A case of suicide disguised as natural death.

A case report describing the suicide of a physician classified initially as a natural death. Faced with the vehement protest of the family of the deceased the magistrate decided to request a 'preventive' forensic autopsy. Forensic investigations revealed the cause of death as being a pentobarbital intoxication and the circumstances favoured the hypothesis of a genuine suicide. This case illustrates that the tendency of magistrates to request or not an autopsy is related to their experience or intuition.