The Man Who Killed Himself On Live TV

Who was R. Budd Dwyer?

Before he went down in infamy, R. Budd Dwyer, also known as Robert Budd Dwyer, was a politician from the United States. Born to middle-class parents in 1939, Dwyer excelled in school, with accounting being one of his favorite subjects. At first, Dwyer planned on pursuing a career in accountancy but eventually changed course and become a politician.

Ironically, Dwyer was drawn to politics as he was fed up with the corrupt system and firmly thought that an ordinary man could make a massive difference in the country’s corrupt political climate.

During his political lifetime, Dwyer would go from being a Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate before ending his career as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s 30th State Treasurer.

His crimes

Pennsylvania discovered in the early 1980s that its school districts and their staff had overpaid up to $40 million in Social Security taxes due to errors in state withholding before Dwyer’s administration. As a result, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania began soliciting bids to calculate refunds for individual employees.

On May 10, 1984, Dwyer awarded the task and lucrative $4.6 million contract to a small and relatively obscure California-based computer software company called Computer Technology Associates (CTA).

However, it would soon come to light that CTA, owned by a Pennsylvania native named John Torquato, obtained the $4.6 million contract through Torquato’s personal connections and a series of bribes.

Unfortunately for the fraudulent parties involved, Dennis Schatzman, the Pittsburgh school district’s deputy controller, noticed financial inconsistencies in the CTA contract. Dennis wrote to Pittsburg officials and contacted officials at the accounting firm Arthur Young and Associates, who confirmed that the CTA contract was millions of dollars overpriced.

The saga soon spiraled, with the office of the Pennsylvania Auditor General informing FBI officials about the bribe in June 1984. The following month, Janice R. Kincaid, a former CTA employee, issued a sworn statement claiming that Dwyer gave the contract to CTA because the company promised him a $300,000 bribe.

On December 18, 1986, Dwyer was convicted of taking a bribe from the California firm that won the contract. On January 23, 1987, he was scheduled to be sentenced on 11 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, perjury, and interstate transportation in aid of racketeering.

Dwyer faced a maximum sentence of 55 years in prison.

The press conference

It was January 22, 1987, and Dwyer was scheduled to be sentenced the following day, with the 55 years maximum prison term looming on his mind.

Dwyer had requested that his press secretary, James “Duke” Horshock, schedule a press conference for 10:30 a.m. on that day. While Dwyer hadn’t told Horshock what he would say, it was widely assumed that Dwyer would be announcing his resignation.

Those in attendance described Dwyer as appearing agitated when the reporters gathered in his office. He then proceeded to bore those in attendance as Dwyer read for more than 20 minutes from a lengthy 21-page statement in which he reasserted his innocence and vented his rage at the criminal justice system, the media, and the federal prosecutor who prosecuted him. According to photographer Gary Miller, the scene was a “long-winded, sad event.”

Dwyer then handed out copies of his statement’s final page, which was littered with grammatical errors, and concluded with the following lines:

“Please leave immediately if you have a weak stomach or mind since I don’t want to cause physical or mental distress. Joanne, Rob, DeeDee — I love you! Thank you for making my life so happy. Goodbye to you all on the count of 3. Please make sure that the sacrifice of my life is not in vain.”

Dwyer then produced a large manila envelope from which he removed a 357 Magnum while the reporters were reading the handout.

Aides yelled no as Dwyer placed the gun in his mouth, pointed up at his brain, and pressed the trigger. At 11:31 a.m., he collapsed in a pool of blood on his blue-carpeted office floor and was pronounced dead. Over an hour later, his body was packed in a black bag and removed from his office.

The aftermath

Several television stations across Pennsylvania broadcast the press conference live, using a feed from one of the five news cameras on hand, bringing Dwyer’s suicide to a mid-day audience without the benefit of editing. However, news editors had to decide whether to air the gruesome visuals or modify the film for evening news telecasts over the next several hours. Most stations aired the tape up to a moment right before the shooting, while others aired none at all.

However, as unexpected as the live suicide was to those in the audience, it appeared that Dwyer had planned his own death in advance, leaving funeral instructions and an organ donation card with assistants. In a statement, he predicted that his suicide would be the “story of the decade.”

Dwyer’s widow, Joanne, collected full survivor benefits totaling more than $1.28 million because he died in office before being removed upon sentencing.