Kill the Messenger

by Nick Schou

  One of Webb’s fellow lecturers was Annie Nocenti, a screenplay writer from New York City who had edited several magazines, including Lies of Our Times, Scenario, and Prison Life. Nocenti says she was immediately attracted to Webb. “He was an all-American boy, chivalrous, respectful, rugged, adventurous,” she says. Webb rented a motorcycle, and the pair tore off to the beach, skipping an entire day of panel discussions to lie in the sun, a romantic interlude that quickly turned into a brief love affair.

  To Nocenti, Webb didn’t seem depressed in the least. “He was happy,” she says. Although Webb had by then pulled away from many of his closest friends, Nocenti says he opened up with her about his life. He told her that he hated his job at the state legislature because it involved little more than showing up for work and trying to seem interested in meaningless, tedious assignments. Webb also talked about his experience at the Mercury News, and how his series was attacked for alleging that the CIA had dumped crack in the inner city—something he emphatically denied he had ever written.

  “For some reason, he didn’t seem particularly angry about it,” she adds. Nocenti says they kept in touch by telephone after the conference ended, but didn’t remain romantically involved. Webb told her he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, but she didn’t want to commit, so he was moving out of the house he shared with her and buying a fixer-upper. A few months after the conference, Webb flew to New York for an award that he shared for writing a chapter about “Dark Alliance” for Into the Buzzsaw, a book of essays by reporters who had been ousted from journalism after writing controversial stories.

  While in New York City, Webb stayed with Nocenti, who introduced him to her friends, all of who were fans of his work. A TV producer Nocenti knew told Webb he wanted to put “Dark Alliance” on the screen. At one point, Webb expressed an interest in moving to New York, but said he couldn’t leave California because he wanted to remain close to his children. When Nocenti got a job as the editor of High Times magazine a few months later, Webb told her he wanted to write a Hunter S. Thompson-style story about racing motorcycles against kids half his age. She loved the idea, but he never followed through.

  On the phone, Webb seemed increasingly trapped in his own obsession over his ex-girlfriend. “He was in daily contact with a powerful unrequited love situation,” Nocenti says. Nocenti tried to convince him to move on with his life, to forget about her. “But he thought she was so perfect,” she says. “He said he’d only had two soul mates in his entire life, his ex-wife and this girl.”

  IF WEBB HAD still been married, February 10, 2004, would have been his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He marked the occasion in an email he sent Sue at 8:15 that morning.

  “It might seem odd to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a marriage that no longer exists, but I’ve never been one to do the normal thing,” Webb wrote. “Irrespective of everything else . . . today isn’t a completely meaningless event in the history of our lives. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you, my child bride, and that day a quarter century ago . . . it makes me sad and makes me smile at the same time.”

  Webb found out less than two hours later that this day would be a more meaningful one than he could have imagined. That morning, he was laid off, a casualty of the Democrats having lost control of the California Legislature and a concomitant change in leadership at the Office of Majority Services. His previous poor attendance record didn’t help. After she heard the news, Sue emailed her ex-husband at 10 PM, telling him she wished it could have been a more “peaceful” day for him.

  At 1 AM the next morning, Webb wrote back, the optimism of his previous message replaced with stark fatalism. “I almost hate to wake up in the morning to see what shit the day will bring,” he said. The only bright news, he added, was that he received a “couple of encouraging emails” from Gary Clark, his old friend from the Plain Dealer, who was now managing editor of the Denver Post. “I figure I can hold out for a couple of months,” Webb wrote. “Then after that . . . who knows? You were right about moving out here. Except for Christine being born, I can’t think of anything good that’s come from living out here. The rest of it has been shit and heartbreak. Sorry.”

  In a recent interview, Clark says Webb had contacted him shortly before he lost his job, wanting to know if there was any possibility of getting a job at the Denver Post. Clark told Webb he might be in luck—the paper was interested in hiring an investigative reporter. Clark thought Webb would be perfect for the job. “Gary was probably one of the best reporters I ever met,” he says. “He had this internal drive to go find the truth. He did that through ferreting out documents and evidence. Some people thought he was difficult to work with, but I didn’t. He needed a strong editor though, that’s for sure.”

