(Editor’s note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation’s next president on Election Day.)
How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously?
How about in plane crashes or car wrecks?
Bizarre suicides?
People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets?
And what about violent freak accidents – like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person’s throat?
Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral
Apparently, if you’re Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 – and possibly many more.
Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the “Clinton body count” during an August show.
“I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994,” Limbaugh said.
He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, “Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die.”
Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline,” routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel’s show.
“One of the things I said was, ‘Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.’ I said, ‘Ted, how many people do you know in your life who’ve been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?’
“Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few,” Limbaugh chuckled. “Ask the Clintons that question. And it’s a significant number. It’s a lot of people that they know who have died, who’ve been murdered.
“And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It’s amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: ‘What it comes down to is this: how many other politicians have you heard of who have had so many mysterious deaths associated with them? You don’t hear of a Bush body count — not even an Obama body count.’ There is a Clinton body count.”
Listen to Rush Limbaugh’s comments:
Left-leaning “fact-check” websites have dismissed “Clinton body count” lists circulating on the Web for many years. In fact, some of the lists mention 80 to 100 people and contain names of individuals who are still living or loosely connected with the Clintons.
However, WND has sorted through the names and found 33 of the most mysterious deaths linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Notably, the largest number of mysterious deaths occurred during the most intense years of the Whitewater investigation, from 1993 (when Clinton’s first term as president began) to around 1996 (the year the Senate Whitewater committee finished its investigation).
The following is WND’s list of 33 people associated with the Clintons who have died the most mysterious and often violent deaths.
Shawn Lucas – Aug. 2, 2016
On July 3, attorney Shawn Lucas, 38, helped serve the DNC with a lawsuit claiming then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz “rigged the primary for Hillary Clinton.”
The complaint was served before Wasserman Schultz resigned amid the Wikileaks email scandal on July 24.
Less than one month after he helped serve the lawsuit, Lucas’ girlfriend found him dead in his bathroom.
Beverly Ann Fields, chief of staff at the Washington, D.C., Medical Examiner’s office, told WND, “The cause and manner of death for decedent [Shawn] Lucas are still pending.”
Attorney Shawn Lucas (Photo: Screenshot)
Victor Thorn – Aug. 1, 2016
Victor Thorn authored four books on the Clintons: “Hillary (and Bill): The Sex Volume,” Hillary (and Bill): The Drugs Volume,” “Hillary (and Bill): The Murder Volume” and “Crowning Clinton: Why Hillary Shouldn’t Be in the White House.” Thorn reportedly committed suicide with a gun on his 54th birthday on a mountaintop in Pennsylvania.
Inquisitr reported that Thorn made several appearances on “The Russell Scott Show” and told the host, “Russell, if I’m ever found dead, it was murder. I would never kill myself.”
Joe Montano – July 25, 2016
As WND reported, Joe Montano, who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee before Debbie Wasserman Schultz and was an aide to Hillary’s running-mate, Tim Kaine, reportedly died of a heart attack after the Wikileaks DNC email dump. Montano was only 47.
Joe Montano
Seth Rich – July 10, 2016
DNC staffer Seth Rich
WND reported DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered near his affluent neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Rich was shot in the back at 4:15 a.m. while he walked home from his girlfriend’s apartment. Rich previously worked on the failed U.S. Senate campaign of Nebraska businessman Scott Kleeb, whose clean-energy business had come under investigation after losing $300,000 in 2010 and another $300,000 in 2011 despite having been subsidized by the Clinton Global Initiative.
A commentary by Rachel Alexander at Townhall suggested possible corruption between the CGI and Kleeb “led to Sanders’ cronies pressuring Rich to leak what was going on.”
In one interview, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared to suggest that Rich, 27, was the source of the WikiLeaks-exposed DNC emails.
Assange hinted at the newest revelations during an interview on the Dutch television program Nieuwsuur.
“Our whistleblowers go to significant efforts to give us material, at often very significant risks,” Assange said. “There was a 27 year old, works for the DNC, who was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons other than that he was walking down the street in Washington.”
The interviewer interjected, “That was just a robbery, I believe, wasn’t it?”
Assange replied, “No, there’s no finding.”
The interviewer asked, “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that,” Assange continued.
“But was he one of your sources then?” asked the interviewer.
“We don’t comment on who our sources are,” Assange said. “We have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States. Our sources are, you know, our sources face serious risks. That’s why they come to us, so we can protect their anonymity.”
Assange continued, “Others have suggested that [Rich was murdered]. We are investigating. If you understand what happened in that situation with Seth Rich, I think it is a concerning situation. There’s not a conclusion yet. We wouldn’t be willing to state a conclusion, but we are concerned about it. More importantly, a variety of WikiLeaks sources are concerned when that kind of thing happens.”
Watch the interview:
WikiLeaks is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Rich’s killer.
“As a matter of policy, we do not confirm or deny whether any person has ever been a source for WikiLeaks. After the [late hacktivist] Aaron Swartz case we formalized this policy to also cover alleged sources who were deceased.
“We treat threats toward any suspected source of WikiLeaks with extreme gravity. This should not be taken to imply that Seth Rich was a source to WikiLeaks or to imply that his murder is connected to our publications. We hope our efforts will contribute to the family’s calls for information and to the separate reward issued by the police. We have a history of obtaining information that has significantly contributed to many legal proceedings, including successful prosecutions.”
