Les Jones: Improbable Gun Suicides and Accidents

May 14, 2005

Guns > Improbable Gun Suicides and Accidents

Stuff happens, I guess, but some of these things are a wee fishy.

From the May 2 Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. A man shot himself twice in the chest and three times in the head with a .22. Discovering that his wounds weren't fatal, he got in his van, drove to the Clark Bridge, and jumped into the Mississippi River, where he drowned. The death is being treated as a suicide. Via The High Road.

From the Cedartown (GA) Standard. On May 6 a man accidentally shot himself three times while cleaning his gun. Via SayUncle. What makes this story really suspect is that the guy couldn't tell police what address he was at when the accident occurred. So what, he was just out and about and decided to clean his gun?

Back when I was reading about JFK assassination theories I ran across a story about a guy in Texas who was supposedly related to the assassination somehow, though those stories tended to get pretty woolly. Anyway, he was shot 17 times with a bolt action .22 rifle. His death was ruled a suicide. Disclaimer: I don't have a primary or even seconday reference for this story, which may very well be apocryphal, i.e., bullshit.

Posted by lesjones

Comments

"Back when I was reading about JFK assassination theories I ran across a story about a guy in Texas who was supposedly related to the assassination somehow, though those stories tended to get pretty woolly. Anyway, he was shot 17 times with a bolt action .22 rifle. His death was ruled a suicide."

Could you maybe be thinking of Henry Marshall, the Department of Agriculture guy who was involved in the Billy Sol Estes scheme?

Here's one reference I found:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKestes.htm

==Dwight

Posted by: Dwight Brown at May 19, 2005

I think that's the guy, even though my recollection was 17 shots and the link says five (trust the link more than my memory). I recall the story being set in Texas.

Posted by: Les Jones at May 19, 2005