Reply #71: Politician's death fuels more drama at Miami Herald [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

July 29, 2005, 12:08AM

Politician's death fuels more drama at Miami Herald
Writer contacted by Arthur Teele just before his suicide in lobby is fired over taping
By MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA
Washington Post
MIAMI - The flamboyant politician is dead in the most flamboyant of ways. The muckraking columnist is out of a job. The newsroom is in an uproar.

This city with its well-refined appetite for the bizarre has been riveted to the splashy parallel melodramas unspooling since Arthur E. Teele Jr., shot himself to death Wednesday in the Miami Herald lobby. He was distraught about a Miami New Times online story that detailed his alleged contacts with drug dealers, reputed homosexual affairs and corruption charges.
(snip)

One of Teele's last acts — a consummate insider source — may have been dropping off information about a case that DeFede needed for a story. Teele called from the Herald lobby but assured DeFede there was no rush to collect the package. Seconds later, Teele shot himself.

When Herald executives told DeFede about the shooting, he said he realized he held "Art Teele's suicide note."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3287162
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