Sparkman Death Ruled Suicide
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The Kentucky State Police Post 11 in London, with the assistance of the FBI, the U.S. Forest Service, the State Medical Examiner’s Office and the Clay County Coroner’s Office, has concluded the investigation into the death of William E. Sparkman, Jr.
The investigation, based upon evidence and witness testimony, has concluded that Mr. Sparkman died during an intentional, self-inflicted act that was staged to appear as a homicide. While all the details of the investigation will not be released at this time, the unusual level of attention and speculation attributed to Mr. Sparkman’s death necessitates this release of information.
The investigation indicates that Mr. Sparkman died of asphyxiation/strangulation at the same location where he was discovered in Clay County, Ky.
28 Responses to “Sparkman Death Ruled Suicide”
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So it wasn’t a Glenn Beck killing as you asserted?
Hey, I can stop holding my breath! Whew…
Still, you’d think there’d be at least SOMETHING along the lines of “Hey, sorry I tried to tar and feather all conservatives as vengeful psychopaths”.
you’d think there’d be at least SOMETHING along the lines of “Hey, sorry I tried to tar and feather all conservatives as vengeful psychopaths”.
Who did that?
I’ll jump out in front of myself here…I had a feeling that this was, as William says, a “Glenn Beck” killing and it appears I was wrong.
I’m glad to be wrong, for the record, because the idea that anybody is ready to take any sort of violent rhetoric seriously enough to act upon it is something that we should all be afraid of.
I will roll up and stow away my Jump To Conclusions mat, which so egregiously failed me in this case.
I will say, however, that my being wrong in this case does not mean Beck, Limbaugh, teabaggers et al, deserve no further scrutiny of the words they speak. I’m sure that they will think it as such, and I’m sure many of their defenders here will think it such. They will be mistaken.
No apologies from me.
Conservatives don’t apologies for their knee jerk, jump to conclusion episodes, neither will I.
Tough luck.
We’ve had one Beck-inspired killing already, and there will be more. This one, thankfully, is not one.
Hmm… so this whole case was “fake, but accurate?”
He killed himself and made it look like a homicide.
It looked like a homicide because he made it look like one.
Saying at the time that it did look like a homicide acknowledges what it appears to be.
Acknowledging what appears to be the case then, is clearly… wrong?
Or wait, no, the fact that it was a suicide means that the fervor that Beck and Bachman and Rush whip everyone into is completely called for and ultimately harmless?
Or that what Beck says has nothing to do with the people at the Tea Party protests that he organizes who celebrate the idea of the murder of government officials (see that psalm 108:9-10 thing from a little while ago, or the ‘water the tree of liberty’ signs)?
Or no, wait, I get it. Beck’s rhetoric is subdued and logical, and thus the protests he organizes are reasonable and all arguments therein well thought out, as videos and interviews have attested to, and that the “Get Government Off My Medicare” people are all absolutely right in everything they do, as attested to by the fact that a disturbed man killed himself. Got it now.
So wait…Mr. Sparkman gagged himself, bound his hands and feet, scrawled “FED” on his body, stripped, and hung himself? Either the KSP are covering their asses, or that was the most hardcore suicide ever.
Yeah, it sounds so farfetched that the notion of it being a suicide should come as a surprise even to the rightwing fanatics.
At the time, I thought it more likely he ran afoul of a meth lab. But when the police remained silent for so long, and after reading in his obituary that he recently survived a bout with cancer, suicide definitely crossed my mind.
My guess is he couldn’t face the cancer a second time and wanted to take care of his son. So he bought two large insurance policies, which wouldn’t pay out for a suicide (or cancer, most likely, since it was a pre-existing condition) but would pay out for murder. Then he tried damned hard to make it look like murder.
Very sad.
Sounds far-fetched until you actually read what happened –
“Authorities said his wrists were loosely bound, his glasses were taped to his head and he was gagged.”
““fed” was written “from the bottom up.”
