Death Ruled Suicide, Not Lynching

MOSCOW, Ida. —  An Iranian-born man found here Tuesday hanging by his neck with his hands tied behind his back killed himself, authorities said Thursday.

Latah County Prosecutor Craig Mosman said 21-year-old Sharon Andrew Akhavan, a student at the University of Idaho, used a slip knot to bind his hands, “so he wouldn’t be able to change his mind.” Mosman said the technique was “a classic suicide method.”

The announcement was a relief to people around town and at the university, who were hoping that the death on campus was not a racially motivated lynching.

Akhavan was dark-skinned. A white supremacist group, the Aryan Nation, is headquartered in Hayden Lake, Ida., 130 miles north of here. It and other neo-Nazi organizations hold annual gatherings in the state.

Akhavan left behind a “melancholy” note in which he told of “an unrequited relationship” with a female student and willed his possessions to friends, Moscow Police Chief David Cameron said.

He said Akhavan’s father was told details of the death and “concluded himself it was a suicide.”

Akhavan told a friend he had tried to hang himself five years ago in New York but had thwarted the effort himself, Mosman said.