WND asked the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department if there have been any new leads in the death of Rich and whether police are considering a possible political motive in his killing.
Spokeswoman Alice Kim of the Metropolitan Police Department told WND, “There are no new updates at this time.”
As for the WikiLeaks reward, she offered this statement: “At this time, there is no indication that Seth Rich’s death is connected to his employment at the DNC. However, we welcome information that could potentially lead to the identification of the individual(s) responsible for his death and are pleased when any outside contributors help us generate new leads.”
John Ashe – June 22, 2016
Former U.N. official John Ashe with Hillary Clinton
Former United Nations General Assembly President John Ashe was found dead in His New York home, and the cause of death was reported as a heart attack, as WND reported. But the local Dobbs Ferry police said “his throat had been crushed, presumably by a barbell he dropped while pumping iron.”
“The death by barbell of disgraced U.N. official John Ashe could become a bigger obsession for conspiracy theorists than Vince Foster’s 1993 suicide,” the report by Richard Johnson said.
Former President of the United Nations General Assembly John Ashe
It’s because Ashe was scheduled to testify in just days with Chinese businessman and co-defendant Ng Lap Seng, who was accused of smuggling $4.5 million into the U.S. and lying that it was to buy casino chips and more.
The New York Post said Ng earlier was identified in a 1998 Senate document “as the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally funneled through an Arkansas restaurant owner, Charlie Trie, to the Democratic National Committee during the Clinton administration.”
“One source told me,” Johnson wrote, “‘During the trial, the prosecutors would have linked Ashe to the Clinton bagman Ng. It would have been very embarrassing. His death was conveniently timed.”
“Could this be Hillary Clinton silencing people who ‘know too much?’” questioned Kosar in the Political Insider. “We know there are at least 46 people from Clinton world who have died under mysterious circumstances. While some are certainly a coincidence, it is very clear that being deeply connected into the Clinton political world can be hazardous to your health.
“In this case, no definite evidence exists that it was murder and Ashe’s own lawyer disagrees with the theory. However, with Hillary Clinton’s track record, it’s definitely worth further investigation.”
The Post said Ashe formerly was the head of the U.N. General Assembly and was facing criminal charges in a federal bribery case.
He was from the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, and was accused of taking kickbacks in exchange for promises for real-estate deals and more, the report said.
Gareth Williams – Aug. 16, 2010
Gareth Williams, a transatlantic MI6 spy – whose dead body was found naked, padlocked and stuffed in a 32-inch by 19-inch duffel bag that was sitting in his London bathtub – had illegally hacked secret data on Bill Clinton, according to the U.K. Sun. The news site noted, “[H]is death is still one of Britain’s most mysterious unsolved cases.”
Scotland Yard had announced the death as a suicide, saying he locked himself in the bag.
But his DNA wasn’t found on the lock. There were no palm prints on the edge of his bathtub.
Gareth Williams
According to reports, messages left by Williams on the voicemails of his friends and family were deleted in the days following his death.
“And a rival agent may have also broken into the flat to destroy or remove evidence,” the Sun reported. There were no signs of forced entry into the apartment.
“In 2012, lawyers for his family said he could have been killed by someone who specialized in the ‘dark arts of the secret services,'” the Sun reported.
“The police did not rule out his intelligence work playing a part in his death. They thought he may have been stuffed in the bag by killers who later broke back in to cover their tracks. Investigators also suspect the flat had been ‘steam-cleaned,’ which would explain why no DNA evidence was found.”
No suspects in the case have been arrested.
Charles Ruff – Nov. 20, 2000
Charles Ruff, 61, an influential lawyer in Washington, D.C., who defended Clinton during his Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment trial, reportedly died “after an accident at his Washington home.” One report said he was found unconscious outside his shower. Other reports indicated he had a heart attack.
Charles Ruff
The London Guardian reported:
Ruff’s initial involvement with the Clinton White House came from defending one of Hillary Clinton’s principal assistants, Ira Magaziner, who helped to prepare her ill-fated healthcare plan. Magaziner was accused of perjury, but in a complex presentation to the US attorney’s office in Washington, Ruff managed to shift the blame to some unspecified White House officials and Magaziner was never charged.It was against this background that Ruff became President Clinton’s fifth White House counsel within four years. As the ripples of the Whitewater affair widened and allegations about the president’s sexual behaviour proliferated, insiders joked that Clinton needed a lawyer smart enough to do the job and dumb enough to take it. Ruff defended his recruitment with the comment: “When the president of the United States asks you to do something, you don’t say, ‘Let me think about it.’ You say, ‘How can I help you, Mr President?'”
Carlos Ghigliotti – April 28, 2000
Carlos Ghigliotti, a key figure in the Waco congressional investigation, was found mysteriously dead in his home outside Washington, D.C. His badly decomposed body was found sitting at his desk in his office in Laurel, Maryland. Police said there was no evidence of forced entry into his office.
Carlos Ghigliotti, a key figure in the Waco congressional investigation, was found mysteriously dead in his home outside Washington, D.C.
