Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered

[Minstrel Boy]

Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered
Webb spoke of death threats, "government people" around his home

Credible sources who were close to Gary Webb have stated that he was receiving death threats, being regularly followed, and that he was concerned about strange individuals who were seen on multiple occasions breaking into and leaving his house before his apparent 'suicide' on Friday morning.

...

Ricky Ross, one of Gary Webb's primary sources had spoken to Gary in the days before his death. Gary told Ricky that he had seen men scaling down the pipes outside his home and that they were obviously not burglars but 'government people'. Gary also told Ricky that he had been receiving death threats and was being regularly followed. It was also mentioned that Gary was working on a new story concerning the CIA and drug trafficking.

Gary described the men around his home as 'professionals' who jumped from his balcony and ran away when Gary confronted them

...

Former DEA agent Cele Castillo concurs that Webb was murdered and that in such a 'revenge hit' situation it was common in his experience that the murderers would have likely talked to Webb at length about how and why they were about to kill him.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/141204webbmurdered.htm

[PATRICK]

1. It wouldn't be revenge

so what did Webb accomplish so far in his new work? A much overlooked Bush scandal is the predictable and open possibility that the booming drug trade is being shifted to the dirty Bush CIA and Bushco control as a covert cash cow. Thaw was always a plan, interrupted by Clinton perhaps.
Afghanistan was a win win for the new neocon opium empire. Columbia moves the trade into puppet government control. Search for 'terrorists" brings
us ever nearer other lucrative drug havens.

But no one is working on a story. No one in the media thinks more of this grand scale crime than of lynching Peterson. Yet books do come out surprisingly frequently and frequently widely read about the foul BFEE.

The kind of thugs who do killings are precisely concerned with this kind of dirty money connection and Webb's days were numbered after Nov.2.

Still, how much of a lone wolf can an investigative reporter in danger be and not take steps other than to complain of "harassment"? No one can take up where he left off?

[Minstrel Boy]

2. It is interesting it's mentioned here Webb was working on a new story

re CIA drug trafficking. First time I'd seen that.

But my gut still says it was a revenge killing.

[Vidar]

3. Shades of Poppa Bush, Iran-Conta & Hassenfuss.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. "A Giant Falls" by Michael Ruppert

I am going to the funeral and I will be asking questions in Sacramento. Given the disproportionate number of "suicides" of authors and journalists who have covered such stories, and the mainstream's horrendously dishonest coverage of such events, it is right to see if there are grounds to be cautiously suspicious of these accounts. But it is also right to avoid hysteria and unsupported conclusions until there are solid reasons to suspect foul play.

Gary would have wanted us all to do this by the numbers, patiently and thoroughly. That was his style. That was why he was so good.

When funeral arrangements are announced FTW will publish them and we encourage all of our subscribers to send flowers, write letters and show their thanks to this man who changed all of our lives forever. It wouldn't hurt if you wanted to let the L.A. Times know what you think of their obituary.

Sleep well, Gary. Wherever men and women of honor gather together from now on, your name will be spoken with reverence, respect and gratitude.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/121304_gary_webb.shtml

[Octafish]

5. Perhaps Webb was murdered in retaliation for Kerik's outting?

Kerik was revealed to be a NAZI crook by what's left of the Press. In essence, his career as Reichsmarshal (or whatevertheliddy term it is) was killed.

Perhaps the turds-that-be wanted to set an example.

It's similar to what they did to President Kennedy in Dallas: Kill him in public, in a way that everybody sees, then lie about it and show the thinking people that they can get away with murder.

In the case of Gary Webb, they send the same warning.

[Aries]

6. 2 shots to the head...

http://sacbee.com/content/news/story/11772749p-12657577c.html

Facing a barrage of calls from the media and the public, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office issued a statement Tuesday confirming that former investigative reporter Gary Webb committed suicide with two gunshots to the head.

"The cause of death was determined to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head," the coroner's statement said...

...Coroner Robert Lyons said his office had been swamped with calls. "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots," he said, "but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility."

[Lone_Star_Dem]

11. Double barrel shotgun?

If you pull both triggers at the same time it would do that. :shrug:

[charlie]

14. .38 caliber pistol n/t

[Lone_Star_Dem]

16. Well, that is curious.

:eyes:

[charlie]

17. Even curiouser

A coroner from the office that certified it as a suicide made this oddly qualified statement:

Coroner Robert Lyons said his office had been swamped with calls. "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots," he said, "but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility."

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000737253

[Lone_Star_Dem]

20. While there is a slight possibity of the recoil triggering a second shot.

It is low. I do think that a proper forensic investigation should rule that out. This makes the point that an improper one would not.

