"This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. Many writers discussing the series point to errors in it. I felt she really trashed me. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. The legendary civil-rights activist Dick Gregory was arrested while he protested outside the CIA's headquarters; Gregory began referring to the organisation as "Crack in America". After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide. GARY WEBB: His wife's office was burglarized. A passing motorist - a heavily tattooed young man - gave him a lift home, then returned and stole the motorcycle, which police recovered from him three days after Webb's death. She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. GARY WEBB OBITUARY. After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book that responded to the criticism of the series and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. Pictured as a teenage fan: Gary Numan with Gemma, his now wife, getting his autograph in 1985 years before they got together Gary was 600,000 in debt, and on the verge of going under in. He was born January 28, 1950 in Middletown, OH to Paul and Dorothy (Hawkins) Webb. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. The hard-charging investigative reporter's career imploded in the wake of his much-criticized "Dark Alliance" series about the CIA and crack cocaine. Walter Bogdanich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who worked with Webb on The Plain Dealer, told American Journalism Review editor Susan Paterno "He was brilliant; he knew more about public records than anybody I've ever known. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. After gaining access to secret grand jury transcripts in 1996, and following the subsequent paper trail that followed therein, Gary Webb made the shocking discovery that government informant, Oscar Danilo Blandn, was covertly selling tons of cocaine for the Central Intelligence Agency in South Central Los Angeles, and other parts of the country. Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. 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 didn't take her seriously," says Susan Bell, "because he was always getting calls alleging weird stuff about the CIA. The series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the culture of the city. (Strawser) Webb. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. Last December Webb committed suicide. Gary Webb, 49, an investigative reporter who wrote a widely criticized series linking the CIA to the explosion of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, was found dead Dec. 10 at his home near. The second volume, "The Contra Story," was issued in a classified version on April 27, 1998, and in an unclassified version on October 8, 1998. In a long review of the series' claims in The Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said "I think the critics have been far too harsh. 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A 1985 series, "Doctoring the Truth," uncovered problems in the State Medical Board[12] and led to an Ohio House investigation which resulted in major revisions to the state Medical Practice Act. [72] A New York Times profile of Webb in June 1997 noted that two of his series written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer had resulted in lawsuits that the paper had settled. Nick Schou, a journalist who wrote a 2006 biography of Webb, has claimed that this was the most important error in the series. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Irene's character a reminder of an old controversy about Gary Webb. ", As Webb would tell a friend, after he had been ostracised: "You have to look out, when the big dog gets off the porch.". . After the publication of "Dark Alliance," The Mercury News continued to pursue the story, publishing follow-ups to the original series for the next three months. "He had six in a short period of time." 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. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. In a 2013 article in the LA Weekly, Schou wrote that Webb was "vindicated by a 1998 CIA Inspector General report, which revealed that for more than a decade the agency had covered up a business relationship it had with Nicaraguan drug dealers like Blandn. Webb began to shift from cynicism to curiosity. Garcia responded by email but declined to speak on the record about the editing process of Webb's series. Nobody who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand.". A perceptive, engaging woman of 48, she has turned an adjoining study into a small shrine to her late husband, who would have celebrated his 50th birthday five weeks ago. I ask Bell. Both Gary's ex-wife Susan and his brother Kurt viewed the body and they confirmed the location of the wounds to me when I met them. He later picked the surname 'Numan' from an . Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. Her husband began his career on The Kentucky Post, and rapidly proved himself to be the sort of character who can be a secretive agency's worst nightmare: a full-blooded provocateur who liked to put the hours in at the library. He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. "[74] Mary Anne Sharkey, Webb's editor at The Plain Dealer, told writer Alicia Shepard in 1997 that Webb was known as 'the carpenter' "because he had everything nailed down. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. Family (1) Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. He was no villain: He genuinely believed his thesis about the CIA. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. When she got indignant," she adds, "he went to meet her.". "They had him writing obituaries," she said. This did not happen in Webb's case. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. He is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. Leen, who covered the cocaine trade for the Miami Herald in the 1980s, rejects the claim that "because the report uncovered an agency mindset of indifference to drug-smuggling allegations", it vindicated Webb's reporting. There were no offers. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. Webb chose the second option. In May 1997, after an internal review, Ceppos stated that, although the story was right on many important points, there were shortcomings in the writing, editing and production of the series. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 . Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. Mrs. Suzette Thomas Webb. He became an investigator for the California State Legislature, published a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and did freelance investigative reporting. "You do not understand the power of these people," he adds, referring to the US intelligence services. WEBB, Mr. Gary Lee, our beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle went home with his heavenly Father Monday, August 29, 2011 at University of Michigan Hospital. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. If you work through friendly reporters on major newspapers, it comes off as The New York Times saying it and not a mouthpiece of the CIA. Can these things possibly be? His series of articles - which prompted the distinguished reporter and former Newsweek Washington correspondent Robert Parry to describe Webb as "an American hero" - incited fury among the African-American community, many of whom took his investigation as proof that the White House saw crack as a way of bringing genocide to the ghetto. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein also took note and wrote to CIA director John Deutch and Attorney General Janet Reno, asking for investigations into the articles' allegations. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. Shortly before I left for Sacramento, Moreira, who knew Webb, had shown me unbroadcast footage which shows the French reporter making a phone call to a media commentator in the US, asking him about Webb's death. Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. "If there was an eye to the storm," Katz wrote, "if there was a mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw most responsible for flooding LA's streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick. [68], In August 2004, Webb joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. 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.". By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". The second article described Blandn's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras. Ceppos failed to reply to one phone message and six emails. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time . The consensus, insofar as one exists, is that he probably overstated both the amount of drug money made by Ross and Blandn, and the percentage of those profits diverted to the Contras. From the outset of his career, Webb distinguished himself by uncovering official malfeasance, winning national . "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. [56] He resigned from the paper in November 1997. [51], The editors met with Webb several times in February to discuss the results of the paper's internal review and eventually decided to print neither Carey's draft article nor the articles Webb had filed. The first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandn and Meneses had mentioned several cases. [59], The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandn, or Meneses or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency. ", Many of these are in the series archive at. The mainstream press, now known as the legacy. This support "was not directed by anyone within the Contra movement who had an association with the CIA," and the Committee found "no evidence that the CIA or the Intelligence Community was aware of these individuals support. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? "He rang me up that day. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. Funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 19, 2003 at Goodrich United Methodist Church, 8071 S. State Rd., Goodrich, Pastor Karl Zeigler will officiate. According to the report's "Epilogue," the report was completed in December 1997 but was not released because the DEA was still attempting to use Danilo Blandn in an investigation of international drug dealers and was concerned that the report would affect the viability of the investigation. Webb's corpse was found in the bedroom, with two gunshot wounds to the head. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. 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. "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. [57], The report covered actions by Department of Justice employees in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DEA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and U.S. Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. Gary divorced from his wife in 2000, though the two remained close during his final years. [31] In their front-page article, reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus wrote that "available information" did not support the series's claims and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. Gary was born January 28, 1950 in Middletown, OH to Paul Dorothy... 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