Ghigliotti, 42, a respected expert in the field of thermal imaging, had been retained by the House Government Reform Committee to analyze surveillance film footage taken by means of Forward-Looking Infrared, or FLIR, during the siege and final inferno of Mt. Carmel, the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas. The FLIR footage, which was filmed by FBI aircraft circling two miles above the site, was critical to the case. For years, debate had raged over claims that on April 19, 1993, government agents fired automatic weapons upon Davidians trying to escape as flames engulfed their home. Seventeen children and 62 adults were killed. Ghigliotti had reportedly uncovered additional evidence contradicting government protests of innocence.
Ghigliotti’s friend, attorney David T. Hardy, told WND, “I think he may have known too much. Carlos told me he had discovered things that were much, much worse than anything that had come out yet.”
Charles Wilbourne Miller – Nov. 17, 1999
Charles Wilbourne Miller was vice president and board member for Alltel, the company that created the White House’s “Big Brother” computer system.
As WND reported, an Arkansas medical examiner concluded “suicide” after Wilbourne Miller, 63, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in a shallow pit about 300 yards from his ranch house near Little Rock. Police found a .410 gauge shotgun near Miller’s body and a Ruger .357-caliber revolver submerged in water. Investigators concluded the Ruger was the weapon used by Miller to kill himself. Yet, two rounds in the handgun’s cylinder had been spent. How could a suicide victim use two weapons or even fire two shots to kill himself?
Miller was no ordinary citizen of Arkansas. He had long served as executive vice president and member of the board of directors for Alltel and was deeply involved in his own software engineering company until the day he died. Alltel was the successor to Jackson Stephens’ Systematics, that company that provided the software for the White House’s “Big Brother” database behind the Clinton administration’s plan to develop the secret computer “Clipper” chip to bug every phone, fax and email transmission in America. There was at least one other high-profile “suicide” among the inner circle involved with the project – Vince Foster (more details below).
Aspen, Colorado (Photo: Twitter)
Daniel Dutko – July 27, 1999
Daniel Dutko, 54, the co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee fundraising effort, Leadership 2000, reportedly died from head injuries in a mountain biking accident in Aspen. Authorities said Dutko was not wearing a helmet and hit his head on the pavement twice. He was in Aspen for a fundraiser attended by President Clinton. Dutko had also been vice chairman of finance for the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1995.
Dutko served as vice chairman of finance for the DNC in 1996, when thousands of dollars were reportedly funneled from a Chinese military officer to Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign. In that same year, the Clinton administration reversed a State Department policy that categorized satellites as “munitions,” making it easier for China to launch American satellites and even acquire sensitive technology.
Lt. Gen. David J. McCloud – July 26, 1998
Lt. Gen. David J. McCloud
Lt. Gen. David McCloud served as Clinton’s director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Force Structure, Resources and Assessment Directorate, or J-8, from May 1996 to December 1997. He later became the commander of Alaskan Command and 11th Air Force.
McCloud was killed while he piloted his personal YAK-54, a Russian-built, single-engine acrobatic aircraft. The cause of the crash was reportedly unknown.
Several blogs have printed unsubstantiated claims that McCloud had been part of a group of 24 flag officers that sought to arrest Clinton for treason under the Uniform Code of Military Justice while Clinton was president.
Johnny Lawhorn Jr. – March 29, 1998
Johnny Lawhorn Jr., a mechanic, reportedly discovered a large check from Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan made out to Bill Clinton. The check was said to have been found in a car at his repair shop. He was later killed in a car accident.
James McDougal
James McDougal – March 8, 1998
James McDougal, a former business partner of the Clintons and the “brains behind the Whitewater Development Corp.,” reportedly died of cardiac arrest in a federal prison hospital at the age of 58. He had been cooperating with independent counsel Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater investigation. “His death appears to reduce the legal risks to President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and was a clear setback to Starr and his prosecutors, who huddled in their offices last night after McDougal’s death was announced,” the Baltimore Sun reported the day after McDougal died.
The Whitewater investigation began in 1994 with accusations of impropriety against the Clintons and others concerning improper campaign contributions, political and financial favors, and tax benefits. Its initial subject was a failed Arkansas real-estate venture involving the Clintons in the 1980s that was linked to the collapse of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, a Little Rock savings bank run by McDougal and his wife, Susan. James and Susan McDougal went to prison for fraud (James died while serving his sentence), as did former Arkansas Gov. Jim Tucker and municipal judges David Hale and Eugene Fitzhugh.
Hale had claimed Bill Clinton insisted that he acquire a fraudulent $300,000 government-backed loan in 1986.
After McDougal was convicted in 1996, he was prepared to testify that Clinton was lying and Hale was telling the truth.
“I just got sick and tired of lying for the fellow,” he said in a 1997 TV interview. “Yes, I was trying to protect him.”
The Sun reported, “McDougal told prosecutors that he steered Madison legal business to Hillary Clinton’s Rose Law Firm at the Clintons’ request. Mrs. Clinton has denied that assertion. In an interview on ‘Larry King Live,’ McDougal said that if the first lady told the grand jury the same story she told the public, ‘then she has perjured herself.'”
Eric Butera – Dec. 4, 1997
Eric Butera was an informant who had information about the murder of Mahoney (See “Mary Caitrin Mahoney” entry below). He was told to help police with an undercover drug buy, during which he was beaten to death.
