In cases of death, homicide may be inferred from apparent evidence.

However, the interpretation of this evidence may be distorted by psychological processes.

An excellent example of this effect may be seen in the case of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

At first glance, there was practically nobody in the history of the world who seemed more likely to be murdered than Tutankhamun (King Tut), Pharaoh of Egypt from 1333-1323 BCE. Most authorities today agree that Tut was the son of Akhenaten, perhaps the most unpopular Pharaoh in history, who tried to start a new religion and, in so doing, usurped the power of the entire Egyptian priesthood and of many other powerful people. When Akhenaten’s poor, ill-starred kid Tutankhaten inherited the kingship on Dad’s death (nobody seems to know how Akhenaten died), the priests changed the boy’s name to Tutankhamun, rejecting his dad’s god Aten in favor of reference to the god Amon (Amun).

Despite this PR gesture, things didn’t go too well for the boy Pharaoh. He had to subsidize new priests and his own palace staff out of his own pocket, and he mysteriously died after 10 shaky adolescent years on the throne. During that time, he was under the sway of the regent Horemheb, commander of the Egyptian army, who technically didn’t have much right to the throne but managed to wind up with it anyway. In between the reigns of Tut and Horemheb, there was the reign of a somewhat shadowy official named Ay, who may or may not have been involved in a plot to betray Egypt to the rival Hittites (for example, Van Dijk, 2000). Under Ay’s rule, Tut’s juvenile widow, Ankhesenamun, seems to have written to the King of the neighboring Hittites to send her a new........

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