JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. _ Missouri state lawmakers investigating Gov. Eric Greitens had just finished another marathon public hearing on May 29 when House Speaker Todd Richardson unexpectedly summoned them to his office.
Richardson sat in the window sill of his third-floor Capitol office, backlit in the mid-afternoon light as smoke wafted from his cigarette.
The group of Republican and Democratic legislators gathered round. Richardson asked if everyone was there. An aide shut the door.
"The governor is resigning," the speaker said.
A wave of shocked relief washed over the room. Richardson shook each legislator's hand, one by one, and thanked them for their work.
"It was a surreal moment," said Rep. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, a member of the investigative committee. "There were no cheers, no celebrating. ... No one saw it coming."
A little more than a week before, it had been Greitens celebrating.
On Monday, May 14, a prosecutor in St. Louis dropped felony invasion-of-privacy charges against the Republican governor. At the end of that week, on Friday, May 18, another prosecutor in Cole County announced he wouldn't file charges over allegations Greitens had lied to the state ethics commission.
Two of the governor's allies also had managed to snag seats on the House committee that was set to consider impeachment.
Even Greitens' opponents began to doubt whether they had the votes to impeach.
As it turns out, each of those victories set the stage for Greitens' downfall, forcing out a governor who built his entire political brand on a refusal to surrender.
This account of Greitens' final days in office is based on interviews with people close to the governor, the investigative committee in Jefferson City and the criminal prosecution he faced in St. Louis.
The story they tell shows how a week of triumph for the governor devolved within days into the realization that his path to survival had virtually vanished.
