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fubarobfusco comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 21, chapters 91 & 92 - Less Wrong
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Or the Killing Curse destroys the soul (as does the Dementor's Kiss), whereas bleeding to death merely releases it from the body.
A test: Are there any ghosts of people killed by Avada Kedavra? Ghosts are noted as being only echoes of the dead person — but if they are echoes formed by the release of an intact soul, then there would not be one for anyone killed in a way that consumes the soul, such as Avada Kedavra or the Dementor's Kiss.
(I can't think of any in canon. The four House Ghosts were all killed by mundane means, and Moaning Myrtle by a basilisk's stare.)
Do the temporary ghosts of resurrection stone and "priori incantatem" count for you ?
That could only work if "permanent" ghosts are really made from souls (Dumbledore hypothesis), but the temporary ghosts are made from memories (HJPEV hypothesis). While it's not impossible to have both mechanism, Occam's razor gives it a low prior, I would more suspect the same mechanism behind both.
In the original HP canon, people killed by AK appeared to Harry near the end of the last book, when he ambiguously crosses over into the afterlife.
McGonagall tells Harry that the Killing Curse "strikes at the soul, severing it from the body".
On the other hand, Quirrell says that it will "instantly kill anything with a brain." I'd be careful about assigning too much evidence to McGonagall's pronouncement, since it's likely that she doesn't really have the information necessary to isolate that conclusion.
Well, looks like that objection is dealt with.