Susan Coleman

Law student at the University of Arkansas found dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head in 1977, ruled suicide with no autopsy performed.

Field	Details
Full Name	Susan Coleman
Born	circa 1950–1951
Died	February 15, 1977
Age at Death	26
Location of Death	Little Rock, Arkansas
Cause of Death	Gunshot wound to back of head
Official Ruling	Suicide
Nationality	American
Killed on US Soil	Yes
Alleged Intelligence Connection	None directly alleged; claimed victim of political cover-up
Victim Was Intel Employee	No
Category	Civilian Casualty

Assessment: MODERATE SUSPICION

Susan Coleman was a 26-year-old law student at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Bill Clinton had taught law there from 1973 to 1976 before becoming Arkansas Attorney General in January 1977. She died from a gunshot wound to the back of her head on February 15, 1977 — less than two months after Clinton took office as Attorney General. The death was ruled suicide by Arkansas authorities and no autopsy was performed. The most contested elements of this case are: (1) a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head is among the rarest and most physically difficult methods of suicide, and (2) no autopsy was conducted to establish cause of death with medical certainty. An anonymous letter circulated during the 1992 presidential campaign alleged Coleman had been pregnant with Clinton's child at the time of her death. Her family publicly denied the affair and pregnancy claims, calling them a hoax, and investigators hired in 1992 found no evidence of an affair.

Circumstances of Death

On February 15, 1977, Susan Coleman was found dead in Little Rock, Arkansas, from a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. The Arkansas State Police investigated and ruled the death a suicide. No autopsy was performed at the time.

The circumstances that have drawn scrutiny over the decades include:

• Location of the wound: A self-inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head requires an unusual and physically awkward shooting angle. Medical examiners generally consider such wounds less common in suicides than wounds to the temple or under the chin.
• No autopsy: Despite the unusual wound location, no autopsy was performed. Without an autopsy, the presence or absence of pregnancy, the trajectory of the bullet, and the distance of the shot (close-range or not) were never forensically established.
• Timing: Coleman died approximately six weeks after Bill Clinton was sworn in as Arkansas Attorney General. Clinton had previously been her law professor at the University of Arkansas.

Background

Susan Coleman was approximately 26 years old at the time of her death and was enrolled at or had recently attended the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville. Bill Clinton joined the law school faculty in 1973 after graduating from Yale Law School. He left to run for U.S. Congress in 1974, returned briefly, and was elected Arkansas Attorney General in November 1976, taking office January 3, 1977.

The exact nature of any relationship between Coleman and Clinton has never been established through public records, court filings, medical documentation, or verified testimony.

The Anonymous Letter and 1992 Investigation

In 1992, during Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign, an anonymous letter was mass-mailed to news organizations. According to reporting by UPI and other outlets at the time, the letter alleged that Susan Coleman had been having an affair with Clinton during his time at the law school, that she had become pregnant, and that her death was not a suicide but a murder to silence her.

Several points about this allegation:

• According to UPI reporting, Coleman's family "maintained there was no truth to this, and said reporters who had investigated the letter found it to be a nasty hoax."
• According to reporting at the time, a supporter of George H.W. Bush hired private investigators to probe Coleman's 1977 death, and "they found no evidence that she and Clinton had an affair."
• No medical records, autopsy reports, or pregnancy tests have ever been made public confirming that Coleman was pregnant.
• The letter was anonymous and its author was never identified.

PolitiFact (2019) and Snopes have both evaluated the Coleman claims and rated them unverified, describing the story as a "zombie rumor" — one that was debunked during the 1992 campaign but resurfaces repeatedly on social media.

Image Evidence

Source: @its_The_Dr (Johnny Midnight) on X, April 9, 2026.

Document Text (OCR)

The following text was extracted from the image shared by @its_The_Dr. Note that this image uses the name "Suzanne Coleman" — the correct name per contemporaneous Arkansas reporting and fact-checkers is Susan Coleman:

I'm Suzanne Coleman. After having an affair with Bill Clinton I became pregnant. Then my body was found with a gunshot wound to the back of my head. It was ruled a suicide and no autopsy was allowed. I was 7 months pregnant.

This meme format presents the claims in first-person voice. The claims regarding the affair, pregnancy, and 7-months gestation have not been verified through medical records or sworn testimony. They originate from an anonymous 1992 letter and have been denied by Coleman's family.

Why This Death Raises Questions

• A self-inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head is an unusual and physically awkward suicide method
• No autopsy was performed, leaving core questions unanswered by forensic evidence
• The death occurred approximately six weeks after Clinton took office as Arkansas Attorney General
• Coleman had been a student in Clinton's law school course
• No autopsy means pregnancy — if it existed — was never medically confirmed or ruled out
• The anonymous 1992 letter introducing the affair/pregnancy allegation was never traced to a source
• Arkansas State Police investigation at the time did not apparently document a full forensic investigation
• No coroner's inquest appears to have been held

Counterarguments and Denials

• Coleman's family publicly denied the affair and pregnancy claims, calling them a hoax, according to UPI
• Private investigators hired in 1992 specifically to probe this case found no evidence of an affair
• PolitiFact (2019) rated the viral "Clinton body count" claims that include Coleman as false or lacking evidence
• Snopes classifies the wider "Clinton body count" narrative, including Coleman's case, as a hoax
• Arkansas authorities who investigated in 1977 found no evidence of foul play
• The anonymous nature of the 1992 letter is itself suspicious — legitimate whistleblowers do not typically send anonymous mass mailings to news organizations
• Bill Clinton has denied having an affair with Susan Coleman
• The viral meme uses "Suzanne Coleman" — the incorrect name — suggesting it originated at a remove from primary sources

See Also

• Gary Webb — Journalist killed after exposing CIA-Clinton-era connections to drug trafficking
• Mary Pinchot_Meyer — Alleged presidential mistress killed in 1964
• Danny Casolaro — Journalist investigating Clinton-era intelligence connections killed in 1991
• Seth Rich — Another contested death with political dimensions

Other Shocking Stories

• Fred Hampton: FBI provided floor plans to police who killed the sleeping Black Panther leader in his bed.
• Karen Silkwood: Nuclear whistleblower's documents vanished from her crashed car en route to the New York Times.
• Mary Pinchot Meyer: JFK's alleged mistress shot twice on a Georgetown towpath; CIA chief seized and destroyed her diary.
• Gary Webb: Pulitzer-contributing journalist died from two gunshots to the head, ruled suicide.

Sources

• PolitiFact — No evidence to support this Clinton body count hoax (2019)
• Snopes — Clinton Body Bags
• Militarybudget.org — Suzanne Coleman: What Really Happened with the 1977 Arkansas Mystery
• History Heist — Suzanne Coleman
• The Free Dictionary — Clinton Body Count
• X post by @its_The_Dr (Johnny Midnight)

Status: Deceased (1977)

This information was built by Grok and Claude AI research.