[News] Insurance Probed In Census Taker's Death

Dr.Traveler

Mathematician
Aug 31, 2009
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Insurance Probed in Census Taker's Death

JEFFREY McMURRAY and DEVLIN BARRETT | 11/12/09 09:20 PM | AP

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A census taker found hanging from a tree had named his son as his life insurance beneficiary, and investigators are looking into whether the father manipulated the death scene to make a claim possible, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press Thursday.

In an interview with AP, Josh Sparkman said he found paperwork for the private life insurance policy among his father's personal files but wasn't sure of the amount or when it was taken out. He said authorities have told him nothing about the case or produced a death certificate, which is usually needed to make an insurance claim.

Two law enforcement sources, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case, said investigators are trying to determine if Bill Sparkman committed suicide but altered the scene to make it look like a homicide, allowing his son to collect. Life insurance policies typically do not cover suicides within a certain period of time after the policy starts.
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More at the link. I'm aware the story is from HuffPost, but I couldn't seem to find the original AP source yet.

If this is true, then I'm willing to publically admit to having egg on my face. I know when he was found I went right to the worst case scenario.
 
This is an interesting development, albeit still speculation. But, thanks for posting it. Information is the only way to get to the likely motive.
 
This is an interesting development, albeit still speculation. But, thanks for posting it. Information is the only way to get to the likely motive.

I'd started to get curious why we hadn't heard more about this case. If the information in the rest of the article is credible, it sounds like there are some serious questions that remain.

I never bought the "moonshiner theory" about this guy's death, but as I said earlier I did jump right on the "Domestic Terrorist" theory.
 

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