There was no crime involved in the death of Bill Sparkman after all - at least, not committed by any other person. Police ruled Sparkman killed himself.
Kentucky - Bill Sparkman killed himself in an attempt to get an insurance payout for an unidentified person police have ruled. And with that, the sad details of a great tragedy have been released. Kentucky State Police Captain Lisa Rudzinski told the
Associated Press "Our investigation, based on evidence and witness testimony, has concluded that Mr. Sparkman died during an intentional, self-inflicted act that was staged to appear as a homicide."
She added that all Sparkman had to do to save himself was to stand up.
Sparkman was found naked, save for socks, bound hand and foot with duct tape, a taped gag on his mouth, his census identification taped to his neck. A rope was around his neck, which was tied to a tree. On the man's chest, 12 to 14 inches in height was the work "Fed" written in black marker A witness who found Sparkman said the man's eyes were also taped down, and the sensational finding lent itself to the idea of
murder.
The police were
tipped off to Sparkman's scheme by an unidentified "credible witness," whom Sparkman had apparently confided in weeks before his death. Apparently the clincher fact for the police was the lack of defense wounds on Sparkman's arms and hands.
Police said they interrogated potential homicide suspects during their
investigation, but in the end could only find evidence that Sparkman rigged the scene to look like murder before he killed himself. He apparently just bent his legs and let his weight cause the rope around his neck to strangle him. Police deducted that the word "fed" written on Sparkman's chest was written from the bottom up to the top, meaning Sparkman wrote the word on his chest.
Police concluded Sparkman was influenced by several factors: he thought his cancer had returned, his son, Josh Sparkman, needed money, and his two recently purchased insurance policies would only give death benefits for a non-suicide event. Sparkman apparently had
accumulated some debt and only had two part-time jobs, which might have created a pressure-cooker situation for Sparkman from which he could see no way out.
Josh Sparkman had shrugged off the idea that his father may have committed suicide earlier in the investigation, pointing out that there was no reason for someone to fight so hard against cancer to turn around and kill himself.
The residents of Clay County, where Sparkman's body was found, feel vindicated, although many would like apologies from the media for the
speculation that Sparkman was killed by hill billies, possibly cooking up illegal drugs like meth or growing marijuana; or perhaps one anti-social backwoods Kentuckian took exception to being questioned by a government man.
The government had suspended all census work in Clay County while Sparkman's death was investigated.
Sparkman's mother
emailed a media person that she disagreed with the conclusion of the police.