  Before Clark could hire Webb, however, the paper had to hire an editor to oversee investigative coverage. “That search took a little longer than we expected,” he says. Clark says he knew all about the controversy over “Dark Alliance,” and it didn’t particularly trouble him. “Gary had a story there,” he says. “There were people on the CIA payroll engaged in deals that involved bringing cocaine to California, and that’s what Gary’s story was about.” The story’s lead was marred by a certain degree of hyperbole, but Clark says he’s certain this was a result of bad editing. “Nobody above Gary’s editor looked at that story before it ran,” he says. “How it was presented was the issue.”

  Webb also contacted his friend Mike Madigan, the private investigator in Orange County he had met years earlier at a journalism conference. Madigan offered to help Webb obtain his private investigator’s license and get him started in the field. But when Webb applied for his license, Madigan says, the California Department of Consumer Affairs refused to give Webb credit for his two decades of reporting experience. Noting that Webb hadn’t finished college, the state told him he’d have to get his degree first. Webb gave up. “Gary told me he just couldn’t start from scratch,” Madigan says.

  Webb’s daughter Christine helped him send out more than fifty resumes to daily newspapers across the country. He didn’t receive a single request for an interview. The only paper that seemed interested in hiring him was a local alternative newsweekly, the Sacramento News & Review. The paper’s editor, Tom Walsh, had previously met Webb and told him if he was ever interested in writing for the paper to call him. When Webb contacted him in August 2004, Walsh happened to have an open position for a staff writer and suggested Webb drop by for an interview.

  Despite Webb’s impressive resume, which included twenty years of reporting experience and a Pulitzer prize, he wasn’t Walsh’s first choice. Now editor of the SF Weekly, Walsh says his leading candidate had a proven record in alternative journalism. Walsh, meanwhile, was concerned that Webb was overqualified for the job. He was looking for someone who would stick around, and figured Webb would likely use the job as a springboard to find employment at a larger paper. “Quite frankly, I had thoughts in the back of my mind about whether he would fit in,” Walsh adds. “But the first person I offered the job declined, and I think at the time Gary said he could start immediately.”

  The only hitch was that Walsh couldn’t offer Webb a salary that came close to matching the paycheck Webb had been receiving while an employee of the State of California. But Webb was desperate for work and jumped at the opportunity. Unlike the rest of the paper’s small staff, however, most of whom were still fresh out of college, Webb was almost fifty years old. He made no effort to fit in with his fellow reporters.

  “He would show up to our Monday meetings and have straightforward comments about what was interesting and what was not,” Walsh says. “That was part of the value he brought.” But whenever the staff got together to have beers, Webb declined. “He told me specifically he didn’t drink,” Walsh says. “He wasn’t a party person. He didn’t socialize. He would come in to do writing and do phone calls, but would also work at home.”

  Webb’s first feature story for the pa
per, “The Killing Game,” appeared in October 2004. It detailed the military’s growing interest in violent video games, something Webb discovered by playing on the computer with his teenage son, Eric. According to Walsh, the story displayed all the talents that made Webb such a masterful reporter. “It showed his natural inclination to dig into a story, to see who was behind it,” he says. “Once he got the connection to the Army he really got going. It was a pleasure having a real reporter sitting across the room from you talking with enthusiasm about his work.”

  Following that story, Webb published a few more articles, one about a local measure aimed at funding local libraries in Sacramento, and a profile of a woman who helped people trying to sell houses redecorate their homes. His last story, a feature entitled “Red Light, Green Cash,” exposed how local judges routinely upheld traffic violations cited by unreliable, privately owned cameras—exactly the type of muckraking journalism Webb had always craved.

