Well, the mayor of New York is certainly raising doubts over 'suicide".

I have conducted within view observations literally 1000s of times in my 30+ years. I have know a small handful who have made serious attempts. All of them have been by ingestion of toxins. Only one I know completed suicide...he had copper wires baked into bread buns. The yeast somehow turns this into a deadly poison apparently. He was on 4:1 obs. This is an indication of extremely poor practice or he was allowed to end his own life. The observing staff may have been paid off. I can see no other way.

As someone who has spent 20 years working inside the walls, suicide watch very rarely lasts more than a few days after the actual attempt, then the prisoner is returned to population. The specialized observation cells are not usually "fish bowls", they're just cells stripped of everything but a concrete slab, mattress, and a toilet. Often there's a camera in the cell monitored from the officer's station.

General population prisoners are allowed out of their cells for hours at a time. The notion that a cellmate would have been there to prevent a suicide is a red herring. If anything, the other prisoner would have left him plenty of space to do whatever he wanted, likely knowing who he was, and might have egged him on.

Prisoners have standard oxford shoes with shoelaces. Even without those- they have bedding. A sheet tied to the window bars or the bunk makes a noose. I've even seen prisoners who ripped up mattresses or tore their suicide-prevention garments up to make threads for hanging attempts.

It takes 3-5 minutes for brain death once blood flow is cut off. Rounds are made every 30 minutes in the Michigan prison system. Even if the Federal system is different, still, do the math.

It might well have been suicide, but there must be many people grateful that any revelations can now never be verified!!

Took him off suicide watch-maybe trying to save taxpayers millions in prosecuting him. Should be a videotape.

He wasn't on suicide watch, and the suicide rate for prisoners is 1.5 to 2 times the rate for the general population. So much for suicide in prisons being difficult. Until EVIDENCE of anything other than a perfectly normal suicide is presented, it's just a suicide. He certainly wouldn't be the first person to kill themselves rather than face the music.