We don't know what was going through RFG mind.
Did RFG have a financial problem? Rivers certainly wasn't starving after that. Foster involvement seemed to be facilitating an investigation, not any wrongdoing. Was RFG an outlier?
I got the list, with 3 exceptions, from Wikipedia. Obviously not everyone who commits suicide gets a Wikipedia page. They are people that were somewhat prominent.
It wasn't known in 2005, but today a genetic link between not only depression, but to suicide linked depression,
is known. It is possible that it could be determined if RFG had the trait, since they have his DNA.
My major argument against suicide is that there is no body. A lot of the other evidence, RFG's demeanor, the trip to Lewisburg, possibly even the finances, point to suicide as much as the do walkaway.
Here is an article on a genetic marker for suicide:
Genetic Biomarker Identified That May Predict Suicide Risk
I'm sure that not everyone who had committed suicide had this marker, nor that everyone that has this marker commits suicide. It
could increase or decrease the odds on suicide.
My dear friend, I've known about the genetic links for many mental disorders for as long as we've had the human genome sequencing and the markers have been identified and released to medical professionals and mental health care professionals. As you likely recall, I fit into both categories in my professions.
The story about Joan River's husband's suicide is very tragic and sad because he lost HER money. Money she'd made performing for years and he wouldn't disappoint her by telling her, so he committed suicide. That's the thinking of an irrational person. I think he was utterly overwhelmed and didn't know how to get her out of the abyss. It wasn't about him, it was about her. He loved her incredibly, but suicide is a very selfish act against those who loved him, Joan and Melissa, who was young at the time.
Do a Google search about Edgar and Joan.
His depression leading to his suicide was situational. He had made such bad decisions and trusted the wrong people with Joan's fortune that she was insolvent. He chose suicide in his utter despair. I do not believe his suicide had a genetic component, but it's hard to say because I never sat and talked with him, I only have Joan's memoirs to more or less follow as a guideline. Also, in recent years, Melissa has backed up what her mother said about her dad's spiraling financial despair, which he hid but they found after his suicide.
Joan did an amazing job with her comeback after his death.
I do not believe Vince Foster was a suicide, although I am aware that the death was listed as such. Each of us has to use our own discretion when reading about his affiliations and possible conflicts of interest, so to speak.
Famous people are no more likely than the gen. pop. to have any genetic marker for suicide, although there is anecdotal evidence that Bi Polar disorder is more common in creative artists. I do not know of empirical medical data establishing the same link and do not expect to see this sort of data.
You said: " A lot of the other evidence, RFG's demeanor, the trip to Lewisburg, possibly even the finances, point to suicide as much as the do walkaway."
I respectfully disagree. IF he'd sold or given away things which truly mattered to him like an Indians autographed baseball or other things of that type, then yes, maybe there'd be a case for suicide. Bue he did nothing he'd not done before other than disappear, which we ( you, Tracker, and I) collectively believe is evidence of voluntary leavetaking.
Oh, and I think Ray was a frugal and smart person who lived a quiet life. I do not think he was in financial dire straits nor would he have been had he remained in Bellefonte. He left for a different reason or reasons, I believe. Not sad, not sleazy, but his own choices and reasons for his future life on this earth.
JMO, of course.
