DISGRACED ANTI-BUSH MUCKRAKER KILLS HIMSELF
By ANDY SOLTIS
July 21, 2001 -- The discredited author of a controversial book about President Bush and his alleged drug past has killed himself, Arkansas police said.
James Howard Hatfield, 43, apparently overdosed on two kinds of prescription drugs, authorities said.
His body was found in a Springdale, Ark., motel room by a maid a day after he checked in Wednesday.
Police in Springdale, not far from Shriver's native Bentonville, said there was no sign of foul play - and no doubt about the suicide.
"He left a note and everything," Detective Sgt. Mike Shriver said.
He said Hatfield referred to financial problems in the note and friends described him as increasingly depressed in recent days.
Bottles of the prescription drugs were found in the motel room, investigators said.
"It's really cut and dried," Shriver said.
Hatfield gained attention in 1999 with his unauthorized book about the then-Texas governor, "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President."
In it he cited three unnamed sources, alleging Bush had a record of cocaine abuse in the 1970s and that a friendly Texas judge covered up his drug arrest in 1972 in exchange for political favors from the Bush family.
"Fortunate Son" was withdrawn in October 1999 after it was disclosed that Hatfield had lied about his past - and concealed a conviction for soliciting murder.
He served five years of a 15-year prison term for hiring a hit man to blow up a former employer.
Initially Hatfield said it was all a case of mistaken identity - that there was another James H. Hatfield who was the ex-con.
After Hatfield admitted the deception, his publisher, St. Martin's Press, recalled all unsold copies of "Fortunate Son" and suspended sales.
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