"I Love You. I'm Going To Kill Myself."

I get sent to a big apartment building to do a welfare check on a woman who had made suicidal threats to her boyfriend. He is practically hysterical, because she won't answer the door. I get the manager to let me in, and I do a search of the apartment.

Living room - nothing.

Dining room - nothing.

Kitchen - nothing.

Bathroom - nothing.

Guest Bedroom - nothing.

To the right at the very end of the hallway is an open door to the woman's bedroom. I walk cautiously up to the edge of the doorway, from where I can see 95% of the room. Nothing. I decide I better check under the bed and in the closet, in case she's just hiding, and I make the right turn into the room.

There she is, 5 feet in front of me, staring right at me, mouth open, tongue sticking out - hanging dead from a belt around her neck. It was like a scene from a horror movie. It scared the living shit out of me.

She had looped the belt over the top of the closet door, then stepped off an ottoman. In the process, she had dropped her cell phone on the floor - the very one she'd texted her boyfriend the suicide threat with. One foot was still resting on the ottoman, as though she had possibly changed her mind at the last second. Too late.

You don't forget stuff like that.