Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ex-Bush Aide Fatally Shoots Son, Himself
WA PO ^ | Saturday, July 15, 2006 | Tom Jackman and Stephanie McCrummen

Posted on 07/14/2006 9:27:43 PM PDT by woofie

Gunfire at McLean Home Followed Fight With Wife

A former Bush administration official, after arguing violently with his wife Thursday night, shot and killed his 12-year-old son inside their McLean home, then turned a shotgun on himself and committed suicide, Fairfax County police said.

William H. Lash III, 45, was an assistant secretary of commerce from 2001 until last year, then returned to teach at George Mason University Law School in Arlington, where he had begun as a professor in 1994. His wife, Sharon K. Zackula, fled the house before the shootings, and police said yesterday they were not sure what ignited the murder-suicide in a first-floor bedroom.

Friends and neighbors described Lash as devoted to his only child, William H. Lash IV, who was autistic. Will Lash had just completed sixth grade at Haycock Elementary School in the Falls Church area, Fairfax school officials said. The father and son could often be seen side by side on the swing set in their back yard, one neighbor said, and the pair often attended Washington Nationals baseball games.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: autism; commerce; dcsuburbs; deptofcommerce; fairfax; fairfaxcounty; fallschurch; georgemason; gmu; lash; mclean; murder; suicide
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last
To: woofie

The guy was a midlevel bureaucrat, hardly a "Bush Aide". I doubt the President ever met him.

The spin in this headline is beyond disgusting.


61 posted on 07/15/2006 10:51:27 AM PDT by GatorGirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: elkfersupper
Men eventually realize that there is no satisfactory exit strategy from a relationship involving children that goes bad.

Yeah, but they usually take a different route. Robert Blake comes to mind...
62 posted on 07/15/2006 10:53:20 AM PDT by beezdotcom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: streetpreacher
What a scumbag. Special place in hell for someone who would kill his own child.

Well, I hope I never hear such spew when you are street preaching.

The good news (gospel) is forgiveness, mercy, and all that.

What gospel DO you preach on the street?

63 posted on 07/15/2006 10:59:04 AM PDT by don-o (Proudly posting without reading the thread since 1998. (stolen from one cool dude))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: streetpreacher

"Special place in hell for someone who would kill his own child."

- The article seems to indicate that he was very close to his son. I take his actions to be one of a suicidal individual who kills his son - not out of hatred or revenge but because in his twisted thinking he couldn't bear to leave him behind.


64 posted on 07/15/2006 11:07:45 AM PDT by finnigan2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: woofie

This really has me crying. My oldest has autism.

It doesn't make sense. Unless maybe the wife had just told him she was leaving him and taking the boy. Maybe in a crime of passion he didn't want to "lose" his son?


65 posted on 07/15/2006 11:21:36 AM PDT by Yaelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lancey Howard

Let's hope you are wrong -- he appointed him


66 posted on 07/15/2006 11:23:44 AM PDT by Iron Eagle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: elkfersupper

Is this some kind of mitigation for murder?


67 posted on 07/15/2006 11:29:56 AM PDT by ShandaLear (Gringos Unite!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Yaelle; All
I knew Professor Lash. He was a black, conservative. He was smart, friendly, affable, and very popular. His credentials were beyond reproach. He was an accomplished writer, he made many appearances on FOXNews, and he ran in very big circles.

For those of us who knew him -- this tragedy is incomprehensible. If one were to craft a list of people who would never be involved in this type of tragedy -- his name would be on it.

It is a very sad event for his whole family -- and all of us who knew him. My understanding is, there was not a single sign of any problems with the family. Lash was fiercely devoted to his son, and spent more time with him than most of us get to do with out kids. I don't know that we will ever know what happened.

Obviously, he snapped. Once gone, he could not think rationally. I can only say this -- it is scary that this can happen to a man like Bill Lash.

May he and his son rest in peace. I have only sadness for his wife and the family.

As for the Post -- it is truly unseemly that they would link his death with his service. It is additionally not of the character of the site -- as I used to know it -- for people to assume he Lash was some unknown flunky. That is not the case. He was a star, and I am sure the President knew and had met him.

