gary webb wife

By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. Webb made his early reputation as a reporter with the Plain Dealer before going on to fame and turmoil at the San Jose Mercury News. Jeff Leen, assistant managing editor for investigative reporting at The Washington Post, wrote in a 2014 opinion page article that "the report found no CIA relationship with the drug ring Webb had written about." Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. Webb was an assertive figure who drove fast cars and powerful motorcycles, hung heavy metal posters in his office and, at certain times in his life, smoked a fair amount of cannabis. He is from United States. Its pointed to as one of the clearer cases of CIA intervention as revenge for Webb revealing damaging secrets about the agencies involvement in drug smuggling. "Gary Webb was left to fend for himself. Cooper and Mariah were engaged before they finally tied the knot. Gary Webb | Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune Gary Webb : Murdered For Exposing The Truth - Educate Inspire Change In and out of work, he had a reputation for taking risks. Ross was also released early after cooperating in an investigation of police corruption, but was rearrested a few months later in a sting operation arranged with Blandn's help. The first article, by Katz, developed a different picture of the origins of the crack trade than "Dark Alliance" had described, with more gangs and smugglers participating. [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. Gary Numan's superfan wife had 'body lift' and exploding breasts His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News. Gary Webb Obituary (2009) - Elgin, IL - Elgin Courier News - Legacy.com Why Journalist Gary Webb Died - LewRockwell Working in San Jose would have meant daily contact with what Bell describes as "people he did not want to be with". The reports of the three federal investigations into the claims of "Dark Alliance" were not released until over a year after the series's publication. It's . }. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. Emma Lee Webb. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. And "we really didn't do anything to advance his work or illuminate much to the story, and it was a really kind of tawdry exercise. Gary Webb was at his desk in the Mercury News's Sacramento office, in July 1995, when he received a message to call Coral Baca, a Hispanic woman from the San Francisco Bay area, allegedly connected to a Colombian drug cartel. Although Blandn's cartel was undoubtedly one of the first to bring crack to LA, Webb was almost certainly suffering a rush of blood when he described the group as "the first pipeline" into the city. He said: 'No. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? "[55] In June 1997, The Mercury News told Webb it was transferring him from the paper's Sacramento bureau and offered him a choice between working at the main offices in San Jose under closer editorial supervision, or spot reporting in Cupertino; both locations were long commutes from his home in Sacramento. It was just more than he could take.". Gary Webb: Murdered For Exposing The Truth - A New Kind Of Human that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Begun 1996, the divorce and battle over cash of Grammy winner Jimmy Webb age 75, father of six, wed 22 years to Patsy, 64, daughter of late actor Barry Sullivan is getting longer. Depressed, he became increasingly unpredictable in his behaviour and embarked on a series of affairs; he was divorced from Bell in 2000, though he remained close to her throughout his life and lived in a house in nearby Carmichael. [50] By January, Webb filed drafts of four more articles based on his trip, but his editors concluded that the new articles would not help shore up the original series's claims. Regarding issues raised in the series's shorter sidebar stories, it found that some in the government were "not eager" to have DEA agent Celerino Castillo "openly probe" activities at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, where covert operations in support of the Contras were undertaken, and that the CIA had indeed intervened in a case involving smuggler Julio Zavala. The Warning in Gary Webb's Death - Consortium News The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. "Which was that, if he wanted a future within the political establishment of the United States, then he should concentrate on other aspects of life.". * The agency's response was to try to prevent him from getting his doctorate, then block his advancement in the academic world. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. "As a PhD student, McCoy went to Vietnam and built an absolutely damning case about the CIA's involvement with trafficking heroin. "Do you think that a part of him did this out of revenge?" Gary was born May 5, 1954, to his parents Worley and Margaret Webb, who preceded him in death as well as his brother, David Webb. In a three-part series published in the San Jose Mercury News, "Dark Alliance," Webb alleges that not only was the CIA aware cocaine sold in the U.S. during the 1980s was funding the Nicaraguan Contras, they were complicit in its distribution. "[58], It also concluded that "the claims that Blandn and Meneses were responsible for introducing crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles and spreading the crack epidemic throughout the country were unsupported." Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. The new movie Kill the Messenger, based in part on a 2006 book by a former student of mine, eulogizes Webb . Parry, the first reporter to write about the US authorities' drug-running on behalf of the Contras, had survived a campaign by the White House to discredit first his story, then his reputation. Going to the CIA to ask if they've ever profited from drug sales in Los Angeles, I suggested to Kornbluh, is rather like asking Fagin if he has ever picked a pocket. [39] Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post's criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandn's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandn's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses. "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. But his central thesis - that the CIA, having participated in narcotics trafficking in central America, had, at best, turned a blind eye to the activities of drug dealers in LA - has never been in question. When removal men arrived, on the morning of 10 December 2004, they found a sign on his front door, which read: ''Please do not enter. [18], Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. [16] As part of The Mercury News team that covered the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Webb and his colleague Pete Carey wrote a story examining the causes of the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. Relationships with other women ended badly. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. WRITTEN IN PAIN - Los Angeles Times It noted that Blandn and Meneses claimed to have donated money to Contra sympathizers in Los Angeles, but found no information to confirm that it was true or that the agency had heard of it. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. His was the story of a man who gains information of wrongdoing, then, attempting to act in the public interest, seeks protection from his superiors, and the forces of law, and does not receive it. It reads: "There should be no fetters on reporters, nor must they tamper with the truth, but give light so the people will find their own way." Today, Narco News, with support from The Fund for Authentic Journalism, is pleased to announce that the Dark Alliance website has a new, and this time permanent, home at Narco News. Webb's reports prompted three official investigations, including one by the CIA itself which - astonishingly for an organisation rarely praised for its transparency - confirmed the substance of his findings (published at length in Webb's 1998 book, also entitled Dark Alliance). And it was ignored by the US media, for all of those reasons. "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. In a long review of the series' claims in The Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said "I think the critics have been far too harsh. Susan Bell: a shameful secret history - The Independent padding-bottom: 20px; ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. Gary Webb Obituary (1944 - 2022) - Portland, OR - The Oregonian padding:0!important; He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. Obituary | GARY HAYS WEBB of Neenah, Wisconsin | WESTGOR FUNERAL HOMES He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. A jury awarded the plaintiffs over 13 million dollars and the case was later settled. Army. He was a former member of Bethlehem . At the commemorative service for Webb, held at the Doubletree Hotel in Sacramento, Bell read out the letter Webb had written to his son Eric, now 17. And this is not a happy story - or," she adds, "a little one.". Webb had become, as somebody put it, "radioactive". Cooper Webb Wife Name Revealed. . "To get back at his editors?". "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. . Gary Webb Resigns from the San Jose Mercury News As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. [48] Despite the controversy that soon overtook the series, and the request of one board member to reconsider, the branch's board went ahead with the award in November. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. One of these was a 1986 raid on Blandn's drug organization by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which the article suggested had produced evidence of CIA ties to drug smuggling that was later suppressed. A January 1997 article in American Journalism Review noted that a 1994 series Webb wrote had also been the subject of a Mercury News internal review that criticized Webb's reporting. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. He had also lost his house the week before his suicide. Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. In 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of stories exposing the connection between the CIA and the crack cocaine that was being sold in So. Jack Blum, who was the lead investigator for Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, which produced a highly damning 1989 report on drug-smuggling in the guise of national security, is one of several commentators to have questioned aspects of Webb's original reporting. The Man Who Exposed The Crips, Bloods & CIA Connection to - YouTube "[38], Surprised by The Washington Post article, The Mercury News's executive editor Jerome Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series. "Ross," his report went on, dealt "on a scale never before conceived," with "a staggering turnover" of "50 to 100 kilos of cocaine a day". Family and friends will gather to celebrate his life of 59 years at 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 7, 2019, at Lamesa Continue Reading Leave a Message, Share a Memory Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021. In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. [65], Within "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On" essay Webb stated he believed there was an active "collusion between the press and the powerful" to report freely on inconsequential matters, "but when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff We begin to see the limits of our freedoms". Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his. (Strawser) Webb. Gary Webb Was Right | HuffPost Latest News Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. He was previously married to Sue Bell. In February, Gary Webb gave his ex-wife. The story they printed was just awful. "He had six in a short period of time." He also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him. It concluded, however, that these problems were "a far cry from the type of broad manipulation and corruption of the federal criminal justice system suggested by the original allegations.". Webb established incontrovertible links * between Ricky Ross and Blandn who, two years later, would betray Ross to the authorities. [66] The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. Gary Webb - Spartacus Educational Man Donates Liver To Ex-Wife - CBS News LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12 - Gary Webb, a reporter who won national attention with a series of articles, later discredited, linking the Central Intelligence Agency to the spread of crack . Cuts and amendments were made at the request of Ceppos, executive editor of the Mercury News, and Webb's immediate editor Dawn Garcia, among others. . [54] Editors at the paper, on the other hand, felt that Webb had failed to tell them about information that contradicted the series's claims and that he "responded to concerns not with reasoned argument, but with accusations of us selling him out. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. Dec. 13, 2004. Gary Webb (Investigative Journalist) Wiki, Biography, Age, Wife, Family The normal process is, or should be, that a reporter files a story and is robustly challenged by his paper's lawyers and editors - who, if satisfied that the report is accurate - publish, then defend the writer to the hilt. A time of fellowship and remembrance is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2019, at Lake Ridge Chapel and Memorial Designers. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. [37], In 2013, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, said of the newspaper's coverage "As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and kind of wonder[ed] how legit it was and kind of put it under a microscope, and we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. A Celebration of Life will be . 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up - Consortium News "I told Gary not to go near this story," his source replies, in an emotional voice. In addition, Gary left multiple suicide notes to family members which were confirmed to be in his own hand by them. Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. American Journalism Review - Archives According to the report, the Inspector-General's office (OIG) examined all information the agency had "relating to CIA knowledge of drug trafficking allegations in regard to any person directly or indirectly involved in Contra activities." Cooper Webb Wife Name Revealed: Who Is Professional SX/MX - Halla News Webb, Bell explains, had written four letters explaining what he was about to do - one to her, one to each of their three children - and mailed them immediately before he killed himself. Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them and stated that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. Five years ago, a tragedy occurred in American journalism: Investigative reporter Gary Webb - who had been ostracized by his own colleagues for forcing a spotlight back onto an ugly government scandal they wanted to ignore - was driven to commit suicide. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. line-height:1.5; Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? 1) It presented only one interpretation of conflicting evidence and in one case "did not include information that contradicted a central assertion of the series." He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. Webb, whose plans to become a journalist had begun when he was 13, but never included equine death notices, resigned from the Mercury News a few months later. [35] The second article, by McManus, was the longest of the series and dealt with the role of the Contras in the drug trade and CIA knowledge of drug activities by the Contras. [71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. "[79], Writing after Webb's death in 2005, The Nation magazine's former Washington Editor David Corn said that Webb "was on to something but botched part of how he handled it." They were outraged by the series's charges.[27]. It was also posted on The Mercury News website with additional information, including documents cited in the series and audio recordings of people quoted in the articles. The series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the culture of the city. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". Gary Webb's wife, Sue Webb (now Sue Stokes), said that he had been depressed for years due to his inability to get hired at a daily newspaper. Famously known by the Family name Gary Stephen Webb, was a great Engineer.He was born on August 31, 1955, in Carmichael, California.Carmichael is a beautiful and populous city located in Carmichael, California United States of America.. Gary Webb Early Life Story, Family Background and Education. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. According to Walt Bogdanich, a former colleague on the Plain Dealer who has won two Pulitzers and now works for The New York Times, Webb was the best retriever of information from public records he has ever seen. 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. [26] Other papers were slow to pick up the story, but African Americans quickly took note, especially in South Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series had been active.

Minikahda Country Club Membership Cost, Success Rate Of Surgical Insemination In Dogs, Cockfighting Gaffs And Knives For Sale, Uci Track Cycling World Championships 2022, Articles G