Achor tied around his ankles!!!!???????


Merrill Apparently Shot Himself On the Bay

By Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; A01



Philip Merrill, the prominent publisher and former diplomat whose body was found floating in the Chesapeake Bay on Monday, suffered from a heart condition and apparently took his own life, his family said last night.

Merrill, 72, was found with a shotgun wound to the head and a small anchor tied around one or both ankles, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

"Obviously, he took his own life," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the results of an autopsy had not been announced. "This is not an accident."

Merrill, who was famously brash and determined as the leader of a publishing empire that includes Washingtonian magazine and the Capital newspaper of Annapolis, lately had become fatigued and unmotivated, his family said in a statement late yesterday. They said he had undergone heart surgery a year ago and was on several medications as a result.

"Over the past four weeks we've observed that his spirit dimmed," the family said.

"We were concerned for his welfare but never imagined he would consider taking his own life," they said. "Unfortunately, with the same resolve and single-mindedness that made him so effective as an executive he appears to have made his decision to carry out his actions with tragic consequences."

The development was a startling turn in a series of tragic events that began June 10, when his boat was found under sail but empty and drifting in high winds. A massive search that day and for days later yielded nothing. Then, on Monday, a recreational boater found his body close to a shipping lane off Poplar Island, more than 11 miles from where his boat, the Merrilly, had been found.

"To be honest with you, I'm speechless," Tom Marquardt, executive editor of the Capital, said last night. "This ending does not change his accomplishments one iota."

Merrill was assistant secretary general to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the early 1990s and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States from 2002 until last year. He frequently took time away from his business to pursue diplomatic and intelligence assignments for the government. He served six administrations, mostly in the State and Defense departments.

His death recalled two other high-profile incidents involving prominent Washington area residents. In 1996, former CIA director William E. Colby died from drowning and exposure after falling from a canoe off Charles County. After his body was recovered more than a week later, authorities said he probably had a stroke or heart attack before the accident.

In 1978, another former high-level CIA employee, John A. Paisley, disappeared while sailing across the Chesapeake Bay. His body was found a week later near Solomons Island with a fatal gunshot wound in an apparent suicide.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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