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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000737253

Gary Webb's Death Confirmed as Suicide

By E&P Staff

Published: December 15, 2004 12:05 PM ET

NEW YORK The death of investigative reporter
Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide,
according to a coroner's statement.

There has been speculation that he may
have met with foul play because he had
received two gunshot wounds to the head,
The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday.

"The cause of death was determined to
be self-inflicted gunshot wounds to
the head,"

said a statement issued by the
Sacramento County Coroner's Office.

"Information and evidence
gathered at the scene of death,
including a handwritten note indicating
an intention on the part of the decedent
to take his own life,

resulted in 'suicide' as the
determined manner of death."

The statement was issued because
of numerous calls to the Coroner's
Office following a Bee report Sunday
that Webb's death was caused by more
than one wound.

A former San Jose Mercury News reporter,
Webb was found dead in his Carmichael,
Calif., home Friday morning.

Webb gained national attention in
the 1990s after writing a series of
stories for the Mercury News linking
the CIA to Nicaraguan Contras trying
to overthrow the Sandinista government
and to drug sales of crack cocaine
flooding South Central Los Angeles
in the 1980s.

The Mercury News and others later
questioned the conclusions in Webb's
reporting,

and he left the San Jose newspaper in
1997 after being moved to a suburban bureau.

The paper later published an apology.

Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell,
told the Bee Tuesday that Webb, 49,
had been distraught for some time
over his inability to get a job at
another major newspaper.

"The way he was acting it would be
hard for me to believe it was anything
but suicide," Bell said.

The Bee also reported that Webb had
paid for his own cremation earlier
in the year and had named Bell months
ago as the beneficiary of his bank
account.

He had sold his house last week,
because he could no longer afford
the mortgage, and was upset that
his motorcycle had been stolen last week.

He had apparently laid out his driver's
license before taking his father's
.38-caliber pistol,

which he kept in his nightstand,
to shoot himself.

Coroner Robert Lyons said his
office had been swamped with calls.

"It's unusual in a suicide
case to have two shots," he said,

"but it has been done in the past,
and it is in fact a distinct possibility."



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