Gary Webb dies - reported on CIA Cocaine Connections

[Bill Stewart]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/peninsula/10399522.htm
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/11745531p-12630606c.html (AP Storty)

Gary Webb, 49, former Mercury News reporter, author

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST WROTE CONTROVERSIAL SERIES

By Jessica Portner

Mercury News

Gary Webb, a former Mercury News investigative reporter, author and 
legislative staffer who ignited a firestorm with his controversial stories, 
died Friday in an apparent suicide in his suburban Sacramento home. He was 49.

The Sacramento County coroner's office said that when A Better Moving 
Company arrived at Mr. Webb's Carmichael home at about 8:20 a.m. Friday, a 
worker discovered a note posted to the front door which read: ``Please do 
not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance.''

Mr. Webb, an award-winning journalist, was found dead of a gunshot wound to 
the head, Sacramento County Deputy Coroner Bill Guillot said Saturday.

Mr. Webb's friends and colleagues described him as a devoted father and a 
funny, dogged reporter who was passionate about investigative journalism.

As a staff writer for the Mercury News from 1989 to 1997, he exposed 
freeway retrofitting problems in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and wrote 
stories about the Department of Motor Vehicles' computer software fiascos.

Mr. Webb was perhaps best known for sparking a national controversy with a 
1996 story that contended supporters of a CIA-backed guerrilla army in 
Nicaragua helped trigger America's crack-cocaine epidemic in the 1980s. The 
``Dark Alliance'' series in the Mercury News came under fire by other news 
organizations, and the paper's own investigation concluded the series did 
not meet its standards.

Mr. Webb resigned a year and a half after the series appeared in the paper. 
He then published his book, ``Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the 
Crack Cocaine Explosion.''

In the past few years, Mr. Webb worked in the California Assembly Speaker's 
Office of Member Services and for the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. 
The committee investigated charges that Oracle received a no-bid contract 
from Gov. Gray Davis. After being laid off from his legislative post last 
year, Mr. Webb was hired by the Sacramento News and Review, a weekly 
publication.

Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer who has 
known Mr. Webb for more than a decade, was distraught Saturday when he 
heard that his friend may have taken his own life.

``He had a fierce commitment to justice, truth and cared a lot about people 
who are forgotten and society tries to shove into the dark corners,'' 
Dresslar said. ``It's a big loss for me personally and a great loss for the 
journalism community.''

Services for Mr. Webb are pending.


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Bill Stewart  bill.stewart at pobox.com