Would You Keep $100,000 If It Was Contingent on the Donor's Suicide?
I just came across this article written in May by Alan Prendergast of the Denver Westword News and found it astounding and troubling. I am perplexed that there would be ANY dilemma at all in respect to what the charity decided to do when faced with the check's accompanying note and foreshadowing of what was to come. I understand that the charity director left two voice-mail messages, but HOLY CUPCAKES there was someone's life at stake and I am baffled that more was not done and the police were not notified.
Has money truly become of greater significance that a human life? The whole story astounds me.
What do you think?
**below is the reprint of the original article (which also contains further text about Beech's life)
Where would you take a $100,000 check that is also a suicide note -to the cops or to the bank?
John Francis Beech had a date with destiny last summer. He counted down the days on a calendar in his garage, crossing out each day leading to the final Sunday in July, on which he'd scrawled the word "OUT." But first he had one last bit of business, one final appointment to keep.
On July 17, Beech, a 53-year-old retired Coors manager, drove to Laradon Hall in north Denver. He'd called a few days earlier to arrange a meeting with Annie Green, the acting director of Laradon, a nonprofit that operates an alternative school and other programs for people with developmental disabilities. Beech had never met Green, but he explained on the phone that he was planning to leave his entire estate to Laradon. He was a member of a local Elks club, he added, which had adopted Laradon as its primary charity.
Green readily agreed to see him. But then she was unexpectedly called away by a death in her family. Although she tried to cancel all her appointments, Beech showed up on July 17 anyway. He handed a large white envelope to the receptionist and asked that it be delivered to Green.
Laradon's director found the envelope in her mailbox when she returned to work four days later. On the back, in handwritten block letters, were six words: WAIT UNTILL YOU HEAR FROM CORONER. And below that, in parentheses: PLEASE DONT CALL EVERYTHING IS OK.
Despite the plea to wait, Green opened the envelope. Inside was the original of Beech's Last Will and Testament, which left all his worldly goods to Laradon Hall.
The envelope contained keys to Beech's house in Lakewood and instructions about selling the house and its contents, closing his bank account and collecting funds owed to him by a bail bondsman and others. There was also a check made out to Laradon for $100,000 and dated August 1 — two weeks after the day Beech delivered the documents.
Having ignored the first message on the envelope, Green disregarded the second, too. She would later claim to have left voice-mail messages for Beech twice over the next two days, to thank him for his startling generosity — and to see if everything was indeed okay. But Beech didn't call back, and Green apparently made no further efforts to contact him.
The postdated check went into a safe at Laradon.
On August 1, the day the check became negotiable, Lakewood police officers entered Beech's house, not far from the Bear Creek Golf Course. They'd been summoned there by a neighbor, who'd complained of the smell of death seeping from the property.
Taped to Beech's front door was a handwritten note: COME BACK ON THE 1ST THANKS. Inside, taped to a hallway wall, was another note, affixed like a warning sign: STOP CALL THE CORONER THANKS.
Beech's body was inside a white van parked at the far edge of the back yard. He'd rigged up a hose from the exhaust and tried to shield the apparatus from neighbors' view with a blue tarp. He'd left his wallet, keys, car titles, a copy of the will and other documents neatly arranged on a kitchen table. It was a very polite suicide, designed to do minimal damage to the value of his house and possessions and generate the least fuss possible. But there was no note explaining why — just stop call the coroner thanks.
Investigators snapped pictures of the scene, including the garage calendar showing the countdown that ended with "OUT" on July 27. But receipts found in the house indicated Beech was still alive on the evening of July 28; he'd apparently purchased additional materials for his death rig that day, then treated himself to a banana split at a Sonic drive-in. At some point in the early hours of July 29, he died from carbon monoxide inhalation.
Beech had a mother, three sisters and a brother. The news of his death left them and other relatives reeling in shock and bewilderment. Jack, as he was known to his younger siblings, had always been the family's pillar of strength — the oldest, the most confident, the one who was the life of the party. He collected beautiful cars and performed magic tricks in bars; he had money, globe-trotting adventures and lots of girlfriends. He'd never shown signs of depression and, as far as they knew, had never been treated for mental illness. He'd never talked about suicide around them — except to express outrage when an old friend took his own life in 2007. Why, Jack had seethed, didn't the guy come to him for help?
But Jack was also an extremely private person. He'd disappear for weeks on a trip or something, then abruptly resurface. The family knew there were parts of his life he simply didn't share with them, and maybe not with anyone. "If you needed help, he'd give you the shirt off his back," says his brother, David Beech, a news director for a television station in Reno, Nevada. "But if you tried to help him with anything, he'd refuse. He was like a father; he was our father."
Carole Shultz, one of Beech's sisters, had talked to him frequently last summer, right up until two weeks before he died. "He was calling me all the time," says Shultz, an airline employee who lives in Golden. "He would latch on to certain people. You wouldn't see him for months, then he'd show up and hang around until four in the morning. The last conversation we had, Jack's phone died. He had to get more minutes, and then he left a long, long message about all kinds of stuff. But it was nothing special."
Searching for answers, the siblings pored over the copy of Jack's will left on the kitchen table. The document contained several peculiar requests. No obituary or memorial service, and the crematorium was instructed to dispose of his ashes. (Jack had once watched a neighbor get evicted, Shultz recalled, and was horrified to see the urn containing the tenant's husband's ashes lying in the street.) Beech had designated the director of Laradon Hall as his executor and asked her not to inform the Elks chapter in Evergreen of his death for six months.
Why not tell the Elks? And what was the connection to Laradon? Jack Beech had a developmentally disabled half-sister, ten years his junior, but she'd never received any services from the organization. Shultz and Dave Beech decided to pay a visit to Laradon Hall to see if they could obtain his ashes — and to find out what the people there knew about their brother.
