Illness as Camouflage
How Trust, Illness, and Certainty Can Conceal Hidden Violence
“Poisoning is a crime of secret intimacy.”
— P. D. James
The Violence We Expect
When most people imagine violence, they imagine interruption.
A raised voice. A broken window. Bruises. Blood. The unmistakable evidence of force.
Our cultural imagination has trained us to expect violence to be loud, immediate, and visible. We
recognize danger most easily when it announces itself.
But some forms of violence do the opposite.
They move quietly through ordinary life, hidden within familiar routines and trusted
relationships. They arrive not with shattered glass but with fatigue, dizziness, nausea, confusion,
or collapse. They resemble illness more than assault, concern more than fear. In those moments,
the body becomes both the place where harm occurs and the place where its cause may be
obscured.
This is not a new observation.
For centuries, poisoning has occupied a singular place in legal history and literature because it
conceals itself behind the appearance of ordinary illness. William Blackstone described it as
especially difficult to discover because its circumstances are so easily mistaken for natural
causes. Novelists from Agatha Christie to P. D. James have returned repeatedly to the same
unsettling truth: some of the most dangerous forms of violence succeed not through force, but
through concealment.
The method is less important than the principle.
Violence is not always recognized by what it does.
Sometimes it is hidden by what it resembles.
When Illness Becomes the Story
In recent years, several criminal prosecutions have renewed public attention to the relationship
between illness narratives and hidden violence.
The cases of James Craig in Colorado and Kouri Richins in Utah differ in many important
respects, yet each drew attention because the deaths at their center initially appeared to be
medical emergencies rather than homicides. In both instances, investigators later alleged that
what first looked like unexplained illness concealed deliberate acts of violence.
Those prosecutions do not suggest that unexplained illness should routinely be viewed with
suspicion.
The broader lesson is different.
When illness provides a plausible explanation, curiosity often ends there.
That instinct is understandable. Families seek answers. Physicians work with the information
available to them. Investigators must balance limited evidence against countless ordinary
medical events that occur every day.
Yet history shows that some forms of violence depend precisely on those reasonable
assumptions.
The Department of Homeland Security has warned that covert poisoning within intimate
relationships remains an area of growing concern. Medical literature likewise recognizes that
intentional poisoning can mimic common illnesses, making diagnosis difficult unless clinicians
have reason to consider it.
Hidden violence often succeeds because it borrows the appearance of ordinary life.
It asks people to trust what seems familiar.
It depends upon symptoms that make sense.
And it benefits when the first explanation becomes the final explanation.
Transition
The broader question is not whether every unexplained illness conceals violence.
It plainly does not.
The question is whether some forms of violence remain unrecognized precisely because they
resemble illnesses that physicians, investigators, and families naturally expect to encounter. History shows that this has happened before.
Criminal prosecutions involving covert poisoning have demonstrated how easily symptoms can be mistaken for natural disease, how trusted relationships can delay suspicion, and how an initial explanation can become difficult to revisit.
That reality does not justify suspicion in every case.
It does, however, suggest that when an unexpected death leaves significant unanswered
questions, curiosity should not end simply because the first explanation appears plausible or
protects our preconceptions.
One such death occurred in Northern California in September 2021.
A Story That Ended Too Quickly
On September 16, 2021, thirty-six-year-old Brittany Hibdon told her spouse that she intended to
file for divorce. According to accounts provided by close friends, she described the decision as
final and planned to begin sharing that decision with others in the days ahead.
Those plans never materialized.
Within forty-eight hours, Brittany became ill.
On Saturday, September 18, she left work early because she felt sick. Family members and
friends later described an illness that progressed with unusual speed. By Sunday, her condition
had worsened significantly. By Monday, she was gravely ill.
Requests were reportedly made that she be taken to the hospital. She remained at home
throughout the day.
Her illness was being described as COVID-19 despite no confirmed test at that time.
Shortly after midnight, her spouse called 911, reporting that Brittany had stopped breathing.
Emergency personnel arrived to find no signs of life. After approximately twenty minutes of
advanced cardiac resuscitation, a pulse was restored and she was transported to the hospital,
where she was later pronounced dead.
During her treatment, hospital staff reportedly documented profound hypoglycemia and
questioned whether she had diabetes. According to her family and available medical history, she
was not diabetic.
Her death was ultimately certified as resulting from complications of COVID-19. No internal
autopsy was performed. NO complications were listed on her death certificate.
These facts establish neither homicide nor medical error. They establish something more modest—and, perhaps, more important.
They establish that significant questions remained after Brittany’s death.
Questions about the rapid progression of her illness.
Questions about the medical findings documented during her treatment.
Questions about investigative decisions made after her death.
Questions that have never, to the knowledge of those seeking answers, received a comprehensive
public explanation.
Whether those questions ultimately point to medical causes, investigative limitations, or
something else entirely cannot be answered here.
Nor should they be.
The purpose of this essay is not to resolve Brittany Hibdon’s death.
It is to ask whether our systems sometimes become too comfortable with certainty before
uncertainty has been fully examined.
The Quiet Weapon
When courts have written about poisoning, they have often emphasized not simply its lethality,
but its concealment.
More than two centuries ago, William Blackstone observed that poisoning was among the most
difficult forms of homicide to discover because its circumstances could so easily resemble
natural illness.
Modern courts have echoed that observation.
One California appellate opinion described poisoning as uniquely cruel because “the poisoner
acts surreptitiously, thus avoiding detection,” often betraying “the most intimate trust.” The
observation is notable not because it describes a particular case, but because it identifies the
central characteristic of covert poisoning: its dependence upon ordinary expectations.
Unlike violence committed in public or in rage, poisoning frequently occurs in private settings
where trust already exists. Meals are shared. Drinks are offered. Medications are taken.