Ron Miller – Oct. 12, 1997
As WND reported, in a little-publicized, little-noticed state government regulatory hearing in Oklahoma, Hillary Clinton, former White House Chief of Staff Thomas F. “Mac” McLarty III, the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown (see “Ron Brown” entry) and a convicted Clinton fundraiser were linked by witnesses to a scandal involving massive overcharges in natural gas prices, money laundering and more.Nolanda Butler Hill, a former business partner of Brown, testified before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission that Clinton, Brown and McLarty were all up to their eyeballs in a scam designed to bilk consumers out of $35 million to $65 million in overcharges. The commission suspected at least one supplier, Dynamic Energy Resources, charged far more than market prices.
Dynamic Energy Resources was started by Nora and Gene Kung Ho Lum, who had no prior experience in the oil and gas business. But they were politically connected. The Lums, associates of John Huang and James Riady, would later be sentenced to prison and fined for illegal campaign contributions to President Clinton as well as tax evasion.
To get their feet wet in the gas business, however, the Lums called on Stuart Price, a Democrat congressional candidate for Oklahoma’s first district and himself a Clinton fundraiser. Price, too, was well connected. His wife’s uncle was Sen. George Mitchell, then majority leader of the U.S. Senate. But to cover all the bases, the Lums also cut in Michael Brown, son of the Democratic National Committee president and later Commerce secretary, for 5 percent of the deal.
Helen Yee was placed on the board. Her daughter, Melinda Yee, was Ron Brown’s personal assistant at Commerce. The younger Yee had handled arrangements for foreign-trade missions involving Democratic Party contributors. Yee had also worked for the Lums during the 1992 presidential campaign. The Lums’ daughter, Trisha, had worked for Ron Brown at Commerce.
“In other words,” as WND CEO and Editor Joseph Farah explained in 2001, “this was a real inside job. It wasn’t so much a matter of what you knew at Dynamic Energy Resources, but who you knew.”
On Oct. 2, 1992, Commissioner Bob Anthony announced that he had been assisting the FBI in uncovering corruption inside the regulatory agency. ARKLA (Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co.) lobbyist William Anderson and Commissioner Bob Hopkins were later convicted in a bribery case. There were allegations against other utility executives, but the Clinton Justice Department reportedly passed on prosecution. Anthony said he received covert payments from top executives at ARKLA when it had multimillion-dollar rate cases before the commission. The chairman of ARKLA was none other than Mac McLarty.
And that’s where Hill’s January testimony comes in.
“I learned several years ago, through my association with the late Ronald H. Brown, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and secretary of Commerce, about the involvement of a highly placed Clinton administration official, Mac McLarty, in what became an egregious financial transaction centered around the supplying of gas to ONG,” she said.
Hill recalled a spring 1993 meeting with Brown and first lady Hillary Clinton in which she “acknowledged his efforts toward resolution of Mac McLarty’s problem in Oklahoma.” Hill said she warned Brown off any involvement. But Brown told her “it was critically important for him to help Mr. McLarty in any way he could, as he, Secretary Brown, remained an outsider as regarded what he called the ‘Arkansas Mafia.’”
Brown later died in a plane crash in Croatia. A cylindrical hole in his head, the size of a .45-caliber round, was never explained. No autopsy was performed.
Ron Miller, a principal in GAGE Corp., another utility, began cooperating with the FBI shortly after Anthony announced his role with the agency, vowing, according to sources, to “vigorously pursue those who directed the conduct of Mr. Anderson.” After selling his company, Miller also helped news reporters and other government authorities – including investigators with the Government Reform and Oversight Committee – to nail the Lums.
Miller turned over to the FBI on Aug. 5, 1997, 165 tape-recordings of conversations he had with the Lums and their associates. He was interviewed by the congressional committee staff Aug. 12. On Sept. 2, the committee subpoenaed documents from Miller concerning Brown, the Lums and Dynamic Energy Resources.
Three days later, the committee deposed McLarty. He denied knowing the Lums, and questions about ARKLA and its convicted lobbyist were largely diverted by his attorneys. Seven days later, PBS “Frontline” broadcast interviews with Miller and Anthony. The congressional committee was set to begin formal proceedings Oct. 8.
But on Oct. 3, Miller, 58, was admitted to the hospital with an unknown illness. He died nine days later. The cause is still unknown.
Before his death, Miller told a few people he feared for his life. In a police report in January 1997, he identified Don Sweatman as the man who told him: “You hadn’t been shot at yet.” And who was Sweatman? He was associated with the Lums, often dropped Ron Brown’s name and, according to others, sometimes identified himself as “Bill Clinton’s personal representative.”
Miller’s death is still a mystery.
Mary Mahoney
Mary Caitrin Mahoney – July 6, 1997
Mary Caitrin Mahoney was a former White House intern up until 1995. She then became a night manager of a Starbucks and became friends with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, who frequented the cafe.
Mahoney she was killed at the coffee store during a shooting that was described as a robbery, though nothing was taken. Mahoney’s co-workers, Emory Allen Evans and Aaron David Goodrich. A man named Carl Derek Havord Cooper was arrested and charged with their murders in March 1999. Cooper pleaded guilty and said he went to Starbucks to rob the store after it had closed. He said he ordered Mahoney, Evans and Goodrich to the back of the store, but he claimed Mahoney attempted to grab his gun. Cooper said that’s when he shot her and the other two employees and then made his escape, fearing the gunfire would alert authorities. Goodrich made the confession after a 54-hour interrogation. He later recanted, but was found guilty.