“He was touching the ground, and to survive “all Mr. Sparkman had to do at any time was stand up,” she said.”
he “told a credible witness that he planned to commit suicide and provided details on how and when.”
“Sparkman had recently taken out two accidental life insurance policies totaling $600,000″
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34130128/ns/us_news-life
…and where did he get the idea to make it look like he’d been lynched by a bunch of crazy right-wingers? Why, how about all those people howling about how the right wing was filled with crazy anti-government types who’d just as soon kill a census worker as look at ‘em?
Look up “self-fulfilling prophesy” some time. You all predicted it would happen, so when he rigged it to look like that, you all jumped on the bandwagon, pleased as punch to have called it.
Guy had a pretty good idea. He knew that a whole bunch of people would believe the scenario he concocted because they WANTED it to happen. Because they SAID it would happen.
Fortunately, enough people didn’t strap on their ideological blinders and actually looked at evidence, instead of just celebrating the confirmation of their prejudices. Even more fortunately, those people were in positions of authority in this case.
On the other hand, there’s video of ANSWER goons beating up a tea party protester in an unprovoked attack last week in Ft. Lauderdale…
SaveFerris, I must’ve missed all those apologies you made for repeatedly slandering Scott Beauchamp. Damn hypocrite.
LOL,
You’d have to sink pretty low to slander Beauchamp!
LOL AO, you’re right, Beauchamp’s CO, Master Sgt. John E. Hatley, wrote letters stating that Beauchamp is a liar. You can ask him yourself as soon as he gets out of prison, never.
“He knew that a whole bunch of people would believe the scenario he concocted because they WANTED it to happen.”
The reason he new it was believable is because it is absolutely plausible. That’s what’s so sad.
You find it plausible, isms. You and a whole bunch of others.
Which is probably why he chose that particular scenario.
Congratulations. You helped him figure out how to kill himself and try to get insurance money for his family.
You did more to cause his death than Glenn Beck did.
“I support insurance fraud!”
There CJ, fixed it for you.
You did more to cause his death than Glenn Beck did.
It’s very doubtful that he ever visited this website, but thanks for your concern, Joe Dipshit.
“We’ve had one Beck-inspired killing already”
Really? Care to prove that?
He trusted people like you, DA, to jump to conclusions. And boy, did a whole bunch of you jump.
Fortunately, common sense prevailed over your prejudices.
But why does the very idea seem plausible in the first place? Which is more likely, that Sparkman reads Oliver Willis or Daily Kos and thinks “Boy I can fool these guys into believing X”, or that, confronted with right-wing radio hosts and fucking members of Congress insisting that his and his colleagues’ work is part of some grand conspiracy to put white Christians in gulags, and knowing that we’ve already had assassinations of the targets of slanders from Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck, thinks “Boy there are a lot of people out there who hate me and what I do, maybe I can exploit this climate of hate and fear?”
To sum up, what Amanda said:
Well, Rheinhard, why was it so plausible? I’m sure all the nattering dolts on your said saying it was just BOUND to happen sooner or later had NOTHING to do with it.
He did it the way he did because he thought it was likely to be believed. He thought that, at least in part, because a bunch of people all said that it was “bound to happen sooner or later.”
“Fake but accurate” all over again.
Except, Joe Shithead, I never jumped to a conclusion about Sparkmans’ cause of death.
I believed at the time that it was suicide but I waited for the investigators to come to a definite conclusion, which they had.
I’m sure all the nattering dolts on your said saying it was just BOUND to happen sooner or later had NOTHING to do with it.
Actually, it had already happened in Knoxville, TN, last year, that’s why this incident wasn’t so surprising when it was first reported.
“Fake but accurate” all over again.
Like Dana Perino declaring that there were no terrorist attacks under her old boss, GWB?
Right.
Oh Jeebus. Did OW pick up another troll?
I don’t know if you’re trying to be funny because you’re not.
Try again.
Didn’t think so.