“The acting chief financial officer of mortgage financier Freddie Mac, David Kellermann, was found dead this morning, police said. Police are investigating the death as an apparent suicide…”

More here

ABC reports (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7399376&page=1) that Kellerman was found hanging in his basement.

Notable point in the piece:

“Prior to this role, he served as senior vice president, corporate controller and principal accounting officer. ….Before that, Kellermann served as the senior vice president and business area controller. As business area controller, he led the organization responsible for all accounting and finance for Freddie Mac’s lines of business. Kellermann has been with Freddie Mac for more than 16 years….”

In short, he was the guy in charge of Freddie’s books.

He also got a bonus recently, for $800,000 (about $170,000 paid and with the rest to come).

My Comment

I’ll post anything pertinent as it comes up.

Meanwhile, here are the other deaths/suicides related one way or other to the financial crisis:

Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, aristocratic French CEO of  Access International Advisors, a money management firm that placed investors in Madoff vehicles. He was stabbed multiples times in the arms and wrists, apparently with a box-cutter, after taking sleeping pills. (December 22, 2008)

Adolf Merckle, German billionaire head of VEM, a corporate empire that included Ratiopharma, the leading European pharmaceutical producer, Cement Heidelberg, one of the world’s leading building materials suppliers, and 120 other companies. Lay down in front of a speeding train near his house in Blaubeuren village not far from the French-Swiss border.(January 5, 2009)

Update: Steven L. Good, the CEO of  Sheldon Good & Co., the largest real estate auction in the country, found dead from a bullet to the head, at the wheel of his Jaguar in a Kane County wildlife preserve outside Chicago, who had commented on the challenging state of the country’s commercial real estate market the previous month.  (January 6, 2009) [I came across this suicide only today and added it at roughly 9 PM April 22] Update: Patrick Rocca, an Irish property investor worth several hundred million who shot himself in the head after losing a large sum in Anglo-Irish bank, which was nationalized by the British government the week before his death  (January 22, 2009)

William Foxton, retired British army major-general who served in the French foreign legion and then in the Balkans in the 1990s on the European Commission Monitoring Mission and as a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Died from a single bullet to the head in Southampton after reportedly losing all his money (six figures) in Madoff hedge funds. (February 14, 2009).

Huffington Post has an article about what it describes as the increasing levels of suicide related to the financial crisis. It names several less well-known money-managers or home owners who’ve taken their lives as a result of anxiety over finances.

However, this Columbia Journalism Review piece correctly cautions against drawing any conclusions about rising suicide rates and financial crises, noting that the image of ruined financiers throwing themselves out of windows during the crash of 1929 is strictly an urban legend. J.K. Galbraith, the best-known chronicler of the 1929 crash, points that out too.  The CJR piece is also useful in warning against the dangers of copy-cat suicides/killings resulting from the irresponsible linking of deaths/killings/suicides to particular financial events.

(This is one of the reasons I’ve been wary of writing about farmer suicides in India. You would need a very detailed analysis of the statistical picture and demographics of the area to reach any broad conclusion about the suicides).

Update April 23,

I see that Vanity Fair has posted a piece on financial suicides at 4:52 PM April 22, an updated version of an older list.

Briefly, it includes the following:

October 23, 2007
Raymond and Deanna Donaca, of Portland, Oregon; Retired contractor for the U.S. Forest Service (Raymond)
Carbon-monoxide poisoning.

October 24, 2007
James Hahn,  Houston, Texas, Chemist.
Gun shot

November 26, 2007
Rae Cowan,  Toronto, Ontario. Nranch manager at IPC Investment Corp., and he also ran Gibraltar Wealth Management Corp.
Carbon-monoxide poisoning.

January 18, 2008
Walter Buczynski of New Jersey; Vice president, Fieldstone Mortgage.
Jumped from the Delaware Memorial Bridge after killing his wife.

March 5, 2008
Roland Gore of Ocala, Florida
Killed his wife and dog, set his house (in foreclosure) on fire and then took his life

March 10, 2008
Rufus Shaw and Lynn Flint Shaw of Dallas, Texas.
Writer (Rufus); former chairwoman of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board (Lynn)

Rufus shot Lynn and then took his own life

April 11, 2008
Maurice and Natacha Pereira, Four Corners, Florida.
Gun.

May 23, 2008
Barry Fox of Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Research supervisor, Bear Stearns.
Fox ingested a cocktail of drugs before jumping from his 29th-floor apartment.

June 2, 2008

Scott Coles of Phoenix, Arizona.
C.E.O., Mortgages, Ltd, one of the largest private mortgage lenders in Arizona
Drug overdose

July 15, 2008
Ed Boesen of Davenport, Iowa.
Co-owner of the florist chain Boesen.
Drug overdose—Tylenol.