Mahoney was shot five times, once in the back of the head, with the key to the safe in her hand. The safe, which held $10,000, wasn’t touched. Despite the Starbucks’ location in a densely populated neighborhood, no one reported hearing gunfire, sparking speculation that the gunman used a silencer.
The murders took place during pre-trail media coverage of Paula Jones’ lawsuit against Bill Clinton for sexual harassment.
During his trial, the Washington Post reported Cooper told FBI agents, “I swear on my father’s grave and my son’s life that I didn’t do Starbucks.”
John Hillyer – Nov. 29, 1996
NBC cameraman John Hillyer had been working on an investigation of a drug-smuggling operation in Mena, Arkansas, while Clinton was governor. He also helped with a 30-minute video called “Circle of Power” and “The Clinton Chronicles.”
As WND reported, video journalist Pat Matrisciana (producer of “The Clinton Chronicles”) began working on the film project in the early 1990s, he didn’t realize what he and his cameraman were getting into.
“I had been contacted by a man named John Hillyer, an NBC cameraman who wanted to tell the real story about what was happening in Arkansas,” he said.
When Matrisciana and Hillyer arrived in Arkansas and began interviewing people for the video, the criminality and intrigue were far worse than they had imagined.
“It was like going into some sort of banana republic that was run by a dictatorship,” he said. “We were followed on a regular basis.”
Matrisciana set up a “safe house” in an apartment complex in Little Rock where he and other journalists and investigators would meet to discuss stories of drug trafficking in Mena, the murder of two teenage boys there and whether or not Bill Clinton was involved in any of those activities.
Hillyer and Matrisciana developed a friendship with Gary Parks, the son of Jerry Luther Parks, a former security chief of Clinton’s presidential campaign (See “Jerry Luther Parks” entry). According to Matrisciana, Jerry Parks had been hired several years earlier by Vince Foster on behalf of Hillary Clinton to put Bill Clinton under constant surveillance. Gary would go on surveillance stakeouts with his father as Jerry gathered photographic evidence of Clinton visiting with prostitutes, Gennifer Flowers and other women.
When Vince Foster’s body was found in Fort Marcy Park (see “Vince Foster” entry), Jerry became paranoid that he might also be targeted for murder. He was right. When Jerry was assassinated in his car in September 1993, Gary and Jerry’s widow believed it was related to his surveillance of Clinton.
Gary Parks regularly stayed at the safe house, but was awakened one night when the door was kicked open by would-be assassins. When he quickly loaded his M-1 carbine, the sound of the bullet being chambered scared off the killers and they fled into the parking lot. Gary went to the window and thought he recognized one of the men as a member of the Gov. Clinton’s security staff.
On another occasion, when Matrisciana and others were preparing for a radio talk show at the safe house, an investigator scanned the apartment for “bugs” and discovered eight of them.
During the course of their investigation, Matrisciana and Hillyer discovered a trail of unsolved murders of people who knew details about the teens’ deaths. Others who died mysteriously had inside information on drug ties to the political establishment in Arkansas. On one occasion, Hillyer was planning to conduct an interview with a former official of the Democratic National Committee, but the man never showed up for the interview. Hillyer learned the next day that the man, C. Victor Raiser II, and his son, Montgomery Raiser, had died in a plane crash. (See “C. Victor Raiser II and Montgomery Raiser” entry.)
Matrisciana and Hillyer were also going to interview a hermit who lived in the mountains near where the teens had been killed. Two days before the scheduled interview, the hermit died.
Hillyer started to fear for his own life, telling Matrisciana that he thought they would kill him by making it look like he had a heart attack. After the film was completed, Hillyer went on to other projects and ended up living in Atlanta. In 1996, Matrisciana received a phone call from Hillyer. John told him he had uncovered new information that needed to be put on video, but that they couldn’t talk on an unsecured phone. They planned on meeting to discuss the new information, but Hillyer died of a heart attack three days later.
Did someone get to Hillyer? Matrisciana doesn’t know. Were the hermit and DNC official killed for what they knew? Or were these simply coincidences? Again, Matriciana said he doesn’t know, but he did think the deaths were unusual, considering the number of other people who have died under mysterious circumstances in Arkansas.
Herbert C. Hoover Building, Washington, D.C. headquarters of the United States Department of Commerce (Photo: Twitter)
Barbara Wise – Nov. 29, 1996
Barbara Wise, 48, was a 14-year Commerce Department staff member who worked with Ron Brown (see “Ron Brown” entry below, killed in a plane crash) and John Huang, who worked at the Worthen Bank in Little Rock, where he met then-Gov. Bill Clinton. Huang, who was born in China, was also a former executive of the Lippo Group in Indonesia. Huang met with Clinton at the White House 10 times between June 21 and June 27, 1994. As WND reported in 2000, “Right after that, Webster Hubbell … received $100,000 from the Lippo Group. Shortly after the money was given to Mr. Hubbell, Huang obtained a secret clearance and an executive position as assistant secretary of the Commerce Department. While at the Commerce Department, Huang obtained secret materials on trade deals with Indonesia, China, Japan, Korea and the Middle East. Huang also obtained information on U.S. Patriot missile deals with South Korea and mobile artillery for Kuwait.” Asked if he was a spy for Beijing, Huang reportedly took pleaded the Fifth Amendment nearly 2,000 times.
Wise’s body was found partially nude and bruised in her office. Her death was attributed to natural causes, as Wise had reportedly received several blood transfusions for a liver ailment.
