We reported earlier this week on the new report that no gun was found at the site of the death of former Clinton adviser Mark Middleton, a death that was ruled a suicide, according to the Daily Mail. There was a cord around his neck tied to a tree limb above and a gunshot wound to his chest.
Now the Mail has more documents that they obtained from the sheriff in the matter that reveals that the initial report was incorrect — that indeed there was a shotgun found — 30 feet away from Middleton’s body. There are also more details about Middleton’s death from Perry Sheriff Scott Montgomery.
According to Sergeant Keenan Carter in the new documents:
He tied an electrical cord round his neck and then shot himself, so if the blast didn’t kill him the wire would when he fell.
In the note to his wife Rhea, Middleton said: ‘Going to rest for a while,’ he added: ‘You are a great Mom and wife babe.
‘Please be happy today and get some sun. It will make you feel better. I love you.’
He signed off on the text with a heart emoji.
Carter said Middleton, 59, then pulled an eight-foot-long bench over to a tree at a point on the ranch overlooking a valley.
‘He stood on top of the bench and tied one end of the extension cord to a large limb of the tree and the other end around his neck.
‘It is believed that Mr. Middleton then took the firearm and placed the barrels against his chest and then reached out with his left hand and placed his first finger on the first trigger.
‘It is then believed that Mr. Middleton pulled the trigger on the firearm casing (sic) it to discharge and strike him in the chest and then he fell from the bench causing the extension cord to become tight cutting off his breathing.’
Carter said in this report that the gun landed so far from Middleton’s body ‘due to the recoil from the discharge and the height and angle of the ground.’
So the cause of death was determined to be both a shotgun blast and a hanging. Lawson’s report doesn’t mention a bench and talks about him sitting by the tree. The new report doesn’t explain why the original report found no gun. Now given the shifting reports and the distance of the gun away from the body, I’m not sure this new report is going to quiet questions.
Middleton was a special advisor to Bill Clinton when he was in the White House and he signed in Jeffrey Epstein seven of the 17 times that Epstein came to the White House. Middleton also was a passenger on Epstein’s jet. But his departure from the Clinton ambit was an acrimonious one with the White House claiming that he used his position to impress business clients. Middleton denied any such thing.