Bill Sparkman's Death

In September, when part-time Census worker Bill Sparkman was found hanged in Kentucky with "Fed" scrawled across his death, it was easy to assume that it was a murder, whether the result of anti-government sentiment broadly, antipathy to drug enforcement, or even an afterthought. Now, it seems the story is even more convoluted. The Kentucky State Police have just put out a statement saying Sparkman's death was a suicide he tried to stage as a murder in order to collect on two life insurance policies. And he chose the setup that he did, apparently in part because he thought the negative attitudes towards the federal government in the area might make a murder seem plausible:

Witness statements, which are deemed credible, indicate Mr. Sparkman discussed ending his own life and these discussions matched details discovered during the course of the investigation. It was learned that Mr. Sparkman had discussed recent federal investigations and the perceived negative attitudes toward federal entities by some residents of Clay County. It was also discovered during the investigation that Mr. Sparkman had recently secured two life insurance policies for which payment for suicide was precluded.

I don't know what more can be said about this. I hope Mr. Sparkman's family gets the help and the privacy they'll need to get through this difficult time. I suppose I'm glad that no one is killing federal employees in Kentucky, or anywhere else in the country. I'm incredibly depressed by the fact that anyone thinks the antipathy towards the federal government runs so high that murder seems a plausible outgrowth of it.