Obviously, he was not an inner circle advisor -- and his service there was honorable but not high profile. These deaths have no link to that service, and the Post's article shows the depth of its hatred for the Bush administration.
68 posted on 07/15/2006 11:32:34 AM PDT by Iron Eagle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: Iron Eagle

Thanks for your post.... all I can say is that some things in life are truly incomprehensible


69 posted on 07/15/2006 4:11:50 PM PDT by woofie ("Romper, bomper, stomper, boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me do.Magic mirror, tell me today.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: streetpreacher
When this guy pulled the trigger, I'm sure he found himself in a worse predicament than having to pay child support.

I agree.

70 posted on 07/15/2006 7:48:17 PM PDT by elkfersupper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: JennysCool
This guy was a lunatic.

Agreed, but sometimes it is the system, not the situation, that pushes them over the edge.

71 posted on 07/15/2006 7:50:45 PM PDT by elkfersupper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Pikachu_Dad
However, we must be running close to one/day in the news these days.

Every once in a while, someone just loses it with tragic results.

72 posted on 07/15/2006 7:53:14 PM PDT by elkfersupper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: Iron Eagle

I also knew him through my work. I agree with everything you've stated. He was very jovial, highly intelligent. It's inexplicable and deeply disturbing.


73 posted on 07/16/2006 12:04:22 PM PDT by tangodown
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: elkfersupper

and why are they losing it?


74 posted on 07/16/2006 8:48:07 PM PDT by Pikachu_Dad
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: Pikachu_Dad
and why are they losing it?

A general feeling of helplessness aggravated by the tax codes, and increasing regulation of every aspect of day-to-day life.

75 posted on 07/17/2006 7:44:52 AM PDT by elkfersupper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: Democratshavenobrains

What you wrote is absolutely ludicrous. How dare you accuse people you don't know of gaining happiness from such a tradgedy.

How disgusting. I know Sharon, and regardless of her political beliefs, she would not want people saying what you have said.


76 posted on 07/17/2006 11:27:07 AM PDT by vintage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: woofie

How awful. Prayers for the widowed mother and their family and friends.


77 posted on 07/17/2006 11:32:22 AM PDT by skr (We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.-- Ronald Reagan)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ingtar

Assistant Commerce Secretary is a presidential aide?

I once read that any official that serves at the pleasure of the president is considered an "aide"

I'm not sure


78 posted on 07/17/2006 11:35:20 AM PDT by WhiteGuy (It's about the People Who Count the Votes................. - Wally O'Dell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: JennysCool

Well said.


79 posted on 07/17/2006 11:36:56 AM PDT by MattinNJ (The paleocon's paleocon.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Iron Eagle
Thank you so much for that wonderful tribute. I went to some of the links posted earlier and found that he was a remarkably lucid and informed speaker as evidenced by a speech he gave in China to a group of students,I believe.

Another article spoke to an assignment he had to come to some understanding with drug companies in Israel re patents and generic drugs and standards. It demonstrated the confidence that we (US government) had in his ability to negotiate,clarify and deal with very complex issues. Whatever happened to cause him to kill himself and the child,it is just tragic and we should pray for them as well as his wife.

Although I hadn't even heard of him until this sad event,he is the fifth death this month that seems imponderable. The others were all deaths out of time,so to speak. A friend of mines brother's wife was killed in a jet ski accident,her young son ran into her on another ski and she was killed. Think of a young son killing the mother he loved.

A young mother of six or seven,who had written a beautiful book on the development of a baby from conception,through birth,to a couple of weeks out of the womb,ran over her four year old in the church parking lot,he died. Every parents nightmare becomes reality.

The chairman of group collecting petitions to place a "marriage between a male and female" on the ballot was killed in a one car accident the day before the group was to submit the petition to the state. The victory celebration for the intermediate goal accomplished was instead a time to mourn her death.

And finally,a relatively young president of a regional religious order died less than two months after being diagnosed with cancer. She had been young and vital. Another nun told me that one of the other "sisters" had said "I wonder if this is some kind of a message?" Looking at all of this is like a microcosm of the state of the world and I too wonder if we are getting some kind of a message from the One who loves us all and wishes we would choose Him?

80 posted on 07/17/2006 12:07:01 PM PDT by saradippity
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson