Suicidal Tendencies

Kentucky police say that census worker Bill Sparkman comitted suicide as part of an elaborate insurance fraud scheme.

The bizarre details of the death caused a firestorm of media coverage and widespread speculation on the Internet, including that someone angry at the federal government attacked Sparkman as he went door to door, gathering census information.

There has been some anti-census sentiment in the country this year, and Sparkman apparently tried to capitalize on that with his ruse.

If there had been no writing on his chest and his identification hadn’t been taped to him, police could have concluded more quickly that Sparkman’s death was a suicide, Rudzinski said.

Instead, it took considerably more investigation to rule out homicide. Police even analyzed the ink on Sparkman’s chest to see how the letters were applied, in order to determine whether it was more likely that someone else wrote on him or he wrote on himself.

Tests indicated that the letters were applied from the bottom to the top — not the way an assailant facing Sparkman would write them. Police concluded that Sparkman wrote on himself, Rudzinski said.

Ultimately, there was no evidence to point to murder, she said.

So that's it then.  Sparkman killed himself, and tried to play off anti-government hysteria.  No doubt this will be seen as a vindication of that hysteria, of course.  But it seems the only person in this case who criminally killed anyone was Bill Sparkman.

What drove Sparkman to this conclusion of his life?  Why the anti-government "FED" scrawled on his chest?  Why such a dramatic death?  Kudos to the Kentucky State Police for getting to the bottom of this mess...but there are far more questions now than before.

And before the Wingers start getting too smug, let's not forget who thought Sparkman was killed by teenage rap fans or that Sparkman was murdered because he was a pedophile.  Turns out Sparkman was the only terrorist, and preying on that fear in order to sell his death as a suicide for the insurance money.  I was wrong about Sparkman's murder, but so were those on the Right determined to destroy Sparkman for political gain.

Any way you slice this story, it's still pathetic.