[InvisibleBallots]

35. It was a magic .38 caliber pistol!

capable of firing two bullets at once! Will wonders ever cease :eyes:

I assume it went like this - Webb shot himself in the head, twice, then put that note on his door, then died. Why not? If you think he was murdered, that makes you a conspiracy theories. Serious people know about the magic 38s.

[liberalhistorian]

15. A suicide with TWO

gunshots to the head? Umm.......helloooooooo, I don't think so! How fucking dumb do they think we are, anyway? How the holy hell can you kill yourself with TWO shots to the head? I never went to medical school, but it seems to me that you shoot yourself once in the head and you ain't gonna be in any shape to shoot yourself a second time in the head. And who the hell would do that anyway? Goddamn, this is so obvious, and so obviously unbelievable that a coroner would go along with this.

[ilovenicepeople]

18. It's true

and a friend of mine drowneded twice,it's got to be true he told me so and this woman never lies.

[Ms. Clio]

19. Actually, it apparently can happen--weird & horrible but true

Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1989 Dec;10(4):289-94.

Multiple suicidal gunshots to the head.

Jacob B, Barz J, Haarhoff K, Sprick C, Worz D, Bonte W.


We report two cases of suicide by multiple gunshots to the head. The first victim (of two shots) fired the first shot, which was observed, into his mouth, leading to damage to the left optic nerve and frontal lobe. The man still was able to drive his car home, where he shot himself in his right temple. He died 2 days later. The second victim (of three shots) was a 58-year-old man who was found dead on his bed. Reconstruction of the case disclosed that the first shot had passed through his tongue and slightly damaged the second cervical vertebral body. He then shot himself in his right temple, leading to damage of the temporal lobe. Finally, he shot himself in his left temple, resulting in destruction of the pons. In the first case, an amateurishly modified 8-mm blank revolver firing 6.35-mm- (.25)-caliber ammunition was used; in the second case, a rifle firing 5.6-mm (.22)-caliber ammunition with a reduced charge was used. In both cases, low-energy transfer to brain tissue by the initial bullets was due to low bullet energy or due to the bullets' missing the brain or vital centers.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2589288&dopt=Abstract

[Garbo 2004]

29. I recall a case where a fellow tried to commit suicide and shot himself

multiple times in the head and finally, since he was still conscious, gave up and went to the ER where he told them he accidently shot himself while cleaning his gun. The ER folks somehow didn't believe his story. He finally admitted he had tried to commit suicide.

Strange stuff happens. Like that guy who survived a construction accident (I think it was) when a metal rod got stuck through his head. And he remained conscious too.

So two shots to the head aren't entirely impossible. Don't have info on the autopsy for forensic analysis. Was the gun a semi auto? Possible to have a second shot based on reflex? Dunno.

FWIW Christine Craft is trying to follow up on Webb's death, speaking to the coroner's office, asking them to document cases of suicides with multiple shots to the head. She spoke to Webb's employer and apparently there was no story he was working on that would be considered particularly sensitive to warrant concern for his safety. Obviously she's skeptical even after having spoken to his friends and family who did not question the circumstances of his death.

Webb's ex in the Sac Bee article:

"Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell, discounted such theories Tuesday, saying the 49-year-old Webb had been distraught for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper.

"The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," Bell said.

She said that before he died Webb wrote and mailed notes to family members and placed his baby shoes in his mother's shed.

Webb had paid for his own cremation earlier in the year and had named Bell months ago as the beneficiary of his bank account, she said. He had sold his house last week, because he could no longer afford the mortgage, and was upset that his motorcycle had been stolen last week.

He had apparently laid out his driver's license before taking his father's.38-caliber pistol, which he kept in his nightstand, to shoot himself."

[Ms. Clio]

32. After reading about these cases, I would definitely want more info

about the wounds. Was one superficial, or potentially survivable, and the other lethal? Etc. I do remember the metal rod case, and also a recent case with a metal spike through the head--but what are the odds? Moreover, these multiple gunshot incidents do seem to be extremely rare--not completely impossible, but still highly unlikely.

I'm not sure the ex-wife is the most reliable source on his state of mind--I would like to know more about these alleged notes, including the handwritten suicide note.

I'm surely not ruling out foul play yet--but I would like more information.

[Ranec]

33. But this was a 38....

A bigger bullet going at a faster speed.

He must be very unlucky.

[Ms. Clio]

34. I wondered about that--I don't know much about guns

I wasn't sure how a 38 compared to the weapons used in these cases: "low-energy transfer to brain tissue by the initial bullets was due to low bullet energy or due to the bullets' missing the brain or vital centers."

