With each high-profile “suicide” that looks like anything but, I get these suspicions (apologies to Eddie Rabbit).  It’s always the same basic story: obvious murder motive; hard-to-believe coincidences; a revisionist coroner who says it was suicide despite evidence to the contrary; the police who say they will leave no stone unturned but after the attention dies down say it was indeed a suicide; relatives and friends say the deceased had a zest for life and told them shortly before his untimely demise that if anything happens to him, it was not suicide.

The latest is Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who, seven years after retiring from Boeing, where he had worked for 32 years as a quality control manager, was in the middle of giving a deposition in a retaliation lawsuit exposing serious safety problems with the 787 Dreamliner.  From Newsmax:

“We understand the global attention this case has garnered, and it is our priority to ensure that the investigation is not influenced by speculation but is led by facts and evidence,” police said in a statement.

A coroner’s report said Barnett, 62, died from a “self-inflicted” wound, though a close family friend of Barnett’s told WCIV-TV, “I know he did not commit suicide.”

“He wasn’t concerned about safety because I asked him,” the friend said. “I said, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ And he said, ‘No, I ain’t scared, but if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.’”

The person added: “I know that he did not commit suicide. There’s no way. He loved life too much. He loved his family too much. He loved his brothers too much to put them through what they’re going through right now.”

See the Daily Mail for more details.  What kind of safety problems?  Like this:

Barnett’s suit against Boeing alleged under-pressure workers were deliberately fitting ‘sub-standard’ parts to Boeing 787s, and that brass were sweeping defects under the rug to save money.

It also emerged Monday that an FAA review found that Boeing had failed 33 of 89 product audits conducted.

Lest you think “what difference at this point does it make,” given Boeing essentially has a monopoly on the U.S. large passenger plane market,

Boeing shed $4 billion in value overnight after news of Barnett’s death and the FAA audits.

Shares dropped by more than 4 percent Tuesday morning, as the airline maker’s stock slumped to a five-month low.

Does any sentient human being really believe that Jeffrey Epstein, who could have brought down not only many rich and famous people, but also many important politicians, committed suicide shortly after saying he wouldn’t; when the night he died, the prison guards were AWOL and the cameras aimed at his cell door just happened not to work; the damage to his neck was not compatible with self-hanging, etc.?  What about Seth Rich, the one who likely released the DNC emails, who had a wallet full of cash on him despite his death allegedly being a robbery (later called “botched”); the two mysterious figures caught on video who killed him being given about as much attention by the authorities as the one who planted the fake pipe bombs around the Capitol; the FBI denied having files on him but then later had to admit it did even at the time it said it didn’t (i.e., lied); etc.?  What about Mark Middleton, affiliated with both the Clintons and Epstein, who committed double-suicide: a gun blast through his chest while hanging from a tree by his neck with an electric cord around it, with no gun found in proximity to the body?  In the above link you can read the deputy sheriff’s report, which doesn’t address the obvious problems.  If you question even this suicide, you’re a conspiracy theorist.

There are many more “suicides” where these came from.  You know what I’m talking about.  Shouldn’t the default classification on these highly suspicious deaths be “unsolved murder” unless later proven to be “suicide,” rather than the other way around?  As is, I get these suspicions.

W.A. Eliot is a pseudonym.

Image: Tom Hilton via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.