  Unbeknownst to Walsh, Webb was rapidly reaching the end of his dwindling psychological and financial resources. A major blow came when a Los Angeles television producer who was interested in hiring Webb to write a miniseries about arms trafficking backed out of the project. Webb had driven down to Los Angeles for a series of meetings and came back thinking the project was going to happen. When the deal fell apart, whatever hopes Webb had of resolving his financial difficulties and boosting his critically wounded ego evaporated and he sank even deeper into depression.

  The last time Greg Wolf spoke to Webb was in May 2004. Over the course of the previous several weeks, they had exchanged a barrage of emails ranging from Wolf’s refusal to get married to Webb’s difficulties dating and the relative merits of various anti-depressant medications. Wolf knew Webb had developed a daily pot smoking habit, which he viewed as a form of self-medication, but became worried when Webb told him he was no longer taking his pills, because the side effects outweighed the benefits.

  According to Wolf, Webb said his medication either made him feel numb or more depressed than he already was, and since he no longer had health insurance, he didn’t want to pay for the pills out of his own pocket. “Man, that was some bad news,” Wolf says. “He said he couldn’t afford it, but that’s bullshit. You can get Prozac for $30 a month. It was just a decision he made, and that’s the last time I talked to him.”

  WEBB WASN’T EXAGGERATING his financial woes. In fact, he could no longer pay his bills. His new paycheck barely covered his monthly $2,000 mortgage, and shortly after he joined the Sacramento News & Review, Sue had garnished his wages for child support. She was already paying medical insurance for the three kids from her own paycheck and Webb hadn’t sent her a dime for food, clothes, or other expenses since being laid off earlier that year. When Sue demanded $750 per month in child support, Webb emailed her back saying he couldn’t afford it. “Obviously I cannot keep this job for very long,” he said. “If I don’t find something better, or sell the house, I’ll be broke by Christmas.”

  His growing despair was fueled by the fact that his ex-girlfriend, whom he continued to pine after, refused to reciprocate his declarations of love. Although he continued to ride his motorcycle with his oldest son, Ian, he felt that his two younger children seemed to have too much going on in their lives to spend time with him. Webb was supposed to be able to share weekends with his kids, but they often had other plans. When they did stay at his house, Webb often stared blankly at his computer screen, playing video games.

  “He didn’t look good toward the end,” Webb’s brother, Kurt, says. “He had gained weight. He was getting in motorcycle accidents. He had taken up smoking more. He felt that everyone was against him. He didn’t realize kids grow up and want to be on their own. He didn’t feel needed anymore.”

  That fall, Webb’s ex-girlfriend told his family that his depression had become so extreme that she worried he might harm himself. At the time, Sue and her kids thought that she was just being dramatic. But they were concerned enough to tell Webb’s mother, who had recently moved from Orange County to a retirement community in Carmichael, so she could be closer to her son. “I immediately came down and tried to talk to him,” Anita says. “But he closed himself off to me. He wouldn’t talk. You couldn’t start a conversation with him. He looked awful.”

  In early October Sue called Webb and left an angry message demanding that he start meeting his responsibilities—especially his financial ones—as a father. Webb didn’t return Sue’s call. Instead, on October 11, he emailed her. “I’m working on something that I think will solve all of your problems, and mine,” he wrote. “Just give me a couple of weeks.”

  Three days later, Webb secretly purchased his cremation rights with a local funeral service. In mid-October he put his house on the market. “I was relieved he was going to sell it and start being able to pay child support,” Sue says. She figured that selling his house was the plan he had mentioned that would solve both of their “problems.”

  Tom Walsh says Webb was slowly pulling away from his job, saying less in meetings and declining to elaborate on his ideas for future projects. When Webb didn’t show up for work for several days in a row, Walsh called him for an explanation. “He was rather vague,” Walsh says. “He said he had personal business to take care of. I called him again in a couple of days, and he said he had to sell his house and take off a couple of more days. On the third phone call, I said you have to come in and talk about this. He called me back and said he wanted to take some time off without pay. I was concerned about it and wanted to know how long he needed. He said he would get back to me.” Walsh never spoke to Webb again.

