Enron Exec Says in Suicide Note Lost Pride
Thu Apr 11, 1:45 PM ET
By C. Bryson Hull
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A former Enron Corp. executive who police said killed himself in January said he always "tried to do the right thing," but had lost his sense of pride, according to a suicide note released by authorities on Thursday.
The note written by former Enron Vice Chairman J. Clifford Baxter to his wife, Carol, made no mention of the financial scandal that plunged the former energy trading giant into bankruptcy in December.
"I am so sorry for this. I feel I just can't go on. I've always tried to do the right thing, but where there was once great pride now it's gone," Baxter wrote.
"I love you and the children so much. I just can't be any good to you or myself. The pain is overwhelming. Please try to forgive me. Cliff," read the note, handwritten in block letters on stationary imprinted with the name "J. Clifford Baxter."
The note was released by the Sugar Land Police Department after Texas Attorney General John Cornyn ruled that state law required its disclosure. Baxter's family had tried to keep the note secret, citing their right to privacy.
Police said Baxter, 43, shot himself in the head on Jan. 25, while parked in his black Mercedes in the affluent Houston suburb where he lived with his wife and two children.
The Harris County Medical Examiner has ruled the death a suicide, but Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace Jim Richard said he has not signed the death certificate because he is awaiting final test results from police investigators.
Baxter's suicide came a day after congressional hearings into the Enron scandal began in Washington, giving rise to speculation that the two were related. Congressional investigators had sought to interview Baxter the previous week while they were in Houston looking into the scandal.
Baxter resigned from Enron last May just seven months after his promotion to vice chairman because of what the company said was his desire to spend more time with his family.
But an Aug. 14 memo from Enron whistle-blower Sherrin Watkins to Chairman and Chief Executive Ken Lay indicated Baxter had feuded with Chief Executive Jeff Skilling about off-balance sheet deals the company used to hide billions of dollars in debt and inflate profits. Both Lay and Skilling have since resigned from Enron.
Disclosures about the off-balance-sheet deals contributed to Enron's spectacular collapse, with its filing of the largest ever U.S. corporate bankruptcy on Dec. 2.
Baxter also was a defendant in lawsuits targeting Enron's top executives, accusing them of cashing in on insider information.
Court records and securities filings showed he sold at least half a million Enron shares for $35 million between October 1998 and early 2001. |
