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He carried insurance, thought he was dying, his son needed money
By Bruce Schreiner
and Roger Alford
Associated Press
Published on Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
FRANKFORT, KY.: On the surface it all seemed like a gruesome hate crime in a rural part of Kentucky with a history of disdain for the government: a census worker found bound with duct tape and hanging from a tree, the word ''fed'' scrawled across his chest.
But investigators noticed the foot-tall letters scrawled in black felt-tip pen looked like they could have been written by the victim himself, and they soon found out that he believed he had cancer, had two insurance policies worth $600,000, and had an adult son in need of money.
Investigators said Tuesday what they had been hinting at for weeks, that Bill Sparkman's hanging was a ruse to mask his suicide for a big insurance payout.
The key clue was the lack of defense wounds — the only visible marks on his body were a furrow around his neck and insect bites.
''Underneath the tape there was no trauma, and that's what I always want to look for,'' said Dr. Cristin Rolf, deputy state medical examiner. ''If there is ever a homicide, a healthy person would put up a good fight and you would see injury and trauma to the neck and to the arms.''
On Sept. 12, the Kentucky resident drove his Chevy pickup — packed with a rope, a roll of duct tape and some red rags — deep into the Kentucky woods, where outsiders are mostly treated with distrust and apprehension. He stripped down to his socks and walked to a nearby cemetery.
He taped his ankles and wrists, but his wrists were bound so loosely that he had considerable mobility, leaving investigators to believe he could have done the taping himself, authorities said. He scrawled the word ''fed'' upside down on his chest, taped his Census Bureau ID to his head, stuck a red cloth into his mouth and placed another piece of tape over it.
Sparkman then strung a rope from a tree, placed a noose around his neck, and leaned forward, using his own body weight to cut off oxygen to his brain, investigators said.
He likely became lightheaded from lack of oxygen, then lost consciousness.
''It would not be an excruciating death,'' said Mike Wilder, executive director of the state medical examiner's office.
In addition, Rolf said the autopsy found no signs of a recurrence of Sparkman's cancer, so his cancer fears were unfounded.
FRANKFORT, KY.: On the surface it all seemed like a gruesome hate crime in a rural part of Kentucky with a history of disdain for the government: a census worker found bound with duct tape and hanging from a tree, the word ''fed'' scrawled across his chest.
Get the full article here.
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Posted 10:17 AM, 11/25/2009
Not a very smooth move with todays forensics and pathology. Now he's still dead and the family gets zip. He would have been better off toughing out the cancer if he had it.
