Posted on 06/21/2006 5:06:02 AM PDT by Renfield
Philip Merrill, the prominent publisher and former diplomat whose body was found floating in the Chesapeake Bay on Monday, suffered from a heart condition and apparently took his own life, his family said last night.
Merrill, 72, was found with a shotgun wound to the head and a small anchor tied around one or both ankles, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
~~~~snip~~~~
In 1996, former CIA director William E. Colby died from drowning and exposure after falling from a canoe off Charles County.
~~~~snip~~~~~
In 1978, another former high-level CIA employee, John A. Paisley, disappeared while sailing across the Chesapeake Bay. His body was found a week later near Solomons Island with a fatal gunshot wound in an apparent suicide.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
No problemo. I didn't take it that way at all my FRiend.
BMA. I guess you take everything you read or hear as seriously as a bomb threat. Get a life stupid.
I've read of people taking antidepressants, and apparently the first month or so is the most critical because dosages and/or combinations need to be adjusted so frequently.
If I recall, Merrill has just recently began taking antidepressants.
The baroque and bizarre nature of his suicide - shotgun, boat anchor, in the middle of the Bay - suggests that his thinking was askew, to say the least.
Sort of a "Viking" thing ?
If and when I ever decide to check out I may want to spend my last hours alone, in a beloved place, reflecting.
Sounds right to me.
I realize there is no way to have all of the answers in suicide cases, but I'd certainly want as much info as I could get on the drug and possible interactions with others that he was taking.
The northwestern shore of the Chesapeake Bay (the Baltimore-Washington area) is one of the most densely populated parts of our country. It's pretty hard to be "alone" on the upper Bay. On weekends, it's maddenlingly crowded...a watery version of the Washington beltway.
true enough.
that little section from merrill's house down 20 miles to plum point (where they found his boat adrift) is one of the most heavily trafficked sailboating grounds in the USA, maybe in the world (annapolis is the acknowledged "sailboat capital of america").
especially in june. especially in 6-8 knot winds (the conditions that day). especially on weekends.
wierd though that the boat was found at plum point on the western side of the bay, the body over near tilghman on the eastern side. that's 11 miles or so.
the whole thing is wierd: the shotgun, the anchor, the location. i don't mean "wierd" as in conspiratorial, i mean "wierd" as in suicidal oddness.
btw, last time i ran plum point, the navy was doing some sort of aerial bombing practice which was very unnerving, esp. having gone through a similar exercise at Dahlgren on the Potomac only a few hours earlier.
"The northwestern shore of the Chesapeake Bay (the Baltimore-Washington area) is one of the most densely populated parts of our country. It's pretty hard to be "alone" on the upper Bay. On weekends, it's maddenlingly crowded...a watery version of the Washington beltway."
Forget what I wrote....it doesn't fit this reality.
Earlier I said the "method" was a "message" and speculated that this was in reality a murder.
Lynne Cheney worked with Merrill for a long time. The there's the fact that Merrill gave to the Libby Defense fund. Wonder if Merrill ever wrote anything on Wilson.
From my gut: Yes, this death has a Marcy Park flavor. When will the suicide note turn up?
He shot himself and tied an anchor to his ankles doesn't add up to an accident or suicide.
Mmmmm. I believe you may want to reconsider your position.
Last time I checked, shooting yourself is pretty much considered suicide.
If you aren't going to eat that cat, can I have it?
WELL, IT WASN'T AN ACCIDENT. IT WOULD BE AN EXTREMELY UNUSAL WAY OF COMMITTING SUICIDE.
What we need to know is if the shotgun was always on the boat or MISSING from its' cabinet.....and the last ten people he talked to.
You bring up a pretty good point. Shooting yourself in the head with a shotgun is pretty hard, unless you have one of those "coach guns" with the shortened barrels (or a riot gun). A man would have to have arms like a gibbon to have enough reach to shoot himself in the head with an ordinary shotgun, unless he used his big toe to pull the trigger....something that would be difficult to do with an anchor wrapped around his ankle.
This episode reminds me of something that happened in 1993 near a town in which I used to live in Kentucky. The corpse of a man was found on a hilltop in a wooded, remote area. A plastic bag was taped around the head, and the hands were missing (and as far as I know, have never been found). He had a set of Honda car keys in his pocket, but no Honda car was found abandoned anywhere in that part of the county. The police...who apparently just didn't want to deal the the issue...initially ruled his death a suicide!
The body was eventually identified as a man from Wisconsin.
I read that book.
Maybe that's why it is famous for crabs. They have 8 arms!
Unless the shotgun was sawed off or he had pretty long arms, wouldn't that be difficult?
See my post #153 above. I wear a size 35 sleeve. I just whipped one of the shotguns (Stevens model 67, with 28" barrel) out of the cabinet behind me and tried it on for size (unloaded, of coarse). I could only do it with great difficulty.
OOps, I meant "course", not "coarse".
FWIW, I know of one shotgun suicide. The man who did it shot himself in the abdomen.
My inclination is to suspect the family. They are so quick to say that it's him and it was suicide. What I've read is that the coroner made a preliminary ID (based on what? DNA? clothing?) and they don't dispute it. That makes me think that either they are in on a fake suicide, or they decided that he wasn't dying quick enough from his health problems. This was a wealthy and powerful family. IMO, any cop worth his salt would have alarm bells going off at this.
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