…Mr Enger went to the home of a neighbour with a bleeding headwound. He was taken to a hospital, and police attended. He left hospital the same day and the police concluded there had been some form of accident. Shortly after he died…
A twelfth suicide by guillotine
Saxby Pridmore 1, Ahmed Naguy2
1 College of Medicine and Health, University of Tasmania, Australia
2 Kuwait Centre for Mental Health, Shuwaikh, Kuwait
Correspondance: Prof S Pridmore, email: s.pridmore@utas.edu.au
Received: 26/03/2026; Revised: 07/04/2026; Accepted: 09/04/2026
Key words: suicide, guillotine, mental illness.
[citation: Pridmore, Saxby & Naguy, Ahmed (2026).Atwelfth suicide by guillotine. Dynamics of Human Health (DHH), 13(1): https://journalofhealth.co.nz/?page_id=3292 .
Introduction
Suicide by guillotine is a very rare and ill understood example of human behaviour. Our group (Kimber and Pridmore, 2023) collected and described eleven cases – ten from the literature and one from local experience in Hobart, Tasmania. We have more recently located another case in a California newspaper and will provide a description and then compare it to the earlier mentioned eleven cases.
This account draws on two newspaper articles (Wilder, 2021; Carter 2021), material requested from, and kindly supplied by the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office (Death Investigation Report and External Examination Protocol) plus other material provided by Santa Rosa Public Records.
New Case
Robert Enger, a former carpenter and building contractor bought a residential property in the Luther Burbank region of Santa Rosa in 1999. He was about 42 years of age and made no known attempt to secure employment. It was later revealed he was divorced, and had one son and three brothers – although there had been long-term estrangement.
Initially, Mr Enger was friendly and outgoing toward neighbours. He employed local teenagers to wash his car and work in his yard. He helped one neighbour build an extension to her home, and others with smaller tasks. His grateful neighbours described him as an energetic and expert craftsman.
With the passage of time Mr Enger revealed that he had struggled with mental issues since his youth. He became less outgoing and stated that as a child he had been kidnapped and sexually abused by a distinguished Marine. He then wrote an account of the claimed events and placed it on his living-room window so that it could be read by those outside the house.
He stated that he believed the military were following him and poisoning his water. He then blocked his windows such that people outside could not see into his house. He became reclusive and had his food delivered to his home.
In a spare room, Mr Enger built a device like a guillotine. The only difference – a guillotine has a heavy blade which decapitates the individual when it falls – the Enger device had a 30 cm spike projecting from the lower surface of a heavy block of wood – when the block fell, at the bottom of the fall, the spike was designed to pass through the head of the user. Fig 1.
A standard guillotine is composed of two uprights with grooves on the facing sides, down which the blade slides. The Enger guillotine was composed as a strip backplate with an upright on either side to contain the block and spike during descent. The backboard and uprights stood vertically and were around 6 meters in height. A large hole was cut in the roof to allow the device to project outside. There was a supportive wooden frame on the roof to stabilize the device. There were metal rings on the roof through which ropes passed which enabled an individual located in the house to raise the wooden block and spike to the top of the device. Rain and rubbish blew into the house through the hole in the roof.
In early July 2019, when he was about 62 years of age, Mr Enger went to the home of neighbours with a bleeding headwound. He was taken to a hospital, and police attended. He left hospital the same day and the police concluded there had been some form of accident. As he shortly after died under his spike armed guillotine, this so-called accident was doubtless a failed attempt at suicide by guillotine.
Sometime in the next few months Mr Enger completed suicide using his device. His house was then taken over by drug using squatters. Police attended on several occasions dealing with matters relating to the squatters. They looked through the house more than once but did not notice Mr Enger’s body. It was at the base of the guillotine, but it was covered in rubbish. After receiving further information, the police found the body in late March 2020.
