, New York Times [pgs. vii, 295]
On November 12, 1911, a large feature story appeared in the New York Times—one of more than 57 articles and six editorials to appear in the New York Times about this case. Its spiritual and paranormal aspects relate to timeless questions of whether or not living people can communicate with the dead and whether or not there is life after death. After the Civil War, the number of people who wanted to contact their departed loved ones increased dramatically. And at the beginning of the 20th century there was a widespread interest in ghosts and the supernatural just as there is now.
The Department of the Navy and its representatives were not only skeptical about Mrs. Sutton’s apparitions—they used what they termed her hallucinations to attack her credibility; but many of their fellow Americans found her psychical experiences intriguing if not sensational.
The visions that she saw occurred at a time when a serious group of scholars—psychical researchers—believed that it was possible to study people who had apparitions using scientific methods. In order to save her own reputation, Rosa Sutton asked for help from America’s foremost psychical researcher, James Hyslop. Hyslop and his Oregon associate, George Thacher, ultimately found much could be learned from what Rosa called her visions— her postmortem visits from Jimmie.
This aspect of the case not only made it more riveting to readers across the country in 1909, it also gives this story another twist that resonates profoundly today. In an age of mass violence, searching for something outside of life on earth, not surprisingly, has continued to preoccupy millions of people from all parts of the globe.
In the decade since I began working on this story of a mother’s effort to prove her son was not a suicide, the word has taken on a new significance. Daily headlines about suicide bombings would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. Even more ironic is the fact that many of those who chose this type of suicide believe there will be a reward for their actions rather than a barrier at the gates of heaven.
Today the Navy has a suicide prevention hotline—and the Catholic Church, mirroring changes in society, acknowledges that there may be factors that lessen or remove the subjective responsibility of victims of suicide. Only God may judge among the many reasons for suicide whether or not it is a mortal sin. Priests may be more willing to consider mitigating circumstances than they were when Jimmie Sutton died. But suicide still is “a gravely immoral act” in the eyes of the Church.