They met with Annie Green on August 6. Accounts of what was said during the meeting vary. Laradon's attorneys maintain that Green disclosed that she'd received a $100,000 check from the deceased, but his siblings say she failed to mention the donation; they claim they only found out about it from the register of Jack's checkbook. It's clear, though, that Green showed them the envelope Jack Beech had left for her, and that the words on that envelope — WAIT UNTILL YOU HEAR FROM CORONER — deeply troubled her visitors.
The Beech siblings say they're not upset that Jack decided to leave his estate to Laradon Hall. They wonder, though, how anyone could have seen those words and not respond in some way — arrange for a welfare check, maybe, call 911 or the lawyer listed on the will, a suicide hotline, somebody.
"If my brother was killed in a car wreck and decided to do this with his money, we'd have been so happy for Laradon," says Dave Beech. "We'd be sitting around saying this was so typical of Jack and so wonderful. But under these circumstances, this is very difficult for us. They had warning signs on one hand and dollar signs on the other. If you ignore the warning signs, what should be the consequences?"
Two weeks after the meeting with Green, members of the Beech family filed objections in Jefferson County's probate court, seeking to prevent Laradon from collecting Jack's estate. In effect, the family contends that the organization had advance notice of Jack's suicide plans but did nothing to intervene because it stood to benefit from his death. In court filings, their attorney has scolded Laradon for rushing to get Green appointed as the estate administrator, knowing a challenge to the will was pending, and for the unusual timing of the cashing of the $100,000 check — which was deposited in a bank not on August 1 but on August 6, approximately thirty minutes after Green's meeting with the Beech family ended. Laradon shouldn't profit from its conduct, Beech's family insists, any more than a scheming heir should be allowed to benefit from bumping off an aged uncle.
"They should have nothing," says Shultz. She believes that Laradon, an organization that frequently deals with children and adults who have mental-health issues, has no excuse for ignoring what she regards as an obvious cry for help. "They should have known what the words meant," she adds. "They should be held to a higher standard."
Through her lawyers, Green declined to comment on the case. Laradon has issued a written statement expressing sympathy for the family but denying any responsibility for Beech's death: "Laradon had no knowledge that Mr. Beech intended to take his own life. It is Laradon's intention to continue honoring Mr. Beech's memory and his decision to benefit Laradon."
Just how Beech arrived at his final decisions may never be known. Suicide is rarely a straightforward affair. People thinking about killing themselves don't always exhibit obvious symptoms of depression or despair. They're not all recluses or mental patients with a long history of self-destructive behavior. Some are even the life of the party.
But experts say that potential suicides often signal their intentions — sometimes to strangers. Many suicides are preventable, if people only pay attention. And Jack Beech, in his own tricky way, showed many of the classic signs of suicide well before the night he ended it all.
Friday, June 12, 2009 at 11:32AM
Reader Comments (8)
Straight to the cops, no thinking involved, fucking common sense. That's terrible....damn.
I agree, this one requires no thinking. It seems clear that a phone call was in order once Mrs. Green read the note.
This is an interesting case. In my line of work, I deal a lot with people who have a great deal of money and who leave charitable contributions in their wills. Often people are terminally ill and are working to make their passing easier on the people around them. It is possible that the people who received this packet didn't find much unusual about it. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20.
Maybe I'm an eternal optimist, but I hope that the thought that this was potentially a suicide note never crossed the minds of anyone who saw that gentleman's paperwork. I hope they assumed it was a terminally ill person who had nobody in his family to leave his belongings to....this happens.
But, I also have a bit of a pessimist in me. This man committed suicide, and his sole wish was to have his assets go to this organization, not his family. I question why he would want such a thing if his family is as gracious as they make themselves out to be. I also see a lot of family issues in my line of work, and distribution of an estate tends to bring out the worst in people.
I guess I'd have to reserve judgment on this case, as it seems to be spun specifically in one direction. I'd be interested in hearing more about the people in this organization and hear their version of the story.
That is really heartbreaking. I almost cried. How could anyone just ignore that. I was confused at first, but then after I realized what happened in the story I was really shocked.
Dang, I cuss a lot. Sorry everyone. :-x
After reading this again I do agree somewhat with Lisa S. about the story maybe being from one side. But I still think she should have called someone besides Mr. Beech when she saw the writing on the envelope.
thanks for the story Jinxi!
I don't know, something just doesn't sound right here. Why was the check cashed 30 minutes before the family visited? I think I might agree with the family on this one....
Wow. The whole thing was definitely ringing alarm bells right from the beginning, but the fact that the check was postdated only two weeks ahead should have clinched it in terms of her then picking up the phone straight away and calling authorities. Money is a terrible distraction for many people from the tenets of common sense and human decency.
Also, the fact that the whole thing was obviously so well planned and thought out, as if he had arranged things deliberately as a test of integrity and to allow Green to make that ultimate decision to hammer the nails into her [and the foundation's] own proverbial coffin of greed. Perhaps he was trying to highlight something bigger behind the scenes, although I admit I'm baffled as to why he would go to so much trouble and take his own life in the process. He sounded like an amazing human being.
What an incredible, sad and thought provoking story. Thanks for posting it, Jinxi.
xoxo
I must add one other thing. I do understand she may have presumed he was terminally ill, and many people in this situation are forced to make advance plans for their money so I feel weight has to be given to that concept - but it's the two-week postdate on the check that suggested he knew the day when he was going to die which bothers me greatly. But then the fact he appeared to arrange it all legally in advance, were these truly his wishes?
My inner pessimist is arguing with my inner optimist. Gosh, my brain will be chewing on this one for a long time to come!