Ron Brown – April 3, 1996
Ron Brown, who had served as U.S. secretary of commerce, was killed in a plane crash after Hillary Clinton dispatched him on a dubious mission to a war-torn corner of the world, as WND reported. Brown and 34 others died when their Air Force plane crashed into a Croatian mountainside. Brown’s flight left the Tuzla airport in Bosnia, a Muslim country where some were hostile to the American presence there.
“To protect his son Michael from prison, Ron Brown threatened to expose the White House’s yet unrevealed Asian fundraising scheme, in which Brown had played a major role,” wrote WND contributor and investigative writer Jack Cashill. “Just weeks before his death, Brown started going to church for the first time in ages. He was scared for his life and that of his confidante, Nolanda Hill.”
Bill Clinton and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown
Cashill noted that the Croatian government suddenly insisted on a Dubrovnik stop, a two-mile deviation from the flight path that the Air Force said was “inexplicable.”
“For the first time ever on friendly soil, the White House ordered the Air Force to skip the ‘safety’ phase of the investigation and move directly to the ‘accident’ phase,” Cashill wrote. “There would be no consideration other than accident, even though the airport was near the Bosnian border and in a potential hot fire zone.
“Three days after the crash and two days before his scheduled interview by the Air Force, the Croatian responsible for the airport’s navigation system was found dead with a bullet hole in his chest,” Cashill continued. “A day later, every pathologist who viewed Brown’s body back in America concluded that his head wound, at the very least, looked like a bullet hole.”
There would be no autopsy. No forensic testing. No search for an exit wound. Head X-rays were destroyed, or “lost.”
“The three Armed Forces pathologists and the forensic photographer who blew the whistle on this case had their careers destroyed,” Cashill wrote. “… [T]he Armed Forces Institute of Pathology brass assured the public that Brown dies of ‘multiple blunt force injuries to the head.’ He was the only one of the 35 victims to have a reported head wound.”
Charles Meissner – April 3, 1996
Charles Meissner, the assistant secretary of commerce, had issued John Huang a security clearance. (See “Ron Miller” and “Barbara Wise” entries.) He and Ron Brown were killed in a plane crash. (See “Ron Brown” entry.)
Stanley Huggins – June 23, 1994
Stanley Huggins reportedly had been investigating the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan collapse (see “James McDougal” entry). Reports indicate he died of viral pneumonia before his 300 pages of findings could be released.
Bill Shelton – June 12, 1994
Bill Shelton was the fiance of Kathy Ferguson (see “Kathy Ferguson” entry below), and he questioned whether Ferguson had actually committed suicide.
Shelton, too, was reported to have committed suicide with a gun at Ferguson’s grave site.
Kathy Ferguson – May 10, 1994
Kathy Ferguson was reported to have died from a suicide in which she shot herself in the head, though her packed bags were found next to her body, possibly indicating she planned to leave her home.
Ferguson was the ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, who had been a co-defendant, along with Clinton, in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Danny Ferguson had escorted Paula Jones to Clinton’s hotel room. Kathy Ferguson was a corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
James Bunch – Feb. 11, 1994
James Bunch, 46, a Texas state employee in Austin who ran a prostitution ring from his office, reportedly died from a suicide involving a gun. Bunch was said to have owned a “little black book” of influential people, including at least one “state legislator,” from Texas and Arkansas who visited prostitutes. Bunch’s files contained descriptions of his high-profile clients, their sexual preferences, the amount of money they were willing to spend, and whether they were “good” or “bad” clients who might hurt the escorts. According to a report in the Telegraph, “There [was] a possibility that juveniles were involved in his business. Police told the Associated Press Bunch was arrested and interrogated, but he hadn’t appeared distraught or suicidal.
Gandy Baugh – Jan. 8, 1994
Gandy Baugh, who had been an attorney for Clinton pal and drug convict Dan Lasater, reportedly killed himself by leaping from a window of a tall building. Lasater, a figure in the Whitewater controversy, had been convicted of dealing cocaine and served six months in jail. But Clinton later pardoned him.
In 1984, Lasater had purchased Angel Fire Resort, a ski resort near Taos, New Mexico, and promoted it using Clinton’s name. A U.S. Customs investigative report revealed the resort was used for drug operations and money laundering.
Ed Willey – Nov. 29, 1993
Kathleen Willey
In her book alleging a campaign of slander and intimidation orchestrated chiefly by Hillary Clinton, Kathleen Willey pointed a finger of suspicion at the former first couple for the death of her husband, Ed Willey, who was believed to have killed himself.
Kathleen Willey, who said she was groped by President Clinton in the White House, acknowledged in an interview with WND in November 2007 that she stood by the speculation she posed about her husband’s demise in “Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton.”
Asked if she suspected her husband Ed, a lawyer and son of a prominent Virginia lawmaker, was murdered, Willey replied, “Most definitely.”
Did she believe the Clintons were involved?
“I do have suspicions,” Willey said, “yes.”
It was Ed Willey’s dire financial straits that prompted Kathleen, then a White House volunteer, to seek a meeting with President Clinton in the Oval Office to plead for a paying job and any other help the commander-in-chief could give.
But Willey alleges the Nov. 29, 1993, meeting ended abruptly when the president cornered her in a private passageway and sexually assaulted her.
