Christine Chubbuck (partially found on-air suicide footage of television news reporter; 1974)
Christine Chubbuck hosting an episode of Suncoast Digest.
Status: Lost
On the morning of July 15, 1974, American talk show host Christine Chubbuck (then 29 years old) shot herself in the head on live television, following a fierce battle with depression. The now notoriously elusive broadcast stunned audiences, making headlines worldwide and marking the first time that a suicide was ever shown on TV.
Chubbuck originally worked at Channel 40 (WXLT-TV, now WWSB) in Florida as a reporter, later moving on to host a morning program titled Suncoast Digest; July 15 began much as any other day, until Chubbuck, just before Suncoast Digest was due to go to air, declared that she needed to read a newscast beforehand, confusing co-workers (as this was something she had never done before). Oblivious to her real intentions, the audience casually watched her read the newscast for eight minutes, as she covered three national stories. When she got to the fourth story (ie. that of a shooting at a local restaurant), the reel jammed, prompting her to shrug, nonchalantly turn towards the camera and proclaim "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first: attempted suicide." Chubbuck then drew a revolver that she had hidden in her bag, placed it behind her right ear and pulled the trigger, immediately slumping forward violently onto her desk, as the technical director scrambled to fade rapidly to black.
Many viewers who witnessed the broadcast proceeded to phone both the police and the station itself, some of the belief that it was nothing more than a morbid joke (even some of the WXLT-TV staff members initially doubted the legitimacy of what they had witnessed, on first impression also believing it to be a prank of some kind).
Many people who saw the live broadcast rang both the station and the police, many weren't sure if it was a morbid joke, or if it had actually happened. Some of the WXLT-TV staff even doubted its legitimacy at first. After Chubbuck was rushed to Sarasota Memorial Hospital hospital, news director Mike Simmons discovered that the papers from which she had been reading her broadcast contained a followup story, written herself, describing her suicide attempt. The followup story read something to the effect of "TV 40 news personality Christine Chubbuck shot herself in a live broadcast this morning on a Channel 40 talk program. She was rushed to Sarasota Memorial Hospital", (which she had accurately predicted), "where she remains in critical condition". Chubbuck was pronounced dead the day after. The network's master tape was subsequently seized as evidence by authorities, and was eventually returned to Chubbuck's family, who are said to have destroyed it.
As the broadcast aired in 1974, and several primitive forms of videocassette recorders were released in the early 1970s (such as the U-matic, which came out in 1971), it is entirely possible (albeit unlikely) that another recording exists elsewhere, although until proof of such a recording is unearthed, the video is generally accepted as being impossible to obtain. Having said that, there are some people who claim to have seen the footage via a variety of sources including early internet sites, FBI training videos, and Faces of Death knock-offs;[1] however, until any solid proof surfaces, these claims remain nothing more than hearsay.