Caregiving becomes indistinguishable from opportunity.
That is why poisoning has occupied such a singular place in both law and literature.
Its success depends not only upon chemistry.It depends upon psychology.
It depends upon the deeply human assumption that illness is more likely than violence.
That assumption is usually correct.
But history reminds us that it is not always correct.
And because it is usually correct, those occasions when it is wrong can remain hidden far longer
than anyone imagines.
Trust, Likability, and the Failure of Imagination
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to recognizing hidden violence is not forensic.
It is psychological.
Most people do not expect danger to come from someone who appears ordinary.
We are naturally inclined to associate violence with anger, instability, or obvious cruelty. We
expect dangerous people to look dangerous. We assume that kindness, education, professional
success, or an outwardly nice personality offer some measure of protection against the possibility
of calculated harm.
History repeatedly demonstrates otherwise.
Many perpetrators of covert violence have maintained successful careers, active social lives, and
reputations for generosity. Friends describe them as thoughtful. Neighbors remember them as
helpful. Colleagues speak of professionalism. Family members struggle to reconcile the person
they knew with the acts later alleged or proven in court.
This disconnect is not unusual.
It reflects a deeply human tendency to judge character through familiarity rather than evidence.
When violence occurs within an intimate relationship, that tendency becomes even stronger. The
very qualities that make trust possible—shared routines, emotional closeness, dependence, and
private access—can also make suspicion feel almost unthinkable.
The contradiction is difficult to accept. The possibility that someone perceived as good could deliberately cause harm conflicts with our understanding of relationships themselves. Faced with that contradiction, people often seek the explanation that requires the fewest changes to what they already believe.
Illness is one such explanation.
It asks little of us.
Disease is familiar. Sudden medical crises occur every day. Most unexpected deaths are exactly
what they appear to be.
Violence, by contrast, forces us to reconsider not only an event, but a person. It requires us to
imagine intent where we once assumed care, deception where we assumed honesty, and danger
where we assumed safety.
That is an unsettling intellectual and emotional task.
Perhaps that is why hidden violence so often escapes immediate recognition.
It asks investigators, physicians, families, and communities to entertain a possibility they would
much rather reject.
Not because they are indifferent.
But because the alternative is profoundly uncomfortable.
The question, then, is not whether people should become suspicious of every unexplained illness.
The question is whether our natural preference for ordinary explanations sometimes discourages
us from asking difficult questions when unusual circumstances warrant them.
Curiosity is not accusation.
It is the willingness to acknowledge uncertainty before reaching certainty.
When investigators remain open to multiple possibilities, medicine and justice are both better
served.
Certainty Before Curiosity
Every unexpected death presents two separate challenges.
The first is determining what happened.
The second is deciding when enough is known to stop asking questions.
Those are not always the same moment.In medicine, uncertainty is expected. Physicians routinely revise diagnoses as new information
becomes available. Investigators do the same. Scientific inquiry depends upon the willingness to
test assumptions rather than defend them.
Yet outside those disciplines, people often seek closure much sooner.
Families need answers. Communities seek reassurance. Institutions must complete reports, issue
certificates, and move forward. These practical realities create understandable pressure to settle
on an explanation once it appears to fit the available facts.
Often, that process works as it should.
Occasionally, however, an early explanation may become so firmly accepted that alternative
possibilities receive little attention—not because they have been disproven, but because the
prevailing narrative requires nothing more of those who should be obligated to look beyond the
easy answer.
History offers examples of deaths that were initially attributed to illness before later
investigations uncovered deliberate acts of violence. Those cases do not justify suspicion in
every unexplained death. They do, however, demonstrate the importance of remaining willing to
revisit assumptions when credible new information emerges.
The issue extends beyond any single case.
It touches on how societies understand trust, how institutions balance certainty with uncertainty,
and how easily familiar narratives can shape perception.
Violence does not always announce itself.
Sometimes it resembles illness.
The challenge is not to become suspicious of every ordinary explanation.
The challenge is to remain intellectually honest enough to recognize that ordinary explanations
are not always the correct ones.
Questions are not evidence.
But neither is certainty.
The strongest investigations—and the strongest institutions—are those willing to distinguish
between what is known, what is believed, and what remains unresolved.
Perhaps that is the real lesson hidden within cases of concealed violence.
Not that we should replace trust with suspicion.
But that trust should never replace curiosity.
The purpose of an investigation is not to defend a conclusion. It is to discover the truth.
One of the greatest threats to any investigation is not the absence of evidence.
It is the premature absence of curiosity.
When investigators conclude that there is “nothing suspicious,” the questions that might
otherwise be asked are often not pursued. When a person’s reputation becomes evidence in
itself—“he’s such a nice guy,” “I don’t believe he could do something like this”—assumptions
can quietly replace investigation.
The same risk exists in forensic medicine.
When a cause of death is accepted without fully exploring the circumstances surrounding that
death, or when an explanation is recorded without clearly identifying the specific mechanism by
which it occurred, unanswered questions can become permanent questions.
None of this suggests that every unexplained death conceals a crime.
It suggests something far more modest—and far more important.
Institutions charged with discovering the truth must remain willing to follow questions wherever
the evidence leads, even when the answers are uncomfortable.
Curiosity is not the enemy of certainty.
It is the path by which certainty is earned.
When certainty comes first, investigation can stop before understanding begins.
And when those with the authority to ask difficult questions decide there are no questions worth
asking, the search for truth risks ending—not because every question has been answered, but
because curiosity itself has been set aside.
Difficult questions rarely threaten truth.
Truth is threatened when questions are no longer permitted to challenge the first answer.
An investigation is not meant to protect certainty. It is meant to test it.