At the time of that meeting, Clinton and Willey were unaware that Ed Willey was lying dead of a gunshot wound to his mouth in the woods near his car, parked on a hunting path in rural King and Queen County, Virginia.
Kathleen Willey became known in the summer of 1997 after lawyers for Clinton accuser Paula Jones gave her name to a national magazine reporter. She was scheduled to become one of only three witnesses in the Clinton impeachment trial until some members of the House and Senate refused to allow her to testify.
In the book, Willey recounts numerous incidents she believes were designed to terrorize her into silence, with the latest taking place in September, just as the book was in its final stages.
As WND reported, Willey said she was the target of an unusual house burglary over the Labor Day weekend for which she blames the Clintons. While asleep upstairs in her Virginia home, she said, a copy of a manuscript for “Target” was stolen.
Willey told WND the break-in at her house reminded her of the widely reported incident 10 years ago in which she claimed she was threatened near her present Richmond-area home by a “jogger” just two days before she was to testify against President Clinton in the Jones case.
She contends elements of the autopsy report of her husband’s death are inconsistent with suicide, pointing to similarities to the death of White House aide Vince Foster, also believed to have killed himself. (See “Vince Foster” entry.)
“I’ve seen too much evidence regarding other people who have been involved with the Clintons,” she told WND.
Facing a deadline to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars he owed to “bad people” who threatened him, Ed Willey had an apparent motive for suicide, and five notes to loved ones were discovered by his secretary.
But Kathleen Willey writes “she could never understand how he could leave us,” noting that while the letters are in his writing, “I also know that anyone would write anything at gunpoint.”
What motive could anyone have to murder him?
Willey writes that after her husband’s death, her friend Carole in Colorado told her something she had not known. Ed had confided to Carole’s husband that he had taken a briefcase full of cash to Little Rock, Ark., during the presidential campaign.
Willey said she was shocked but acknowledged her husband could have done it. Later she found a reference on a blog that explored illegal fundraising activities by the Clintons and noted Ed Willey was known for “handling large briefcases full of cash” as part of the 1992 presidential campaign.
She speculates: “I have no idea how anyone other than the Clintons would know that Ed might have carried cash in briefcases. So why would he be killed? Because he was carrying illegal money? That’s probably not enough reason. But what if, in his desperation, Ed had ‘illegally borrowed’ from the campaign?”
In the book, Willey says she goes back and forth in her mind on what happened to her husband, and “as I do, the possibility lingers, logical or not, that Ed was murdered.”
Jerry Luther Parks – Sept. 26, 1993
Jerry Luther Parks
Two months after White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster died, Jerry Luther Parks – who had been head of security for Bill Clinton’s headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the 1992 presidential campaign and gubernatorial years – was shot through the rear window of his car with a semiautomatic handgun.
As WND reported, Jerry Luther Parks was reportedly watching a news bulletin on the death of Vincent Foster (see “Vince Foster” entry below) when he turned from the television and muttered, “I’m a dead man.” His son, Gary, was with him in the room. It was July 21, 1993. Foster had just been found dead in Fort Marcy Park, about seven miles from the White House, across the Potomac River in Virginia. Foster had been shot through the head, said the bulletin, an apparent suicide. (See “Vince Foster” entry below.)
British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard interviewed the Parks family extensively. In “The Secret Life of Bill Clinton,” he reported that Parks was a nervous wreck for the next two months. He packed a gun and drove evasively to shake off any possible pursuers. At one point, Parks told his family that Bill Clinton was “cleaning house” and that he was “next on the list.”
On Sept. 23, 1993, as Parks was driving to his suburban Little Rock home along the Chenal Parkway, a white Chevrolet Caprice with two men inside drove alongside and peppered Parks’ car with semiautomatic gunfire. Parks’s car ground to a halt. A man emerged from the white Chevy, fired two rounds into Parks’ chest with a 9-mm pistol, then sped off.
Several witnesses watched the murder. The killers were never found. As with so many other “Arkancides” – the name given to the long list of suspicious deaths among Arkansas associates of the Clintons – Big Media ignored the event.
One of the last people to see Vincent Foster alive was Linda Tripp, who then worked as a secretary for Foster’s boss, White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum. Tripp testified before Kenneth Starr’s grand jury on July 28, 1998, that the reason she had leaked Monica Lewinsky’s story to Michael Isikoff at Newsweek was that Tripp hoped the spotlight of national publicity might protect her from physical harm.
“I am afraid of this administration,” Tripp told the grand jury.
She continued, “I have what I consider to be well-founded fears of what they are capable of … I had reasons to believe that the Vince Foster tragedy was not depicted accurately under oath by members of the administration … I knew based on personal knowledge, personal observations, that they were lying under oath. So it became very fearful to me that I had information even back then that was dangerous.”
A juror asked, “But do you have any examples of violence being done by the administration to people who were a threat to them?”
Tripp named Jerry Parks: “[T]he behavior in the West Wing with senior staff to the president during the time the Jerry Parks [murder report] came over the fax frightened me. He had been killed,” she said.
The “flurry of activity,” the closed-door meetings and the “hush-hush” atmosphere in the White House all struck her as ominous and frightening.
“Maybe you had to be there,” said Tripp.
“[The news of Parks’ death] was something they wanted to get out in front of. There was talk that this would be another body to add to the list of 40 bodies or something that were associated with the Clinton administration. At that time, I didn’t know what that meant. I have since come to see such a list.”
