I don't know if anyone else has been following the death of Carol Ann Gotbaum in the Phoenix airport. Something just doesn't add up in this whole story, so I wanted to see if anyone here had an opinion on this case and your feelings as to what happened.

Just in case you missed the story and video, here is a link:

Carol Ann Gotbaum

There are a lot of stories on Yahoo, CNN, Fox and just about every media outlet, so this one is just a brief overview of what happened.

Hill said it appears Gotbaum may have tried to get out of her handcuffs, became tangled in the process and the cuffs ended up around her neck.

how does that happen??? i agree....something doesn't sound right.

yeah, she flipped the #$%^ out. she was SCREAMING wildly in the airport. she was out of her goard. i have no doubt that she thrashed around like a tied up cat and caused her own death. airport poilce don't strangle people, and that would leave a mark.

or it could be she was a pre-programmed government assassain with a chip in her brain and she short circuited.


the woman came UNHINGED.

phototiger Wrote:yeah, she flipped the #$%^ out. she was SCREAMING wildly in the airport. she was out of her goard. i have no doubt that she thrashed around like a tied up cat and caused her own death. airport poilce don't strangle people, and that would leave a mark.

I don't disagree that she was out of control. I do have questions about why she was left alone for 6-8 minutes when she was so distressed, as the police said she was no danger to herself or others. Looking at the video, how can they say that someone acting so wildly was no threat to themselves. The way I understand it, that is a direct violation of police procedure. Also the fact that the family was NOT allowed to have an official at the initial autopsy is strange and very uncommon.

They did a re-inactment of how you can get those handcuffs to the front and strangle yourself. However, most experts I have seen interviewed claim it is still very hard to kill yourself this way because you have to keep applying pressure and a person will pass out long before they die under these circumctances. I'm not going out to test that theory though.

I also wonder why she was alone on this trip, and no family member was going with her if she was this unstable. that also seems a little wierd to me. I know if my wife was a raving drunk lunatic, I'd make sure she got to the rehab safely by escorting her myself.

I'm not throwing blame anywhere, but I do think a lot of the angles in this deal are strange.

SpiderMan79x Wrote:

phototiger Wrote:yeah, she flipped the #$%^ out. she was SCREAMING wildly in the airport. she was out of her goard. i have no doubt that she thrashed around like a tied up cat and caused her own death. airport poilce don't strangle people, and that would leave a mark.

I don't disagree that she was out of control. I do have questions about why she was left alone for 6-8 minutes when she was so distressed, as the police said she was no danger to herself or others. Looking at the video, how can they say that someone acting so wildly was no threat to themselves. The way I understand it, that is a direct violation of police procedure. Also the fact that the family was NOT allowed to have an official at the initial autopsy is strange and very uncommon.

They did a re-inactment of how you can get those handcuffs to the front and strangle yourself. However, most experts I have seen interviewed claim it is still very hard to kill yourself this way because you have to keep applying pressure and a person will pass out long before they die under these circumctances. I'm not going out to test that theory though.

I also wonder why she was alone on this trip, and no family member was going with her if she was this unstable. that also seems a little wierd to me. I know if my wife was a raving drunk lunatic, I'd make sure she got to the rehab safely by escorting her myself.

I'm not throwing blame anywhere, but I do think a lot of the angles in this deal are strange.

the whole thing is nuts, but people flip out every day..see the sherriff's dep. in wisconsin that just executed six people.

the world is going mad.

she had an s.b.a.

Adds up to me. Drunk woman flips out at airport; strangles herself with handcuffs trying to escape.

Sometimes, when you dig your own hole deep enough, you end up buried in it.

People under control don't let these things happen to them.

I read that the woman was bumped from a direct flight, if that makes any difference, and had time to go to the airport bar, which caused her to miss her connecting flight. What her family should have done, I don't know. I think I would have accompanied her, knowing how crazy flying is today, and Mesa Airlines, which she was booked on, is one of the worst.

The thing that I don't understand is that her husband says she was not well? So...was she drunk or messed up? If she wasn't well, why was she traveling alone? Also, why was she screaming "I'm not a terrorist"??? Red flag anyone? I don't blame the police for detaining her. Whatever happened to her from there is strange.