Would it be possible for a 38's bullet to miss the brain or vital centers?

[Nordic]

31. holy shit!

this is new, isn't it?

I mean, the fact that it's confirmed? Previously it could have been a typo, but ......

Man, this is getting smellier and smellier

[Doctor_J]

7. File under "duh"

[Sara Beverley]

8. Journalists today are too "sorry" to even investigate on behalf their own

America is the land of the free no more. It's the land of the frightened.

[InvisibleBallots]

36. plenty of journalist will be investigating this

None of them work for the corporate media though. Corporate media doesn't hire journalists, they prefer whores.

[harrison]

9. This is really sad and sickening and any other word you can

summon up to describe it. Gary Webb was a true patriot of America.

[ailsagirl]

12. That's the way the Big Boys deal with "undesirables"

God, it reads like a cheap detective novel...

I'm very sad about it.

[Blue_Tires]

10. sad

Webb didn't deserve any of this

[RBHam]

13. the Pattern Continues....

When are we going to fight back?

who's next?

[Eric J in MN]

21. Don't accept something as true just because

it's written at "http://prisonplanet.com."

Anyone can create a website.

Just because a guy with a website claims "credible sources" told him that Gary Webb was being spied on and threatened doesn't make it so.

I'm not saying Gary Webb was murdered or wasn't murdered.

I'ms saying a guy-with-a-website isn't like the LA Times printing something.

[bobbieinok]

22. at this point in time, chances are the same that either source is 'truth'

[Eric J in MN]

24. A reporter is supposed to demonstrate to his editor

that his sources are legitimate.

A guy who runs his own website doesn't have that check.

[Minstrel Boy]

27. Editors spike stories that could displease the paper's owners,

who are usually right wing.

A guy who runs his own website doesn't have that worry.

[Eric J in MN]

28. If someone had evidence that Gary Webb was

getting death threats, why not talk to Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein about it, instead of Gary Webb?

[Minstrel Boy]

23. After the disgrace of the LA Times obituary

you perhaps should have picked another example.

And not just the obit; it demonstrated a pattern since the Dark Alliance story broke, of shielding the CIA and assassinating the character of Gary Webb.

The "mainstream media," led by the LA Times, failed America and Webb by covering the CIA's ass instead of the news.

[Eric J in MN]

25. What was the disgrace? (nt)

nt

[Minstrel Boy]

26. It was self-serving, mean, and inaccurate.

Here's a reaction to it, from LA Weekly:


First the L.A. Times helped kill off Gary Webb’s career. Then, eight years later, after Webb committed suicide this past weekend, the Times decided to give his corpse another kick or two, in a scandalous, self-serving and ultimately shameful obituary. It was the culmination of the long, inglorious saga of a major newspaper dropping the ball journalistically, and then extracting relentless revenge on an out-of-town reporter who embarrassed it.

...

A cold panic set in at the L.A. Times when Webb’s so-called Dark Alliance story first appeared. Just two years before, the Times had published a long takeout on local crack dealer Rickey Ross and no mention was made of his possible link to and financing by CIA-backed Contras. Now the Times feared it was being scooped in its own backyard by a second-tier Bay Area paper.

...

It’s an astounding and nasty little piece of postmortem butchery on Webb (which never mentions that after his series appeared, Webb was voted the 1996 Journalist of the Year by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists). Absolutely missing from Webb’s obit is that it was his series that directly forced both the CIA and the Justice Department to conduct internal investigations into the scope of any links between the Agency and drug dealers.

Worse, the results of those investigations proved that the core of what Webb alleged was, indeed, true and accurate. When CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz presented the findings of his internal investigation to Congress in 1998 (two years after Webb’s piece and the ensuing Times vindication of the CIA), he revealed for the first time an eye-popping agreement that the CIA had cemented with the Justice Department: Between 1982 and 1995, the CIA was exempted from informing the DOJ if its non-employee agents, paid or unpaid, were dealing drugs. In short, it was the policy of the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to such connections.

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/04/dissonance-cooper.php

[InvisibleBallots]

38. the LA Times? Lol!

I read the LA Times pieces of Gary Webb. Do they have any more credibility than prisonplanet.com? Maybe a little. Maybe.

[Nordic]

30. gee, why didn't he just move?? OH WAIT!

The movers found the suicide note.

Pretty damn sad.

[nolabels]

37. I also heard some story that his ex-wife said he left a couple notes

about him that he wrote saying he was going commit suicide, had set up for his creamation and tied up a few other loose ends.

To me it this also makes no sense, unless he was presured to do all that somehow (if the story is true of course). At any rate, the rest of the world may never know the real truth of it.