All These Guys Accused/Guilty of Harassment...

On 8 April 1991, Dead committed suicide in the house owned by the band. He was found by Euronymous with slit wrists and a shotgun wound to the head. Dead's suicide note notably read "Excuse all the blood, cheers." and included an apology for firing the weapon indoors. Instead of calling the police, Euronymous went to a nearby store and bought a disposable camera to photograph the corpse, after re-arranging some items.[16] One of these photographs was later stolen and used as the cover of a bootleg live album, Dawn of the Black Hearts.[17]

Necrobutcher recalls how Euronymous told him of the suicide:

Øystein called me up the next day ... and says, "Dead has done something really cool! He killed himself". I thought, have you lost it? What do you mean cool? He says, "Relax, I have photos of everything". I was in shock and grief. He was just thinking how to exploit it. So I told him, "OK. Don't even fucking call me before you destroy those pictures".[7]

Euronymous used Dead's suicide to foster Mayhem's 'evil' image and claimed Dead had killed himself because death metal had become 'trendy' and commercialized.[18] In time, rumors spread that Euronymous had made a stew with bits of Dead's brain and had made necklaces with bits of his skull.[19] The band later denied the former rumor, but confirmed that the latter was true.[19] Moreover, Euronymous claimed to have given these necklaces to musicians he deemed worthy,[20] which was confirmed by several other members of the scene, like Bård 'Faust' Eithun[21] and Metalion.[22]