After the murder, Gary Parks told a staffer of the New York Observer his father and Vince Foster had investigated Clinton’s affairs at Hillary’s request.
“He said that Vince Foster had called up his father, who was working as a private investigator, to look into Clinton’s romantic life in about 1980, after Bill Clinton had lost the governor’s office following his first term. Parks said Hillary wanted a divorce. It looked like maybe the juggernaut she’d believed in, and married, was over. Clinton had by then lost two big races and won two. Till the Comeback Kid—boy is Bill Clinton gutsy—won back the governorship in 1982. But in the early 80s, Parks said, Hillary asked her law partner Vince Foster to prepare a divorce case and Foster called Parks, who compiled a dossier of women’s statements. Parks said that Hillary later decided against a divorce, but that his father held on to the dossier. Then in 1993, Parks said, after Vince Foster went to Washington, he demanded the return of the file, and even called Jerry Parks in the days before his, Foster’s, death, to demand it. And that two months later his father was murdered, because, Parks said, he had held out on returning the file. (The L.R. police never solved his father’s murder, not when I was looking into it a few years afterward.)”
Dr. Stanley Heard – Sept. 10, 1993
Dr. Stanley Heard of Hot Springs, Arkansas, had treated Bill Clinton’s mother, stepfather and brother and served as chairman of Clinton’s National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee. He was killed, along with his attorney, Steve Dickson, of Topeka, Kansas, in a plane crash 50 miles west of Washington.
The plane radioed to Dulles that there was a fire before it crashed. That aircraft was the second one to cause problems for Dickson on the trip.
In 1993, the Washington Post reported, “Dickson flew his own plane from Topeka, but on the way to Washington it developed problems in St. Louis. There, he left his plane for repair and rented another plane.”
The National Transportation and Security Board said the crash was due to ” an inadequate annual inspection of the airplane and non-compliance with airworthiness directives by company maintenance personnel.”
Jon Parnell Walker – Aug. 15, 1993
Jon Parnell Walker fell to his death from the top of the Lincoln Towers building in Arlington, Virginia.
On July 10, 1994, Connecticut’s The Day newspaper reported, “In March 1992, Walker, and investigator for the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), had contacted the Kansas City RTC regional office for information concerning possible ties between Whitewater Development, Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan [above] and the Clintons.”
Vince Foster – July 20, 1993
Hillary and Vince Foster
Vince Foster was deputy White House counsel and Hillary’s friend and law partner who had connections to the Travelgate and Whitewater scandals. In 1993, Foster was found dead in a park with a fatal gunshot wound to his mouth. As WND reported, his suicide was the subject of much speculation and three official investigations.
Investigations by the U.S. Park Police, the Department of Justice, the FBI, Congress, Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr concluded Foster’s death was a suicide. However, as WND reported in 2003, one of Starr’s key investigators challenged the official line, insisting the probe’s result was predetermined, only a few plotters were required to engineer the result, the crime scene was altered and that major newspaper editors killed stories by reporters pursuing the truth. The Washington Post reported that federal investigators were not allowed to enter Foster’s office after his death, but “White House aides enter[ed] Foster’s office shortly after his death, giving rise to speculation that files were removed from his office.”
In his 2005 book “The Truth about Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, And How Far She’ll Go to Become President,” Edward Klein wrote of Hillary’s involvement in the effort to remove Foster’s files:
The night of [Foster’s] death, Hillary launched one of the most shameful – and illegal – cover-ups of her entire career.She sent two of her most trusted White House loyalists – Maggie Williams, the First Lady’s chief of staff, and Patsy Thomasson, who was in charge of White House administration – into Foster’s office to retrieve embarrassing and incriminating documents related to Whitewater and Hillary’s other personal affairs. While White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum barred investigators from entering Foster’s office, Maggie Williams, Patsy Thomasson, and Craig Livingston, Hillary’s director of White House security, removed armloads of files and loose-leaf binders.“In addition, a White House staffer allegedly tampered with the titles of several memos and removed the first lady’s initials in an effort to erase her role in improper behavior.”
Jim Wilhite – Dec. 21, 1992
Jim Whilhite, 54, vice chairman of ARKLA (see “Ron Miller” entry), is killed in a one-man skiing accident. He reportedly “suffered severe head injuries when he skied into a tree on Snowmass Mountain in Aspen, Colorado, while on a family vacation.” He had planned to retire from ARKLA the following April.
C. Victor Raiser II and Montgomery Raiser – July 30, 1992
C. Victor Raiser II, the finance co-chairman of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, was killed in a plane crash, along with his son, Montgomery, and three other passengers. Another passenger and the pilot were injured.
Clinton campaign Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers described C. Victor Raiser II as “a major player” in the Clinton organization, according to the New York Times. He was the national finance co-chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign and had been a friend of the Clintons for about a decade. He was also previously the national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He served on the boards of the Democratic Business Council and the Center for National Policy and the board of advisers of the Democratic Leadership Council.
Susan Coleman – Feb. 15, 1977
Susan Coleman, who was pregnant at the time of her death, was rumored to have had an affair with Clinton while he was still Arkansas attorney general. Clinton had been Coleman’s law professor at the university of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Though Coleman died of a gunshot wound to the back of her head, her death was ruled a suicide.
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