  At first Webb tried to avoid selling the house by refinancing his loan. He asked Kurt, a lawyer, for contacts, but when one loan failed to go through, he told his brother he was just going to sell the house. On Thanksgiving Day, Webb spent the holiday with Kurt’s family. Usually, he’d play out at the pool with Kurt’s kids. “We’d always relax and kick back,” Kurt says. “He liked hanging out with my family.”

  But the dinner was a disaster: Kurt’s wife got into a heated argument with her daughter and then stormed out of the house. He and his brother ended up watching a movie alone together, Once Upon a Time in Mexico. “That was the last movie we saw together,” Kurt says. “He wasn’t interested in the movie. He said he had to go.” Later, Kurt figured that might have had something to do with the fact that one of the main characters, played by Johnny Depp, was a CIA agent.

  Webb didn’t have enough money to move into his own apartment right away. He begged his ex-girlfriend to let him stay with her. She said yes, but Webb called Sue in early December, a week or so before his house was scheduled to clear escrow, and said his girlfriend wouldn’t let him move in after all. Sue told him he had no choice but to live with his mother. According to Kurt, that was the last thing his brother would willingly do. “For some reason, he had this animosity towards her,” he says. “He wouldn’t have lasted long there.”

  In the week before he had to move in with his mother, Webb said goodbye to his ex-wife and kids. He spoke to Sue briefly about taking his daughter, Christine, to the doctor. When he brought her to the appointment, he playfully offered to read her Green Eggs and Ham in the waiting room. When he dropped her off at Sue’s house, he handed her a bottle of perfume, but refused to come in the house.

  Webb then asked his oldest son Ian to help him work on a motorcycle. Ian said he was busy, but Webb insisted. The last time Ian saw his father, they hung out in the garage for a few hours as Webb tried to fix his bike. “It was amazing to watch him work on bikes,” Ian says. “I had no idea what he was doing. He was taking everything out and popping everything back in.”

  Ian was about to turn twenty-one, and Webb gave him an expensive watch as an early birthday present. “I was surprised because I knew he was pretty tight with money at the time, but I didn’t want to second-guess him,” he says. As Ian drove off on his motorcycle, Webb stood in his driveway, watching him leave. “It didn’t re
ally strike me as odd,” he says. “He always liked to watch me drive away on the bike, but he kind of stayed there longer than usual. I guess he figured it was the last time he was going to see me.”

  During the last few weeks of his life, Webb shut himself off from his family and his close friends. But he reached out to Annie Nocenti. For some reason, he felt she was the one person who could truly understand his pain. Besides being a former lover, Nocenti had worked on a suicide hotline. Webb told her that he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend and that she had refused to let him live with her. “He said he could not control his thoughts,” Nocenti says. “He could not stop thinking about her. He was driving himself crazy.”

  To Nocenti, Webb seemed “situationally depressed.” She felt that if he just got his ex-girlfriend out of his life, or planned a vacation somewhere, he’d be happy again. Webb told her he was contemplating a visit to New Zealand. Nocenti urged him to come visit her. When he refused, she offered to fly out to see him. Webb turned her down. “You’d stay for a week, we’d have fun, and then I’d put you on a plane and kill myself,” he said.

  Nocenti didn’t think he was serious, but Webb called again and said he had decided to commit suicide. He’d already bought his cremation ticket, and told Nocenti he was holding a gun in his hands while they spoke. Webb made it clear he was speaking to her in strict confidence and that she could tell nobody about his plan. Nocenti tearfully begged Webb not to go through with his plan, and by the end of the conversation, she thought she he had cheered him up.

  Just when she felt she had talked him out of suicide, Webb emailed Nocenti, saying that if she replied to his email and received an auto-reply, he was already dead. Over the next few days, Nocenti kept emailing Webb, but he didn’t respond. To her horror, she got an auto-reply on Thursday, December 9. When Webb didn’t answer his phone all that day, Nocenti began obsessively typing his name on the Google search page, looking for evidence that he had finally followed through on his threats.