Posted on 01/26/2002 1:18:16 PM PST by Wolfstar
Police examine note in apparent suicide
By ERIC HANSON and MARY FLOOD
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
SUGAR LAND -- A former Enron executive who resigned last year -- reportedly after complaining about accounting practices that led to the firm's collapse -- was found dead Friday, an apparent suicide.
Police said they expect the autopsy results on John Clifford Baxter, the former Enron Corp. vice chairman, to be released Monday.
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...Baxter, 43, was discovered about 2:20 a.m. in the driver's seat of his Mercedes-Benz, parked in the 5800 block of Palm Royale Boulevard.
He had been shot once in the head and a .38-caliber revolver was found inside the locked car, investigators said.
Sugar Land police were examining a suicide note, said [Sugar Land police spokeswoman Pat] Whitty, but she would not disclose its contents or say where it was found.
Sources familiar with Baxter's death said Enron was mentioned in the note.
Baxter's car was being inspected for fingerprints or other evidence this weekend.
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His luxury sedan was parked in a cut-through in the median of the tree-lined boulevard, within blocks of the $700,000 home he shared with his wife and two children in Sugar Land's most exclusive neighborhood.
Because the evidence of suicide was considered so strong, Fort Bend County Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace James Richard initially chose not to order an autopsy.
"There just wasn't any evidence of foul play," said Richard, noting that police did not request an autopsy.
However, because of the attention being focused on Baxter's death, he changed his mind just before noon.
"I decided to use an overabundance of caution," Richard said.
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He had hired an attorney and knew it was likely he was about to be deposed and questioned by lawyers, federal investigators and maybe even Congress. In addition to questions about his work at Enron, there were questions about his own sale of more than 577,000 shares that garnered him $35.2 million between October 1998 and early 2001.
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Also Friday, ABC News reported that Baxter and 48 other people had received subpoenas this month from the Senate Government Affairs Subcommittee on Permanent Oversight and Investigation.
Baxter was discovered by a Precinct 4 constable's deputy, who saw the Mercedes during routine patrol, said police Sgt. Truman Body [note: his last name is Body]. He said the deputy drove by again about 15 minutes later, saw the mortally wounded Baxter and called for an ambulance.
Police had to smash the right-rear window to get into the car. The car was towed to a private storage lot near Richmond for examination.
SNIP...
When Baxter resigned in May 2001, Enron's news release said it was to spend additional time with his family. It said he still would be an Enron consultant.
By all accounts, he did not take on significant other work. Instead, he stepped up his interest in yachting.
But when the company faltered several months later, Baxter was named in dozens of federal lawsuits, along with other former and current Enron executives who sold stock and took profits while lower-level employees were left with little in stock and retirement plans.
Dennis Onstott, a Gulf Coast marine insurer, knew Baxter from selling him yachts years ago and from his largess with Onstott's favorite charity, the Sunshine Kids, which helps children with cancer.
"He was the nicest, most conscientious man. It's hard to imagine him (committing suicide)," said Onstott.
But Jerry V. Mutchler, president of Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas, where Baxter served on the board, saw a different side.
Baxter's activity with the board was at its peak while he was at Enron, Mutchler said. He even was scheduled to join the board's executive committee until he left Enron.
"I consider him larger than life. He was a very generous man who worked very hard and ran very hard," Mutchler said. "That kind of man can be more sensitive than someone who plodded through life."
He said several others active in Junior Achievement had talked with Baxter recently and found "he wasn't very happy these last few weeks."
"He was depressed and disappointed about all that had happened," Mutchler said. "Who wouldn't be?"
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Because this was a Justice of the Peace. In Texas the Justice of the Peace is an elected position. He does not have to have any legal or law enforcement training and usually doesn't. His duties entail signing death certificates (it's not moving, so it must be dead), performing weddings, and adjudicating minor civil offenses. I used to live in that Precinct in that County and worked for a former JP (we had a travel agency in the front rooms of his offices). You could pay off your traffic fines, get married, and book your honeymoon in the same office. Occasionally I would be called upon to serve as a witness for the brid and groom.
This wasn't Houston Law Enforcement. This was a Ft. Bend County Justice of the Peace (who also serves as the coroner.) And if we want to get picky, the Vince Foster case wasn't handled by DC Law Enforcement -- that was the Park Police, a different agency
Why should we believe the ME's report?
Didn't the article say that he had sold $32 million in Enron stock in the last few years? That seems like a pretty big lifeline to me.
By your logic, Ken Lay (if he was the trigger man)would not be at the center of this because he is still alive. You dont need just a sheet of tin foil, you need a whole case.
That just applies to the Washington Post and the LA Times, because of the lawsuit -- and if you are a nice guy, the Jewish World Review so that the owner of that Website can get credit for your hit! Otherwise, whole articles are preferred, I think, because of the archives.
Lawsuits have been filed. It's leveraged. The family can't touch it until the suits have been settled.
Yes but is life insurance paid out for suicides?
Gotta agree with you. On the other hand, it's an even stranger place for a murder. Even at that time of night, Palm Royale is a fairly busy cut through street.
And that report has come in, according to FOXNEWS.
The ruling: suicide.
So the Harris County ME concurs with the JP's initial ruling.
Not usually.
Why should we believe the ME's report?
Maybe because it's his job to determine cause of death, and he does it dozens of times every day.
What makes you think he had $35 million. He sold his stock for $35 million but then would have had to pay a huge amount of taxes on it. He would then have invested it in the stock market. Notice how the market's been doing lately? They said he was looking for a job again. We really don't know what his situation was and he was looking at horrendous legal bills.
Its sounded like a rubber room within hours of the suicide. Its really pathethic that so many people have to find some sinister force behind every thing that happens. Back in the middle ages a bird didnt drop from the sky unless it was caused by God. Few believe that anymore but it seems they have replaced it with conspiracies leftover from the 60's like SPECTRE.
If his "unemployment" kept him from having meaningful contact with friends and associates and he had no meaningful work to do, he could be very depressed. It takes a type A personality to make it to the top of one of these Fortune 500 companies. You dont just retire and sail your boat, not and stay sane.
Just remember the powers that be are circling the wagons and he was a loose cannon in their eyes.
They have all been meeting together to strategize for months and feeling each other out to see who is in and who is out. It has been "we all hang together or we will all hang separately". He was probably the one who they didn't trust to keep his mouth shut and develop early alzheimers.
Remember Clinton lawyers are defending the executives and they want any loose ends tied up. He was a loose end. His death is a message to the others to stay in the circle or else.
Even if his finger prints are on the gun, someone else could have pulled the trigger and dictated the note.
You will have to forgive those of us who have vivid imaginations -- but after a decade of the Clintonistas it is impossible to operate without one.
Finally -- do you remember General Rommel's suicide. Think about it.
Well, you might be right if this guy was a close personal friend of President Bush and was a member of his administration working in the Whitehouse, but that's not the case. This guy was a former employee of a private company that just went out of business under some pretty fishy circumstances. Whether he committed suicide or was "disposed of" has absolutely nothing to do with politics. If anything, since the guy left the company a couple of years ago, it's far more likely that it would be connected to the administration right before this one.
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