QIn my story, I have a guy who is murdered, but before he’s killed he takes out a life insurance policy on himself naming his wife beneficiary. During his autopsy he is found to have had terminal cancer. Further investigation reveals that he was being treated by a physician and he knew he was dying.
What kind of cancer could he have that would be untreatable, quickly fatal, and produce few, if any, identifiable symptoms that his wife and coworkers might have seen and questioned? I want him to have known he had terminal cancer, but I want the illness to have been unknown to others.
M. Diane Vogt
Author of the Judge Willa Carson mysteries and The Little Book of Bathroom Crime Puzzles
Tampa, Florida
AThough there are many options, your best bet might be melanoma—a nasty little malignancy that can kill in a few months. It is often discovered as a dark and irregularly shaped mole on the arms, legs, back, scalp, or almost anywhere, though most often in sun-exposed areas. It is initially biopsied, and when the diagnosis of melanoma is confirmed, it is removed by what is called a wide margin excision. This simply means that the mole is removed along with a fair portion of the surrounding tissue.
The real danger with melanoma is that by the time it is diagnosed it has often already metastasized (spread) throughout the body. A favorite location of these mets (metastatic lesions) is the brain, and when it spreads there it is uniformly fatal. Chemotherapy is of little help. Death can occur in weeks or months after spreading to the brain.
Some common symptoms of melanoma with brain mets are: headache, blurred or double vision, weakness or paralysis of one or more limbs or one side of the body, nausea, vomiting, seizures, disorientation, delusional or irrational thinking, erratic actions, and coma. These symptoms can occur in any degree or combination. He could have essentially no symptoms, or they could be minor enough that he could cover them.
So your victim could have metastatic melanoma, know he was dying, exhibit few outward symptoms or signs, and set up the insurance policy to protect his wife financially after his death.