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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
The case of Clifford Baxter: more questions raised over alleged suicide of Enron
executive
By Patrick Martin
17 April 2002
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In the first major media inquiry into the alleged suicide of former Enron Vice
Chairman J. Clifford Baxter, CBS News broadcast a segment April 10 which raised
significant questions about the police handling of Baxter’s death.
Baxter was found shot to death in his car in the early morning hours of January 25, a
few days after he agreed to testify to Congress. Formerly the head of Enron’s gas
pipeline operations, and vice chairman of the company until his resignation last May,
Baxter was in a position to give insider testimony on the causes of the biggest
bankruptcy in US history.
According to congressional investigators, Baxter was being sought, not as a target in
his own right, but to provide evidence against other top executives. He was known
within Enron for having opposed the off-the-books financial manipulations directed by
CEO Jeffrey Skilling and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow.
Police in the wealthy Houston suburb of Sugar Land declared the death a suicide
without any investigation, and the Harris County coroner initially declined to conduct
an autopsy, only reversing herself after media publicity and objections by Baxter’s
family.
According to the story narrated by CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, the network
obtained police, autopsy and lab reports and had them analyzed by two independent
experts, coroner Cyril Wecht and former homicide detective Bill Wagner.
Wecht noted that the ammunition used was so-called “rat-shot,” rather than regular
bullets, consisting of pellets that break apart and spread after discharge. “This kind
of ammunition cannot be easily or readily traced back to the gun from which it was
fired,” he told CBS.
“It’s not as frequently used by people for any reason. It’s not the type of ammunition
one finds in guns—it has a specific purpose: shooting at snakes and rodents in order
to get a distribution pattern of the small pellets contained within the nose portion of
the bullet. It’s not something that a person is likely to have and to use if they
intended
to kill themselves.”
Wagner said that murder could be ruled out, despite the evidence suggesting that
the shooting was a suicide. “Murder can be made to look like a suicide,” he said.
“Someone who is knowledgeable about forensics can very well have the ability to
stage a murder, commit a murder and stage it to look as if it was a suicide,
understanding what the police are going to be looking for.”
Apparently, however, the Sugar Land police were not looking for much of anything.
Wagner said their handling of the crime scene was deficient. They neither “bagged”
Baxter’s hands— i.e., checked for chemical residues and other indications that he
had fired the gun—nor did they fingerprint the interior of the car. “I’m just amazed
frankly that the hands were not bagged,” Wecht said.
The timeline produced by the Sugar Land police has major inconsistencies. For
instance, the police report says that a blood stain was found on the pavement
outside the car, caused by someone laying Baxter on the ground. Yet the body was
in the car when the funeral home personnel arrived to handle it.
This suggests two alternatives: that Baxter was shot on the pavement and then
placed in the car to make it look like suicide; or that the body was removed from the
car—perhaps in an attempt to resuscitate him—and then, for unknown reasons, put
back into the driver’s seat.
Crime scene photos were only taken after the gun and other evidence, as well as the
body, had been moved. There are unexplained bruises on Baxter’s left hand,
together with traces of black material, which are consistent with him putting out his
hand to brace a fall onto asphalt pavement after he was shot in the right temple—a
scenario that suggests murder rather than suicide.
Other questions have been raised about the fatal wound, which was very large—7.2
cm by 4.5 cm—according to the coroner’s report. One estimate of the spread pattern
of rat shot suggests that the gun muzzle must have been two to three feet away from
his temple for the shot to have diverged that much, an improbably awkward position
for a suicide.
The day after the CBS report, Texas Attorney General John Cornyn ordered the
release of the suicide note that was found on the seat of Carol Baxter’s car in the
family garage. Cornyn is the Republican candidate for US Senate in Texas, to fill the
seat being given up by Phil Gramm.
Sugar Land police refused to release the note for nearly three months, after the
Baxter family sought to keep it confidential, citing their right to privacy. Cornyn’s
office issued a ruling that cited “the substantial public interest in the causes of
Enron’s failure and its far-reaching consequences.”
The brief 61-word note makes no direct mention of Enron. It is written in block capital
letters on a plain sheet of notepaper, and signed in block capitals rather than
handwriting, making it impossible to determine if Baxter actually wrote the note.
The state attorney general’s office also ordered the local police to release photos of
the death scene and other investigative records, long sought by the press. However,
Baxter family attorney Pike Powers obtained a court order blocking the release
temporarily until the issue is argued before a judge.
Copyright 1998-2002
World Socialist Web Site
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