The External Examination Protocol states that on Mr Enger had a “significant” history of schizophrenia. This is consistent with his behaviour in his later years. He had been friendly and interactive with neighbours when he first arrived in Luther Burbank region, but as years passed, he became isolative. He told of having been kidnapped and raped which suggested delusions – but he then made a handwritten account of this event available to the public which strongly suggested psychotic thinking and behaviour. That rain and rubbish were allowed to blow in through a proprietor made hole in the roof and litter the property suggests lack of drive and disorganized thinking. That he formerly had building skills, but beyond 42 years of age, apparently did not seek employment suggests a loss of drive.
When his body was found his head had been removed by a drug using squatter (who received a 3-year jail sentence of interfering with the body). There was rope around Mr Enger’s ankles of the type which passed through the metal rings on the roof, indicating that he used his legs to drag the heavy wooden block and spike up to the top of the device.
Among the delusions and hallucinations and psychosis that filled Enger’s life there are signs that question his decision to suicide. For example, did he go ahead with suicide not having received some form of recognition or acknowledgement, (as discussed in Shahtahmasebi and Pridmore: a summary can be found here). It is plausible that Enger might have attempted to provoke a community reaction to his predicament, e.g. his claims about being abducted and raped and subsequently placing a written version on his windows; carving a big hole in his roof with timber protruding well above the roof (the device was 6 meter tall); seeking help from a neighbour after his failed attempted suicide (using his device), which was dismissed as an accident and he was discharged from hospital on the same day. There are two immediate issues: a) did Enger’s loss of drive and psychosis fed his suicidality resolve, or, suicidality fed his loss of drive and psychosis?; b) availability, accessibility, and relevant and appropriate care support.
Conclusion
In our earlier work we found all 11 individuals shared these characteristics – 1) male, 2) possessed building/manual skills, 3) lived in stable housing, 4) lacked an intimate partner, and 5) was middle aged. The 12th individual (Robert Enger) matched these well – the less good fit was age. The other 11 individuals were younger, ranging from 21-58 years. Robert Enger was a little older, but at 62 years he was not of retirement age and thus could not be designated old.
The 11 individuals discussed earlier included only one person with a definite history of psychosis, and one whom police stated had “a history of mental disorder” – which is by no means proof of a severe or psychotic disorder. The 12th individual presents strong evidence of a psychotic disorder, and this was confirmed by a police document. Thus, possibly 3 of 12 suffered severe/psychotic mental disorder.
An observation we have not made previously is that these guillotines have been made in secret. Even when those individual(s) who were living in a house with parents, the constructions were completed (in a bedroom or a shed) without the knowledge of parents or others (Sudakov, 2010).
Suicide by guillotine is an extremely uncommon and bizarre piece of human behaviour. Add to this the secrecy asserted during the construction and the observer is inclined to assume the process has been driven by psychosis. While this appears to be the case in the current case, surprisingly, it has not been proven in every case.
References
Carter, Lori A. A heartbreaking tale of madness and death on a quiet Santa Rosa street. The Press Democrat. News. December 4, 2021 at 11:51 AM PST
Kimber, Veronica and Pridmore, Saxby (2023). Suicide by Guillotine. DHH, 10(1):https://journalofhealth.co.nz/?page_id=2925].
Shahtahmasebi S, & Pridmore S (2022) Addressing suicide: the final nail in the mental illness coffin, J Altn Med Res; 99-103
Sudakov D. Man kills himself with makeshift guillotine. Pravda.ru 2010, 8 June. Available at: https://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/113706-guillotine/ (accessed 8 April 2023)
Wilder, Emily. 3-year sentence for Santa Rosa man who took skull from decomposing body in abandoned home. The Press Democrat. News. December 20, 2021 at 6:27 PM PST.
Fig. 1. An evidentiary file photo of the skull of Robert Enger. Provided by Police to The Press Democrat and published in 2021. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2021/12/04/a-heartbreaking-tale-of-madness-and-death-on-a-quiet-santa-rosa-street/ (accessed 1 April, 2026). It the photo of the skull of Robert Enger showing how the spike entered the left side of his skull and emerged on the right. At the back, in the middle of the skull is another hole through which a thick piece of wire is passed. This was not associated with the suicide but was attached by a person who was jailed for interfering with the body.
