When They Call It Suicide

Tamika Johnson’s death was labeled a suicide.

That word landed like a gavel before the evidence ever had a chance to breathe.

According to initial reports, Roderick Berry Jr., a man she had dated years earlier, told police that Tamika shot herself inside his apartment. Her mother, Laura McCluney, did not believe it for a second. Not because she was in denial. Not because she couldn’t accept loss. But because she knew her daughter.

Tamika loved her job. She adored her three children. She feared guns. Her family had once rescued her from Berry’s home a decade earlier, after allegations of abuse. They didn’t even know the two had reconnected.

And yet, within hours, the narrative was handed to the public: suicide.

It was only after an autopsy that the truth cracked the surface. Berry was first arrested on gun charges and later indicted for murder by a grand jury in Gaston County. The official story shifted. The label changed.

But here’s the question we have to ask — and we have to ask it loudly:

Why are women so often declared dead by their own hands before investigators have done theirs?

The Shortcut That Costs Women Their Dignity

When a woman dies under suspicious circumstances, especially in the presence of a current or former intimate partner, there is a disturbing pattern in this country. The death is sometimes quickly categorized as self-inflicted. The scene is treated accordingly. Evidence preservation becomes less rigorous. The investigation narrows instead of expands.

And once the word suicide is attached to her name, something else happens.

The urgency drains from the story.

Nationally, homicide remains one of the leading causes of death for women under 44 in the United States. According to CDC data, women are killed by intimate partners at staggering rates — and Black women experience intimate partner homicide at disproportionately higher levels than white women. In many jurisdictions, domestic violence histories are under-documented or dismissed as relational drama instead of precursors to lethal escalation.

Tamika Johnson’s case fits into a larger crisis that we rarely confront honestly: intimate partner violence does not always end when the relationship does. In fact, separation and re-engagement periods are among the most dangerous times.

When we treat suspicious deaths as suicides without exhausting every forensic angle, we are not just making a clerical mistake. We are potentially burying crimes.

The Disparity We Don’t Like to Talk About

Let’s speak plainly.

Black women’s deaths receive significantly less media coverage than those of white women. This isn’t conjecture. Multiple studies analyzing news reporting patterns have found that missing or murdered white women are more likely to receive sustained national media attention, more detailed storytelling, and more sympathetic framing.

Meanwhile, Black women’s stories are often reduced to short local segments. Fewer follow-ups. Less public outrage. Fewer viral campaigns.

Tamika Johnson’s story deserved national scrutiny from the beginning — not just after a grand jury indictment forced a correction.

And this is not about competing tragedies. It is about equal urgency.

The Ellen Greenberg Case: When the Label Changes and the Questions Multiply

If you want a case that has haunted advocates for over a decade, look at the death of Ellen Greenberg in Philadelphia.

On January 26, 2011, Ellen was found dead in her apartment with 20 stab wounds — ten of them to the back of her neck and head. Her fiancé, Samuel Goldberg, reported that he had been locked out by a security latch that could only be engaged from the inside. He said he forced entry, found her with a knife still lodged in her chest, and called 911.

Initially, the medical examiner ruled Ellen’s death a homicide. Then the ruling shifted. Ultimately, her death was classified as suicide.

Twenty stab wounds. Including wounds to areas not easily self-inflicted. A locked latch. A rapidly evolving manner-of-death determination.

If that sounds surreal, it’s because it is.

Years later, the case continues to generate legal battles, investigative scrutiny, and a new documentary on Hulu titled Death in Apartment 603: What Happened to Ellen Greenberg? The fact that this case is still being litigated in the court of public opinion speaks volumes about the discomfort surrounding its official conclusions.

Here’s the difference that matters in this comparison:

Ellen Greenberg’s case became national. It has been covered by major outlets, litigated in appeals courts, and dissected in long-form documentaries.

Tamika Johnson’s story, like so many others, risks becoming a footnote unless we demand more.

When Investigations Follow Narratives Instead of Evidence

There is a dangerous human instinct in policing: once a theory takes hold, everything begins to orbit it.

If the first statement given is suicide, that lens can shape how evidence is interpreted. It can determine whether homicide units are immediately called in. It can influence how a scene is processed. It can affect how aggressively digital records, past abuse reports, and witness statements are pursued.

And when the theory shifts later — after an autopsy, after family advocacy, after public pressure — we rarely circle back to ask what investigative steps may have been compromised by that initial assumption.

We should.

Because justice is not just about the final charge. It is about the integrity of the path that led there.

The Child Who Asks to Call Heaven

There is a four-year-old girl in Gaston County who kisses her mother’s photograph and asks if she can call Jesus because she wants to talk to her mommy.

That image should stop us cold.

Children do not understand legal classifications. They do not comprehend autopsy revisions. They only know absence.

When a mother’s death is mislabeled, even temporarily, it does more than distort paperwork. It shapes how that child’s story is told. It influences how community members perceive her mother’s life. It can quietly stain a legacy that deserves protection.

We owe children better than rushed conclusions.

The Data Demands Accountability

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly half of female homicide victims in the United States are killed by a current or former intimate partner. For Black women, the rates are significantly higher than the national average. Many of these cases involve prior histories of abuse that were known to family members, friends, or law enforcement.

At the same time, clearance rates for homicide have declined in many major cities over the past decade. And deaths ruled suicides rarely receive the same depth of independent review unless families push relentlessly.

The tools for investigation exist: advanced forensic analysis, gunshot residue testing, digital forensics, intimate partner lethality assessments, structured homicide reviews. But tools are only as powerful as the will to use them without bias.

When domestic violence histories are minimized or dismissed, risk escalates. When women’s fears are discounted, warning signs go unrecorded. When suspicious deaths are hastily classified, accountability is delayed.

Sometimes permanently.

Demand Change — Not Later, Now

We should not have to wait for an autopsy to correct a narrative that never fit.

We should not have to rely on grieving mothers to fight investigative inertia.

We should not accept disproportionate coverage based on race, geography, or social status.

Here is what must change:

• Mandatory homicide review protocols in all suspected domestic violence deaths.
• Independent forensic review when manner-of-death rulings are disputed by family and evidence.
• Transparent communication from medical examiners when determinations change.
• Equal media scrutiny regardless of the victim’s race.
• Expanded funding for domestic violence lethality assessment training in law enforcement agencies.
• Public access to data on reclassified deaths.

Justice should not depend on how loud a family can shout.

This Is Bigger Than Two Names

Tamika Johnson in Gastonia.

Ellen Greenberg in Philadelphia.

Two different cities. Two different racial realities. Two different levels of media oxygen.

But one common thread: a death initially framed as self-inflicted under circumstances that triggered immediate skepticism.

When a woman dies violently, we owe her more than the fastest explanation. We owe her the hardest questions.

And we owe her children, her mother, her community a system that investigates without shortcuts.

If you have watched cases like this unfold — if you have felt that cold frustration when a story doesn’t add up — say so. Demand transparency. Support domestic violence advocacy groups in your community. Follow independent reporting. Watch the documentary. Read the filings. Ask your local officials about homicide review procedures.

Because when we accept easy answers in hard cases, we create a blueprint for the next injustice.

Tamika Johnson deserved a thorough investigation from the first moment. So did Ellen Greenberg.

And the next woman whose death is too quickly explained deserves it too.

The question is not whether we are outraged.

The question is whether we are willing to turn that outrage into structural change.