Police investigating the death of Missouri Republican media spokesman Spence Jackson have sought to play down speculation that his suicide was “correlated” with that of his boss, Tom Schweich, the state’s auditor.
Schweich, a Republican candidate for governor, killed himself on 26 February at his home in Clayton, St Louis. Jackson was found dead at his apartment in neighbouring Jefferson City on Sunday.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Captain Doug Shoemaker, spokesman for Jefferson City police, read a note found at Jackson’s apartment, written by the 44-year-old on the day he killed himself.
The note, which Shoemaker said had been released by Jackson’s family to “potentially clear some things up”, was a single sentence in its entirety and was dated 27 March. “I’m so sorry, I just can’t take being unemployed again,” it read.
Shoemaker said the incident was being investigated “strictly as a suicide” and said the investigation had found no evidence of “any foul play, no sign of a struggle, no damage to the apartment”.
The deaths of Schweich and and Jackson have exposed damaging rifts in the local Republican party.
Schweich’s supporters, including Jackson, argued after his death that an antisemitic campaign against him, led by the Republican chairman, John Hancock, contributed to his death. Hancock denies the allegations.
Shoemaker told reporters on Tuesday that Jackson had remained employed in the state auditor’s office and had reported for work last Friday. He left work early that day, according to colleagues interviewed by the police, who also described “no behaviour out of the ordinary”.
But local media reports have suggested Jackson stood to lose his job when the Democratic Missouri governor, Jay Nixon, appointed a new auditor to replace Schweich in the coming weeks.
Shoemaker told reporters that while Jefferson City police continued to contact investigators in Clayton examining the death of Schweich they had not established any correlation between the two.
“I don’t know whether there is any correlation at all to our case. But we’ve not completed our investigation so everything is open at this point in terms of what our detectives are looking into and those conversations,” Shoemaker said.
He said that while the investigation was seeking to gain “some sort of insight” into why Jackson had taken his life, “that question really, truly, may never be answered”.
Following Tuesday’s press conference Jackson’s family issued a statement describing him as a “kind, caring and loyal person”.
“Spence was passionate about his career and for the elected officials, candidates and causes he represented. As you can imagine, this is a very difficult time for our family,” the statement said.
